Nostalgia & History > HY Tower in Hammond, IN 1975

Erie Lackawanna's HY tower was located just north of 165th St in Hammond, IN.  It marked the east end of Hammond Yard limits and the beginning of shared trackage to the east with the C&O.  To the west, C&O had rights to run over the E-L.  Manned by E-L personnel, the operators hooped up orders to eastbound trains, as well as manning the crossovers in the plant, and lining up trains per the instructions of the dispatcher and the yard master.  I used to visit this location during my lunch hour back in the mid 70's.  Armed with a sack of White Castles, I spent many an hour there.  One visit back on December 5, 1975 yielded this train, an eastbound picking up his orders on both ends.

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Thank you for posting.
Great to see photos of the west end of the EL

Classic !   Picking up orders on the fly.  Nice way to spend your lunch hour !



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/16/17 17:45 by perklocal.

Was in the area as a kid a few times to visit my Grandpa in Crown Point, IN.  Don't think we ever visited this tower.  I've been to State Line tower and Burnham Jct. tower in Hammond, wondering if you can tell me where this one was located in relation to the two I've mentioned?  Thanks.
Steve B.

HY was east and south a couple of miles from Stateline tower.  The closest tower to HY would have been Hohman Ave tower, just about in downtown Hammond, which was the west end of EL's Hammond Yard.  If you mean Burnham tower instead of Burnham Jct tower, Burnham was the next tower west of Stateline.  Hope that helps.

WrongMain Wrote:
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> HY was east and south a couple of miles from
> Stateline tower.  The closest tower to HY would
> have been Hohman Ave tower, just about in downtown
> Hammond, which was the west end of EL's Hammond
> Yard.  If you mean Burnham tower instead of
> Burnham Jct tower, Burnham was the next tower west
> of Stateline.  Hope that helps.

Thanks.  Yep it was Burham tower.  Been to Stateline a bunch of  times but Burnham only once and was actually invited up into the tower. (my Dad, me and two little brother).  Even though I was only 7 I still remember watching double Monon BL2's and a hot bottle train that used the single track that crossed all the mains at Burnham.  Never been to HY as the plan by Dad on visits to Chicagoland was to always visit the spots with the most action.

Classic photos all the way!!

What a great set of photos.  Thank you WM.
Tim Costello

Thanks for the post.  I'm always interested in any EL shots taken in Indiana, particularly the locations other than Griffith. 

What does the area look like today?

Posted from Android

How sad............

Great to see HY again.  I recall when it was repainted as you see it in these photos;
it was so bright it could be seen from the moon.  Thanks for the excellent photos and
more at HY will be appreciated by many on this site.

Thanks for sharing this about 12 years ago I followed the route from stateline to about the area where HY was and then onto Griffith as I was studying the C&O's Chicago line with
trackage maps I got from the C&OHS. In some areas you can hardly if at all tell a railroad was there, I often wondered what this tower looked like.
Marc