Griffith, IN: GTW Railfan Action

GTW  trains passing through the Griffith Junction.

Phil Vaclavik posted
The only thing I'm sure with this shot is that it was taken in Griffith, IN at the Diamonds where up until the mid 70s five railroads crossed with time frame of the early 50s. Somewhere in my morass of pictures is the last Toronto-Detroit-Chicago steam passenger ran from this day in 1961 also taken at the Griffith Diamonds. Once I find it I will share that shot as well.
[This needs more analysis. It is from a GTW group. Since the "triangle" is east of Broad Street's board sidewalk, the train must be westbound. But I would expect to see the junction tower about where I see a boxcar. A Flickr photo does show the EJ&E had a white gabled-roof building east of the junction.]

Tim Shanahan posted
Michael Dye: So, photo taken from EJ&E's 'MX' Tower: EB GTW train on their twin track line, with 5927's nose in the center of the EJ&E's ROW. To the photo's left (and under the 5927's fuel tank), may be seen the shared twin tracks of the C&O (Eastbound Track: nearest the drums) and the EL (Westbound Track: nearest the tower).

Mike Matalis posted two photos with the comment: "Back in 1976 many railroads celebrated the nation's bicentennial by painting locomotives in special paint schemes. Here's the GTW effort leading an eastbound merchandise thru Griffth IN on 12/4/75. Kodachrome slide scan"

1
[A nice view of the east side of the tower. Since this side is away from Broad Street, we normally don't see this view.]

2

Donny Albertson posted

A GTW w/b "crosses" the EL at Griffith on 22MAR1990 After all these years I don't really mind the EJ&E truck in the shot.

[The diamonds are where the mainline crossed the EJ&E+C&O connector. The connector remains to this day because a remnant of the C&O mainline serves the American Chemical Services plant]

Pete Fileca posted
Dennis DeBruler I don't see near as many GT photos as I do Erie and EJ&E at this junction. I still have to look at a map to figure out what is happening. This would be w/b. The loco is on the EJ&E tracks, and it is approaching the (now abandoned) Erie+C&O tracks.

Thomas Bowers posted
Westbound GTW#6206 at Griffith, Ind. August 1987

Dennis DeBruler commented on Thomas' post
I was trying to figure out why I could not see the Erie+C&O track cut across the foreground of this photo. Then I realized that the tracks had probably been removed by 1987. And that connector track on the left coming off the CN/EJ&E route confused me. A 1998 Global Earth image shows that when the Erie track was removed, the part to the north was connected to EJ&E as an industrial branch.

Dennis DeBruler commented on Thomas' post
 This junction is a good test of USGS topo maps. Unfortunately, they tend to fail these tests. This is another example of it being hard for them to remove lines from the maps.The photo shows the Erie track was gone in 1987, but the topo map still has it in a 1998 map. 1998 Highland 1:24,000 Quadrangle

Dennis DeBruler commented on Thomas' post
This image posted by Phil Vaclavik shows that the Erie tracks came through along the east edge of Broad Street.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/gtwhs/permalink/536675309746594/

Arturo Gross Flickr 1996 Photo of a westbound that includes the tower.