Logansport, IN: PRR's 18th Street Yard, TP&W East End

Pennsy's Panhandle had service facilities north of the river and a more traditional freight classification yard south of the river.

Satellite

David's posting confirms that this yard is the east end of the Toledo, Peoria & Western.

David Jordan posted
I shot TPW 5010 at the ex-PRR 18th Street Yard in Logansport this afternoon. View looks east from its namesake road. This is the east end of the TP&W.

Update:

Jason Jordan posted
Early 1980's, finds this little N & W shorty and a much larger T P W covered hopper in a train at the west end of the Pennsylvania / Conrail's old Yard A near 18th St. at Logansport, IN. Out of the Bruce Emmons collection.

1955/57 Anoka Quad @ 24,000

Sep 8, 1952 @ 69,000; ARA000950071061

Alliance, OH: Pennsy Depot & Freight Houses, American Steel Foundries and Morgan Engineering

Depot: (Satellite)

Freight Houses: (Satellite, some modern freight handling buildings still stand)

Foundry: (Satellite, Alliance Casting/American Steel Foundries closed in 2017)

Morgan: (Satellite, web page)

llll

Love Ohio posted
ALLIANCE, Ohio
Love Ohio shared

Jim Kelling: The long ago demolished Pennsylvania Railroad station, replaced by a much smaller “modern“ one.

Rich Fleischer posted
PRR freight house at Alliance,Oh.

I looked at a 1950 aerial photo, but I could not find this freight house.  The cars on the left would be outbound. As we have seen before, cars are parked parallel to each other with ramps between the cars to offer more destinations for the outbound freight.

Update: The photo shows it was near where the two Pennsy lines crossed. It would be the building marked "Sta" on this topo. 

1952 Alliance Quadrangle @ 1:24,000

Now that I know where to look, I can find an updated freight house on 1950 and 1952 aerials. Unfortunately, the only photo I know of is copyrighted. I think the existing building on the right below was one of the 1950 buildings. The next aerial photo after 1952 is 1971, and it shows the buildings on the left replaced a long freight house building. The freight house on the right is on the Pennsy Cleveland-Conway route.

Street View

Looking closer at the buildings on the left in the above view, it looks like the far building may have been an original Pennsy freight house on the Pennsy Crestline-Pittsburgh route.

Street View, Jul 2024

On the topo map, I included the industrial area south of the Pennsy railyard because of this Facebook post:

safe_image for a Google link to a YouTube drone video
The foundry I [Larry Stewart] worked at, made the best and strongest bolsters and side frames for rail in the entire world... on idle since January 2017.
Robert Garza: I worked for American Steel Foundries in East Chicago, Alliance was once ASF, very sad to see all these plants shut down.
Greg Bara: I was a Class"A" Chipper on sideframes and yokes on Old 9 Floor from 78-88....go money but hard work! [I presume he chipped the sand of the casting after the metal cooled.]

The buildings East of the tracks looks like those in the 1952 topo. But the buildings West of the tracks are a small fraction of  those that stood in 1952. 

Larry Stewart: The place on the other side of the train tracks is Morgan Engineering still running and started in 1846. They are the oldest crane company in the U.S.

Colleen Gantz: Larry Stewart Just built new offices cranes coming out of there every week!!!

American Steel Foundries closed in 2002. Billionaire financier Carl Icahn used a lot of incentives to restart the foundry as Alliance Castings and they started production of sideframes and bolsters in Jan 2004. (Sideframes and bolsters are parts used to build the "trucks" that go under freight cars.) A new union "agreement reduces the number of job classifications from 21 to four and contains lower wage scales and new health plans." [Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen] (Foundries in Cicero, IL, and Columbus, OH, also made parts for freightcars. [FoundryMag] It was registered in 1986 as an EPA Superfund Site, but it is an archived site. [HomeFacts]

AmstedRail
[A Chamber of Commerce web site listed AmstedRail as the URL for Alliance Casting.]

Postcard
[I believe the foundry is on the left and Morgan Engineering is on the right.]

 

AllianceMemory
American Steel Foundries, Alliance, Ohio

This video claims Morgan Engineering was founded in 1868.

Screenshot @ 1:22

This video is well worth watching. These are just some examples. In addition to overhead cranes, guns (during the wars), shears, rolling mills, etc. they more recently helped build retractable roofs for stadiums. ( In 2006 they built the world's largest tunnel boring machine (4:54).

