Western Railroad Discussion > 68 Year Old SW1 On The Sanitary District of Chicago Railroad

A hidden gem of Chicago, the Sanitary District of Chicago Railway, in Stickney. The ten mile railroad hauls human waste from the treatment plant to the storage fields in Hodgkins. They have 3 SW1s and an MP15DC. The MP15DC recently derailed allowing the SW1s to get out and stretch their legs. On Sunday we captured #3 returning east after dumping

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Wait! Wait!   They store WHAT???

Kimball Wrote:
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> Wait! Wait!   They store WHAT???

Here in Southern California, it is called Kellog Nitrohumus fertilizer. 

Gotta be the shittest railroad job around

Back in the late 60s as a brakeman on the IC there was a train which originated at the Chicago Sanitary facility which was 25, tank cars filled with liquid, "refined" waste and terminated down state, in a rural area, on a new siding along the Mainline of Mid America. The train with cabooses on each end (to protect shove moves) was pulled onto the "indusrty" track, tied down and power removed away. 

Then the fun began. Once the crew was in the clear, large, hoses were attached to the bottoms of each tank car and the contents sprayed on a corn field. Oddly, enough there wasn't much of an odor from the stuff and the crops loved it growing well and..."well norished"? However, after an article about the new operation showed up in a local paper the local folks were incensed and after a while the trains quit running never to run again.

BTW, the crew name for this special train was: ICBM!  

Exprail     

I'd feel more comfortable if they weren't using open top hoppers.

PasadenaSub Wrote:
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> I'd feel more comfortable if they weren't using
> open top hoppers.

They're actually air dumps. When I was a little kid and my parents moved to a subdivision freshly created from a farm south of La Grange, the dump was at the end of a dirt road leading east from Lawndale Avenue between the river and the Sanitary and Ship Canal. Newly minted gardeners, including my parents, would go there and shovel bushel baskets of processed material (accelerated composting, actually). I'm sure that is not allowed any more or nobody would do it if it were (at least not in that neck of the woods - I know folks here who would).

Somewhere I have a 127 negative of a CSDX air dump.

TAW

TAW Wrote:

 Newly minted gardeners, including
> my parents, would go there and shovel bushel
> baskets of processed material (accelerated
> composting, actually). I'm sure that is not
> allowed any more...

In Stickney at the corner of Pershing and Lombard Ave. the District has piles of the processed stuff for free! There's always a few pickup trucks getting their share. I keep forgetting to bring my buckets and bushel baskets...

Is that the "poo poo choo choo"?

ghemr Wrote:
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> In Stickney at the corner of Pershing and Lombard
> Ave. the District has piles of the processed stuff
> for free! There's always a few pickup trucks
> getting their share. I keep forgetting to bring my
> buckets and bushel baskets...

They moved it...or at least the access point.

TAW

"Here in Southern California, it is called Kellog Nitrohumus fertilizer."

Just a slight spelling error there; it is actually Nitrohuman fertilizer"

Dick



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/15/20 20:07 by 2ebright.

Their actually side dumps which dump the loads quite close to the rail so they would need a dozer or backhoe to pull the spoils back and pile it or reload it unless there was some sort of ramp they unloaded on.

2ebright Wrote:
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> "Here in Southern California, it is called Kellog
> Nitrohumus fertilizer."
>
> Just a slight spelling error there; it is actually
> Nitrohuman fertilizer"
>
> Dick

Please do not attempt to post a correction that is completely wrong. Makes you look silly.

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Nitrohumus
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Kellogg_Garden_Products
https://www.sludgenews.org/about/sludgenews.aspx?id=5



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/15/20 21:36 by jst3751.

Here in Ohio the farmers get loads of "bio-solids" and put them on their fields.  Good planting results...........

seaboardc30-7 Wrote:
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> Is that the "poo poo choo choo"?

Or the Turd Herder.

"it's all crap now" is no longer just a metaphor.

I had always heard that crap rolled downhill.  I just never realized it utilized steel wheels to do so.

MEKoch Wrote:
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> Here in Ohio the farmers get loads of "bio-solids"
> and put them on their fields.  Good planting
> results...........

They do it out here in California too. Afterall, it is organic!