Chicago, IL: 1873 Exposition Building

Greg Rattin posted
A view north on Michigan Ave in 1889. Adler and Sullivan's Auditorium Building under construction on the left. On the right is the Exposition Building, designed in 1873 by William Boyington and built to proclaim Chicago's recovery from the fire. The Exposition Building was razed in 1891 to make way for the present Art Institute.

As comments on the above posting, Raymond Kunst provided the following four photos.

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4

Bob Busch cleaned up this image posted by Noach Hoffman
"The Grand Expo Inter-State" building was built soon after the "Great Fire." It was the early McCormick Place: a venue for trade shows and any other events to help jumpstart our city's economy. It didn't remain long as this was the site where the Art Institute was built. This 1872 stereoscope view is in the collection of the Art Institute.

Terry Gregory

Many more illustrations plus details of the building can be found at

https://chicagology.com/rebuilding/rebuilding016/

David Utech: Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan transformed this building into an opera-quality music hall for Ferdinand Peck, despite the fact that steam trains traveled just outside. Their accomplishments with acoustics led Peck to commission them to design the Auditorium Building, completed in 1889.

safe_image for Before McCormick Place- in 1872 the largest Exposition building on the continent!

Durand, MI: GTW Coaling Tower and 1903 GTW+AA Depot

Tower: (Satellite)

Depot: (Satellite)

Photo by Douglas Weitzman
10-2013. Looking west at the old Grand Trunk Western coal chute at Durand, Mich.
[The yard was along the Detroit Line. The branch curving off and going northeast to Lennon is now the Central Michigan Railway CMGN).] 

Photo by Douglas Weitzman
10-2013. The GTW Durand, Mich station. Tracks on the right were the Main, opposite side was the Detroit Line & AA. [Amtrak and CP also operate on the CN/GTW main. Tuscola and Sabinaw Bay Railway (TSBY) operates the GTW Detroit Line to the west. Since the AA was redundant with the GTW line, it has been abandoned.  TSBY and CN operate the Detroit Line to Pitt where TSBY heads south on the former AA route.]

Update:

Mark Mcgowan posted

Durand, Michigan's Union Station once served the Grand Trunk Western and Ann Arbor Railroads. From its construction in 1903 until the late 1940s, only the Detroit Central Station was busier in the state.

The Ann Arbor discontinued passenger service here in 1950 and the GTW in 1971. They closed the depot in 1974, the same year Amtrak restored service here, although only intercity service is offered and an office in the depot is only used for ticket sales.

The building is now owned by the City of Durand. It is preserved and cared for by the non-profit Durand Union Station, Inc. and houses GTW and Ann Arbor rail museums.

I'm assuming the interlocking in the foreground was the GTW/Ann Arbor but I'm not certain. In a Google Earth of the location it appears the diamonds are removed but it's hard to tell.

Any more information (or corrections) on this spectacular structure would be greatly appreciated!

(Undated photo by Robert Genat)

Greg Neyman: Railstream has a live camera at this location.

Steam Engines, Tractors, Trains, & More posted
Seven trains at the Durand, Michigan Grand Trunk Depot, circa 1900-10.
Mark Breznay shared
Stephen Phillips shared
Mark Mcgowan posted

Trains, crews, passengers and the public pose at the depot at Durand, Michigan in 1905. The original depot, exactly like this one, burned in 1904.

This station served the Grand Trunk Western and Ann Arbor Railroads and saw about 150 trains per day at its peak.

Library of Congress photo

Dan McClary: The view is, of course, a left front 3/4 photo of the depot. The Ann Arbor RR engines are on the track on the depot's right side [behind the depot] facing each other across the diamond. The photo's lower left engine is GTW. The left-hand Ann Arbor engine is above the Lower left GTW engine and the right-hand Ann Arbor engine is next to the depot looking like it is almost hitting the rear passenger car of a Flint heading GTW passenger train. The Annie's track was still used when I worked on the Ann Arbor RR in 1969 and I remember passengers on the depot's right front platform waiting for a GTW passenger train (two years before Amtrak started in1971) as our Ann Arbor freight train crossed the depot's left side tracks on the diamonds behind the depot, curving to it's right side then up along the right side of the depot. We were very concerned that the waiting passengers had their backs toward us and we were afraid they might step in front of our approaching train (lots of horn blowing and constant bell ringing). The Ann Arbor's track has now been removed, subsequent to the Conrail breakup that affected the Ann Arbor RR (the AARR was owned by the DT&I, which was owned by the PRR, which became part of Conrail), and the depot's parking lot was extended over where the tracks were at. So, if you visit the Durand Depot and park your car facing the right side of it, you are parked on top of where that track was at.
When the Conrail assets were sold off, the GTW bought the Ann Arbor RR's track from Durand through Owosso, including the AARR'S shops, and up to Ashley, where the GTW's second line (ex TS&M) branched off toward Muskegon. For years, the GTW had to pay trackage rights to the Ann Arbor RR from Owosso to Ashley. Now the roles were reversed. The GTW now owned the tracks from Durand to Ashley. They removed the Ann Arbor's trackage on the right side of the Durand Depot, put in a switch to connect the Ann Arbor to the GTW's left side depot track and then made the AARR pay revenge trackage rights from Durand to Owosso and Ashley, plus the Ann Arbor and it's successors (TSBY, etc.), had to now rent it's own Owosso shops from the GTW. This was one of the great screwups of the Conrail breakup and the GTW took advantage of it. I don't know if the trackage/shops are still leased from the GTW/CN, or if other arrangements have been made over the years since then. Maybe someone can update me.