Screenshot @ 1:37

"Our exposure to extremely high wheel loads has led us into the moveable stadium roof market. These roofs require many of the same mechanisms and parts as overhead cranes, with which we of course have extensive, well-documented experience." [MorganEngineering-KineticServices]

MorganEngineering-KineticEquipment
Rogers Centre (formerly Toronto SkyDome)

MorganEngineering-KineticEquipment
Safeco Field
"The structure covers nearly nine acres, weighs 22 million pounds and contains enough steel to build a skyscraper 55 stories tall. The three movable panels glide on 128 steel wheels powered by 96 ten-horsepower electric motors....The project included detailed engineering and tight tolerance manufacturing of both driven and idle wheel assemblies."

Dan Aikens posted
Bob Coffee: MORGAN….a truly great crane manufacturer! As a former ARMCO/AK Steel employee I worked closely with their sales and engineering staff, all were tops in my book!!
Jim Jenkins: Working in electrical, we maintained many Morgan cranes at Great lakes works. Baby 15 ton up to 400 ton hot metal cranes. Definitely machines to be respected. There were several originally rated for 250 ton, that were later state certified to run at 400 ton. (Process was upgraded). Thats a heck of a safety factor.
Craig Dickerson: Fish belly riveted girders, no catwalk, side hung bridge drive with additional pinion reduction at wheels. Looks to be half shell brass bearings on the wheels. I’ve worked on quite a few ancient ones like these. Probably also has split motor housings with pinions mounted directly onto motor shaft that is inside the gearbox which required the gearbox top to be removed to change the motor. But most likely just replace the armature and/or field coils. Open gearing, dc motor control and resistors built into a huge single unit with a lever handle in cab. Most of the ones this old I’ve seen (and worked on) had the hard drawn solid copper trolley wires strung on the inside of the bridge girders.
Nathan Burcl: I had one of these in my last shop. External gear with oil bath and rope seals.
Jim Smith: My father-in-law Louis Bondoni worked there 25 plus years till they closed in the 80s. And went to work with his daughter and son-in-law at Smith Machine Inc. So many great memories of the day's past! Still building the best Cranes to this day!
Kyle McGrogan: They also made mine locomotives for the coal mines, I do believe!
Julius Nagy: We did!

Bryan Reule commented on Dan's post
Here's the Morgan I run. 50 ton.

Update: While studying the CP Tower, I found an historical aerial that does not have copyright restrictions.

Apr 27, 1950 @ 19,200 via Dennis DeBruler

Kirkland Crossing: ICE/Milw vs. Milw/CM&G

CM&G = Chicago, Milwaukee and Gary

Jeff Rich posted
From another FB site, no idea of the details.
Jeff Kehoe This is our rare photo of a CM&G train w/caboose, so welcome to the group.

The Chicago, Milwaukee & Gary was bought by the Milwaukee because they were interested in the southern portion to give them access to their southern branch that they bought to get access to coal in Southern Indiana. The Milw/CM&G is one of the few railroads that is not on my 1928 RR Atlas. But the SPV Map indicates the CM&G crossed the Milwaukee mainline a few miles west of Kirkland, IL. There was a branch that went south on the west side of Kirkland from the mainline to connect to the CM&G. As of 2005, the east/west route was owned by Iowa Chicago & Eastern Railroad, a Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern subsidiary. It is evidently now owned by the Canadian Pacific.

See "CM&G Kirkland Depot" for a topo map of the connection between the CM&G and the Milwaukee.

You can tell that Milwaukee abandoned the northern portion between Aurora and Rockford a long time ago because there is very little evidence of the route on today's satellite map. There is a land scar and a little tree line south of IL-72.

Satellite

In fact, it appears it was abandoned by 1939. But the land scars are clear enough that you can tell it curved north and paralleled on the east side of IL-72. The crossing would have been in the upper-left corner of the aerial photo east of the highway bridge. The connecting track is on the right side of the photo. The SPV Map labels the wye at the lower-right as Kirkland Junction.

1939 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

Update: The junction with the Milwaukee mainline was on the west side of Kirkland, IL.

