Western Railroad Discussion > Proviso Yard this morning; empty and quiet

I wanted to see what Proviso Yard (UP, Chicago area) looks like these days after closing the hump and the plan to convert some of it to expand Global II. A bunch of photos follow. Disclaimer - I don't know much of anything about the yard layout. First, there are backlit shots of the eastern half, then there are sunlit shots with more power, cars, and activity.

1. First up, passing through Frankling Park I caught this train heading on to the IHB, presumably a Bensenville-Proviso transfer. It didn't seem to get far as I didn't see it show up at Proviso while I was there.
2. Looking at the mainline and IHB connection
3. An assortment of mostly foreign power, the exception is an SSW GP60
 

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4. An old SSW flat
5. A lot of empty tracks. As I was taking photos a set of engines came to grab some of the baretables (shown later.)
6. The northernmost side of the yard, with that foreign power in the distance.

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7. Now facing west
8. The engine shops. The Rio Grande heritage unit is on the upper right.
9. The (former?) hump bowl is in the distance, and is the only part of the yard that had much in it.

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10. The car shops and Global II in the distance. There is a pair of RP20CD's too.
11/12. A SD60 and another RP20CD heading to grab empty platforms shown in the earlier photos on the eastern side of the yard.
 

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13. Lighting made this closer photo hard, but I wonder how much longer these will be on the roster? There is hardly a genset left on most Class 1's
14. This warehouse solved a question I was interested in, I think. I posted a thread about a UP train passing Texarkana, TX with 70+ 70' box cars on it. The answer to that was that they were "full of beer (Corona, Modelo, ect) brewed at the Constellation Brands brewery in Nava, Coahuila, Mexico." I looked up the brewery's videos and they showed a massive amount of these boxcars at the facility; there is even a loop track for them. I'm guessing this is a warehouse for Chicago area distribution. Neat to see so many 70' boxcars lined up.
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,4945560,4946121#msg-4946121

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inCHI Wrote:
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> 13. Lighting made this closer photo hard, but I wonder how much longer these will be on the
> roster? There is hardly a genset left on most Class 1's

The Proviso based RP20SD's were built later than most of the UP's Genset fleet. They will be around for another 3-4 years before they can be disposed of.

The old receiving yard #9 (29 tracks) is the center of the switching operation at Proviso. Yard 9  runs North to South between North and Grand ave in Northlake parallell to the Tri-state toll road. Trains arrived, get flat switched and depart from this location. Plans are to build a rip track for freight car repair at this location. The current repair tracks are to far away plus in the way of Global 2 expansion.  The only way to get pictures of Yard 9 would be by using a drone.  As for the beer distributor, there main warehouse is west of Yard 9, just North of the old Dominick's warehouse, they may be using the Bellwood location as over flow.

How do they keep the beer from freezing this time of year?

Great bunch. Awesome to see the industry with boxcars spotted door to door to door, once common at a lot of warehouses but pretty rare these days. At Santa Fe's Hobart yard in Los Angeles Consolidated Freight Ways warehouse was spotted every night door to door to door.
JB

Thanks for the pics...

 My fond memories were waiting for hours on IHB Track 21 (sometimes two-three deep!) to get into Proviso and then crawling to Yard 9 because of traffic ahead!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/20 18:23 by ghemr.

Regarding your second photo: the main on the left and the connection from it to IHB are only a few years old.  They were built as part of a CREATE project.

The original connection to the IHB, which is still in use, is from the main on the right.  It's just beyond the second crossover but is a little hard to make out in the photo.

Thanks, enjoyed all the photos..............

Thanks for this exceptionally excellent and interesting set of photos.  I am shocked by all the empty tracks.
Have not been around Proviso in years, and the last time I was, an empty track was rare.  Yes, the mighty have fallen.
Great view of the IHB connection with downtown Chicago in photo No. 2.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/20 08:58 by Seventyfive.

kalthoff Wrote:
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> How do they keep the beer from freezing this time
> of year?

Insulated boxcars.
JC

Posted from Android

inCHI Wrote:
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> 14. This warehouse solved a question I was
> interested in, I think. I posted a thread about a
> UP train passing Texarkana, TX with 70+ 70' box
> cars on it. The answer to that was that they were
> "full of beer (Corona, Modelo, ect) brewed at the
> Constellation Brands brewery in Nava, Coahuila,
> Mexico." I looked up the brewery's videos and they
> showed a massive amount of these boxcars at the
> facility; there is even a loop track for them. I'm
> guessing this is a warehouse for Chicago area
> distribution. Neat to see so many 70' boxcars
> lined up.

I’m not saying those box cars don’t have beer, or that I even know what’s in them. That warehouse is World Wide Logistics Inc. They are “a leading full service logistics provider”, whatever that means. PSR or not, they always seem to have boxcars spotted there. I’ve always wondered, because there are two tracks, do they pass through the cars closest to the building to reach the cars furthest from the building?

New773 Wrote:

 I’ve always
> wondered, because there are two tracks, do they
> pass through the cars closest to the building to
> reach the cars furthest from the building?

Yep, they put ramps between the cars. They've been doing it this way for many years...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/20 18:14 by ghemr.

JasonCNW Wrote:
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> kalthoff Wrote:
> -------------------------------------------------------
> > How do they keep the beer from freezing this time
> > of year?
>
> Insulated boxcars.
> JC

Plus the freezing point of beer is lowered to around 28 degrees F because of its alcohol content. Still need the insulation though, especially in warmer weather. You don't want your beer to get too hot.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/25/20 07:39 by ts1457.