Friday, March 09, 2012

The old steam era manual semaphore signals that used to operate at Brighton Junction. Chicago Illinois. September 2006.

I took this photo back in early September of 2006.

For many years, one of My all time favorite hangouts for railfanning on the near southside of Chicago, was an old fashioned steam era railroad junction known as "Brighton Junction".

This junction was located on elevated railroad embankment, just west of the intersection of South Archer and estern Avenues, where Chicago's Brighton Park and Mc Kinley Park neighborhoods bordered each other.

This junction featured manually operated Semaphore signals from the steam era, and many freight trains, as well as some Metra and Amtrak activity.

In June of 2007, the Canadian National temporarilly took Brighton Junction out of service, replaced the crosstracks, and also replaced the steam era signals with now unmanned tall block signals, operated from a remote dispatching center.

Brighton Junction is still a very active rail junction today, but it has lost it's charm.

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