Joliet, IL: GM&O South Joliet Interlocking

(Update: This was also called the JO Tower. Those notes have more information on the location of the junction.)

Dan Tracy posted

Dan's comment:

This is a shot I took from atop of the sanding tower at South Joliet IL in January of 93. This view is looking north from the former GM&O facility. The SP local with CSX power is rolling into Joliet from Bloomington while the CCP power for the Plaines coal train lays over. The track to the left of the boxcars sitting on the ground is the Pequot main heading toward Plaines and to the left of there is the north end of South Joliet yard. Today all the buildings along the tracks and the yard office are gone. UP has reconfigured the South Joliet interlocking and now calls it Cytex. The tower I'm standing on and all the tracks in the foreground are no longer there. I'll post a after shot here shortly.

GM&O used to have two routes into south Joliet. The route you see to the right of their yard with the SP local went south through Elwood and Wilmington. The route to the left of their yard paralleled the Santa Fe route to Coal City and then headed south to join the other route northeast of Gardner. In fact. the route that paralleled Santa Fe was operated as a joint double track route. The reason for two routes is history. The one next to Santa Fe was built first. The shorter route was built later. In fact, it is now the only route because the original route has been severed at Coal City. The north/south track is now just a storage spur. I once saw Maintenance of Way equipment on it in a satellite image.

The Chicago, Central & Pacific train probably came south via Munger Junction to the Joliet Power Station. (I read that since Munger Junction does not have a connector in the southwest quadrant, they indeed have to shove the trains backwards through the northeast quadrant to go from east on ICwest to south on EJ&E.)