Hayford Junction. Chicago Illinois. May 1990.

Hayford Junction. Chicago Illinois. May 1990., a photo by Eddie from Chicago on Flickr.

During the 1980's, I had spent quite a bit of time with my 35 MM camera in hand at a southside railfan location in Chicago known as Hayford Junction.

Hayford Junction is located at West 75th Street and South Central Park Avenue, in Chicago's Ashburn neighborhood. Hayford was and still is, a very busy railroad freight train junction. During the 1980's and earlier, the Belt Railway of Chicago's multiple east and west tracks, crossed the north and south Grand Trunk Western Railroad crosstracks here. Most of the trains were slow heavy transfer trains entering or leaving from the Belt Railway of Chicago's Clearing Yard, which was located west of the South Pulaski Road overpass bridge.

When I took this photograph on a lovely springtime afternoon way back in May of 1990, train traffic at Hayford Junction was still manually controlled by this single story "Tower" building with dispatchers on duty. The GTW mainline, was reduced to a single track in 1989.

In the background, we see a transfer train from the former Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, slowly departing from the BRC Clearing Yard facility.

The single story tower structure, was closed by 1993 and demolished not long after that.

Thanks.
Eddie K.