A different exposure.

Clare Union Railroad Depot posted

Down at the Durand Station, early in the last century, the Ann Arbor and Grand Trunk Railroads staged what has become this classic photo. No less than 7 trains are seen meeting at multiple diamonds in this uncredited photo from around 1905. 

On the rear of the postcard, sender Lyle hopes his friend Hilda Richards gets better. (see comment section) Later, the local papers around Pinconning reported on Miss Hilda Richards’ teaching and social life in the early 1930s. We can only hope that was Lyle’s friend whom he thought of when he sent his note. 

The Durand Union Station now houses the Michigan Railroad History Museum. See durandstation.org for details.

Robert Warrick shared

Robert Wanner posted
Grand Trunk Western RR at Durand, Michigan as it looked in 1954. Mainline Port Huron, Battle Creek to Chicago, Detroit to Grand Rapids, Muskegon Line crossing left to right. Lots of activity. Photo from the collection.

Greg Bunce posted
GTW#s 5634, 5633 and two unidentified locomotives in the dead line Durand 1962. Slide from Joe Rodgers.
[The deadline was long enough that he caught the coal tower at the end.]

Peter Mayor posted
A beautiful morning to stare at the coaling tower in Durand and try to picture it alive with activity decades ago on a similar day...
Nicholas Katz I know this is a drone shot, but is it possible to take photos on the ground of the tower without trespassing?
Peter Mayor Negative

Tim Shanahan shared

Roger Riblett shared Craig Hensley Photography's post

CN Combo Shot

Carson and I visited the station in Durand this past Saturday. It definitely was not a busy afternoon as we waited quite a while for this E251 to come through, and it was the only train we saw. We had fun anyways checking out the model railroad in the meantime, and walking through the museum.

Tech: DJI Mavic Air 2s + Canon 5D Mark III + Canon 70-200mm f2.8 is ii

Symbol CN E251

Date: 7/24/21 430p

Location: Durand, Michigan

Charles Geletzke Jr. posted
The GTW depot in Durand, Michigan was photographed on February 26, 1988. (C. H. Geletzke, Jr. photo)
Neal Marrison: Before replacement of the dormers.
[So they put dormers back in as part of a restoration effort? A satellite image shows it now has dormers.]

Clare Union Railroad Depot posted

THE END OF THE STEAM ERA ON THE ANN ARBOR

Article by and photo from the Warrick Wednesday Collection

It is early 1951 as brand-new snow capped Ann Arbor  locomotives No.51&51A are about to rattle the diamond crossings of the Grand Trunk Western’s Holly subdivision on the east side of the Durand Depot. In the years following World War II most railroad companies rushed to replace their steam locomotive fleets with diesel-electric power and the Ann Arbor was no different.

Owned by the Wabash Railroad, the selection of new diesel power for the AA was heavily influenced by the parent company. The idea then pushed by the diesel salesman was that the sleek new locomotives would replace aging steam locomotives with an eye to the needs of each individual railroad’s operations. Wabash/AA management entertained proposals from every major locomotive builder of the era including the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors(EMD), Fairbanks-Morse(FM), and the American Locomotive Company(ALCO). ALCO won the contract.

Seven pairs of ALCO’s FA-2s would best equal the eight 2-8-2 Mikados which were currently in use. Bowing to concerns from the powerful railroad unions that each locomotive would require a separate engine crew, the new diesels were semi-permanently coupled together to form one “locomotive unit”. To emphasize the pairs were indeed one locomotive, each of them carried the same number, albeit with the letter “A” assigned to one end to distinguish each and for direction when it came to providing train orders. Nonetheless, they appeared in the company’s official equipment book and printed timetables as one unit, one locomotive.

The reign of ALCO road power on the AA was short lived. When the AA was sold by Wabash to the Detroit, Toledo & Ironton (DTI) in December, 1962, the new owners, who exclusively used Electro-Motive GMC power,  moved quickly to replace the AA’s rapidly aging fleet of FA2s with ten fresh EMD GP-35s by 1964. 

