Normally, a roundhouse would get first billing. But Don's explanation of how sand towers used to work gets first billing for this railyard.
 |
| Don Murray posted This is the old sand tower at Salem Illinois. The sand was shoveled from the fenced area into the tower. You built a fire in a large pot belly stove that had a cone around it. You shoveled the wet sand into the cone. As it dried it sifted out the bottom of the cone onto the floor and then you shoveled it into a tank and then applied air pressure to blow it up into the top of the tower with the dust billowing out of the roof. I hated that duty. Finally got a tower that used silica in a hopper and did not require shoveling. Salem fire department was allowed to burn this down for practice. C&EIRHS shared |
 |
| Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad Historical Society posted Ariel view of C&EI Salem Yard from the cover of the May, 1945, C&EI Employee Flyer. From right to left is the rip track, turntable and roundhouse, with shops behind, water tower, sand house, and coal tower. |
 |
| The above cropped to get better resolution |
 |
| Don Murray posted
Salem Illinois pit tracks looking south from the back track.
Early 80's I think.
|
 |
| Dennis DeBruler commented on Don's post I noticed that you can still see the "land scars" of the roundhouse. https://www.google.com/.../@38.649113,-88.../data=!3m1!1e3 |
 |
| 1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP |
No comments:
Post a Comment