Oddly enough, after serving the railroad together for over 14 years, No.51 was retired in March 1964, but No.51A wasn’t retired until June of the same year when both were traded as credit towards  the new EMDs

MichiganRailroads

El Reno, OK: Windmill Parts

Satellite

I found this facility while looking for the RI backshop. It is nice to see that a new purpose has been found for the building in the upper-left corner of this former railroad yard. The yard does not look like an intermodal yard. After zooming in, I finally figured out it is windmill parts. The yard is now a storage yard for different segments of the tower and for the blades stacked four high.

It has two cranes to load and unload the big parts. I have not been able to figure out the purpose of the smaller parts stored on the building's side of the service track. Since the modules that set on top of the tower is probably rather expensive, maybe they are stored inside the building to discourage vandalism, especially copper thieves.

Satellite

A small classification yard still exists on the south side. It probably interchanges cars between Austin, Todd & Ladd and UP. And UP probably also interchanges cuts between its north/south route and its eastern route to Oklahoma City.

El Reno, OK: RI Yard Tower and Depot

Larry Overby posted
[Michael Young Flickr 1989 Photo, CC BY-NC-SA.
1972 Flickr when yard was still operational.]

Larry Overby The Yard Tower Was one The West Side of The Highway 81 Bridge That Spanned THE ROCK ISLAND YARDS at EL RENO / OKLA ......
J Pete Hedgpeth The "cage" on top was a late addition ( about 1968) provided for a better view of the yard by the yardmaster. Formerly the YM sat in the far west corner on the second floor. The new addition was referred to as "Blue Heaven"....Anybody remember where that reference came from??

John Mallory Demolished at UP's request by M&M Wrecking out of Blanchard, OK on December 2nd and 3rd, 2004.

El Reno had four spokes, all owned by Rock Island. Now the western spoke is owned by Austin, Todd & Ladd; and the other three spokes are owned by UP. (Oklahoma)

The former depot is the anchor of the Canadian County Historical Museum.

Google Photo, cropped

Streetview, cropped
[It looks like the museum has preserved some other aspects of our past. For example, note the windmill. In addition to a side-bay caboose, it looks like they have a tender on static display.]

Streetview, cropped
[When I switched to street view to check for views of the depot, I discovered there are still tracks in the street.]

Raymond Storey posted
EL RENO OK 1948

Dennis DeBruler commented on Raymond's post

Remnants of the roundhouse foundation are still visible.

https://www.google.com/.../@35.5394785,-97.../data=!3m1!1e3

1972 El Reno Quad @ 1:24,000

El Reno, OK: Rock Island Backshop

Larry Overby posted

I asked if this was Silvis, IL and learned it was El Reno, OK. One comment indicated it was razed last month. So I decided I better look at a satellite image while it would still be there. It turns out both railroad routes through El Reno were Rock Island. So I had to search all of the track in town before I finally found it.

Satellite

Some photos from its better days.

Doug Hefty posted
El Reno - June, 1973. PHOTO CREDIT: DENNIS SCHMIDT.

Don Gerdts posted

Camera Totin Idiot    No. 16, CRI&P 110

Larry Overby posted

Brian J Hadley posted before and after shots of the interior. His comment: "Here's another before and after of the El Reno shop. Slightly different angle but notice the pit in the foreground."

Which gives me a transition to the shots during the 35 years it stood abandoned.

Doug Hefty shared Dwight Miller's photo.
Abandoned diesel shops in El Reno, OK...CRI&P Railroad...John Mallory The shop complex has not seen use since the RI Trustee concluded his work at the site around 1985

Larry Cooper posted
Larry Cooper They tried to rebuild a few years ago. They were going to run a dinner train and commuters out of the shop and build a museum inside. But the EPA intervened and shut it down. Seems its polluted. Ground is saturated with diesel fuel and the estimates to clean it up was in the millions. Interested parties withdrew.Larry Cooper Jim, a lot of people assume the floors in the shop area are cement. They are not. They are wood covered in years of grease and oil. We dropped a 500 lb. floor jack one day and wooden wedges popped up from the floor. We just pounded them back in place.John Mallory Larry Cooper Good observation. I've noticed toward the west end of the diesel shop an exposed cluster of square-shaped wood pilings. Sounds like the years of spilled grease and oil helped solidify the floor's surface. It does resemble concrete.
[I learned from the comments that  the little building on the right was the paint booth.]

It was torn down in 2016. The railroad route was owned by the state and then UP. But the shop complex was owned by someone else. I agree with a comment that if UP bought the shops as well as the railroad route, they would have quickly leveled it. They want to avoid the scenario I read in a comment about a boy falling through the roof and then rolling into an engine repair pit with water that had oil in (on) it.

Cole D. Glenn posted a 6 photos.

Evan Stair shared

Quentin Clements posted
Yep it's all coming down here in El Reno! They are salvaging the bricks. And I think I got my foot in the door for all the iron.

William A. Shaffer posted

Rock Island Shops

El Reno, OK

(Photo by Kenneth W. Moore - Collection of William .A. Shaffer)

Malinta, OH: DT&I Signal Maintainer Shed

A reminder that in addition to depots, freight houses,junction towers, the railroads used to maintain a lot of small shacks such as the multiple single man shacks that used to be at Brighton Park.

Jeff Sharp posted the following two photos with the comment:

Malinta Ohio signal maintainer Max Burns shed today restored with the depot and 1952 DT&I caboose . Moved just West of original locations along the old right of way.

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2

Note the rails that go from the shed to the mainline and the boards in the mainline so that the speeder could be rolled to the mainline and then turned 90-degrees.

Cheneyville, IL: Junction Tower: NKP vs. Milwaukee

(Satellite)

Eric Berg posted

Eric's comment:

CMStP&P's Cheneyville Tower (Pronounced Chain-ee-ville) in the summer of 1969. This view looks N/N/W with the Milwaukee tracks at left. Cheneyville was where the Milwaukee Road crossed the NKP's LE&W line. The interlocking was manned by Milwaukee men and the call sign was "CY". Like Humrick, West Dana and Webster, Cheneyville was reduced from a 2-story tower to a 1-story cabin. This location was approximately 3/4 mile west of the town of Cheneyville. Wyes were located in both the S/E and S/W quadrants of the diamond. CY was located at MP 101.95 in Vermillion County, Illinois. Sometime before 1952, a wye track was installed just south of here at MP 104.40 along with coal and water facilities, and was named Coalton. Also installed was 3 miles of double-track. Now, the KB&S owns both lines with only the S/E wye in place. The diamond is gone and the NKP's former main does not extend any further west than this point. In the LE&W days, there was a water station here also. This was located at MP 88.7 on the NKP. Photo by John Fuller. Posted for Jack Shoemaker.

Thanks to KBS, Cheneyville has 3 of it original spokes. The west spoke, NS/NW/NKP/Lake Erie and Western, was abandoned to Gibson City by NW.

Eric Berg commented on his above posting
Here is the John W. Barriger shot of Cheneyville, looking north from a passenger special in 1938. Train was southbound.
[The tower still had both stories.]

Topeka, KS: Three Cargill Elevators

I already had a posting on the largest Cargill elevator.

All three elevators are built along the Union Pacific tracks.

Cade Smith posted
This is the smallest of the three Cargill elevators in North Topeka.
[1,026,000  Satellite]

Cade Smith posted
Cargill North Topeka elevator, one of three.
Jan Normandale almost 16 cars long... almost 3 1/2 football fields long.
[11,988,000  Satellite]

Cade Smith posted
This is the largest of the three Cargill elevators in North Topeka.
[24,636,000 Satellite]

Even the local Fairview Mills is pretty good sized and rail served.

Update: Another comment added to the posting:
Brent A. Harrison According to the UPRR grain elevator directory, there are four listings for Cargill in Topeka. Flour terminal, 1,500,000 bushel capacity, South Flour terminal, 300,000 bushel capacity, West grain elevator, 2,200,000 bushel capacity, and Cargill Inc with a 5,500,000 bushel capacity. Hope this helps.


The original capacity numbers seemed too big. They must be using a unit other than bushels. But Brent's numbers seem too low. Maybe there are a lot of silos that can no longer be used, for whatever reason.

Cade Smith took sunrise pictures of three elevators in a row and of Ag Partners (satellite).

Keiv Spare posted
North Topeka, Kansas. January 2017
[Another view of the "smallest" elevator.]

Keiv Spare posted
Topeka, Kansas. January 2017
[Even though Keiv labeled this as Topeka, it looks like the "middle" elevator that Cade labels as North Topeka. According to Google Map, it is Topeka.]

Jerry Krug commented on the above posting, cropped
Here's the same elevator from June 2016 at a slightly different angle. It's hard to describe how overwhelming the size of this structure is.
[Fairview Mills is in the background.]

Great Falls, MT: Grain Processing Plants

Andrew Tuttle posted

Looking at a satellite image, it becomes clear that this General Mills elevator that Andrew photographed supports a processing plant of some sort.

Satellite

While looking for this facility, I found other grain processing plants and/or elevators in Great Falls.

Satellite

Satellite

Update:

Ken Bryan posted
General Mills Elevator & Flour Mill
March 2016

Ken Bryan posted
A couple BN originals, BNSF 1846 (SD40-2) & BNSF 2092 (GP38-2) from the mid-70's, rolling into the Great Falls yard with the CHS elevator looming in the background.
Joe Jenkins 2092 is still in Great Falls MT and runs the same paint and does the Moccasin Local.