1968 Fairdale and Kirkland Quads @ 24,000

Minerva Junction, OH: Dual Spout Water Tower

(Satellite)

It required some research to locate this tower because a Google Map search could not find it, but a tower with spouts on two sides to serve both branches was worth the effort. (It turns out the Bing Map does have the junction.)

Carl Venzke posted
Minerva Junction, Ohio - Cleveland, Canton and Southern - nice composition in this photo.

The Cleveland, Canton and Southern was part of the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad (WLE) by 1928. As of 2005, it was part of the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway (WE).

My SPV Map indicates the junction was west of Minerva and north of Oneida. The above view would be looking north. On satellite images you can see the siding still exists, but it is rather short.

1910/57 Carrollton Quad @ 62,500

Peru, IN: Coal power plant being torn down.

Satellite

What amazes me is that this little city utility plant was used until 2013. In fact, it was the only source of power for the city until the 1970s. [IndianaEconomicDigest]

How it could have been economic to run this plant even before the latest round of EPA regulations is a puzzle. It is

• small (The electric distribution lines near the plant are the lowest voltage lines I have seen near a power plant.)
• lost its railroad service a long time ago
• does not have a local coal storage pile

There must have been a lot of truck traffic through the town to keep this plant running.

See C&O roundhouse for information on the C&O route through town. The C&O ran along the south side of the power plant next to the river.

Reddick, IL: Junction Tower (RA): Wabash vs. NYC (Kankakee Belt) and 1979 Wabash Depot

Tower: (Satellite)

Depot: (Satellite?)

Sam Carlson posted
Tower RA (N&W) at Reddick, IL on June 15, 1982.

Sam Carlson posted again
Reddick, IL, though on the radio they always seemed to say it as two words. It's where the Wabash crossed the NYC's Kankakee Belt about 15 miles west of kankakee. The Wabash is gone now; as the NS decided to trade the maintenance costs on that route for trackage rights over the IC - now CN - and their shitty dispatching.
Harold J. Krewer Wasn't a branch, this was the Wabash's Chicago-Decatur main line. Crossed the Tip-Up at Forrest, then ran trackage rights over TP&W to Fairbury to reach the branch up to Pontiac and Streator.
Brian Voss I have to wonder how many hundred times NS wished they had never disposed of the Wabash main...
Sam Carlson When I was hauling crews, sometimes I'd have to go down to Otto (from Chicago) to dogcatch NS crews. Yeah, most of them bitched up a storm. But some liked it, because they could collect tow-in time, extra hours, final terminal time, and a host of other paycheck enhancing add ons. "If I was on the Wabash, I'd be running an engine now. Instead I'm getting paid big-time to sleep in the back of this van!"
Mark Egebrecht Sam Carlson
You mean Otto Junction where the IC Bloomer Line merged up with the IC New Orleans Main?
Sam Carlson Yup. Sometimes the NS trains just parked on the siding; other times they'd shove around the wye to get in the clear.

1939 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

Karl Zumwalt posted two photos with the comment: "RA tower Reddick Illinois."

1, cropped

2, cropped

 

Thomas Dyrek commented on his post below

Here's a shot of the tower from John and Roger too.

Thomas Dyrek posted
The depot at Reddick, Illinois on an unknown date. John and Roger Kujawa photo, Thomas Dyrek collection.

Dennis DeBruler commented on Thomas' post
This one has me stumped. The depot and tracks appear to be perpendicular to the road, so it should be the northern crossing in the town. And it shows that the depot was on the right side of the road. But the only building I can find in the aerial is on the left side of the road. And there would be a grain elevator in the background. 1940 aerial photo
https://clearinghouse.isgs.illinois.edu/webdocs/ilhap/county/data/livingston/flight1/000v7a050.jpg

Dennis DeBruler commented on Thomas' post
I could not find it in this aerial either. 1939 aerial photo
 https://clearinghouse.isgs.illinois.edu/webdocs/ilhap/county/data/kankakee/flight7/0bwv03074.jpg

Richard Fiedler posted nine photos with the comment: "Reddick Illinois Wabash depot and tower. At Reddick the Wabash and II&I (New York Central's Big Four Kankakee Belt) crossed. First view 1890ish. . Second view 1955. Third and fourth about 1978 near it's demise. The tower telegraph call "RA" was in bad shape and was gone shortly too. The final view is the ROW at Reddick 1993 a few years after the rails were lifted. Depot is a standard Chicago & Strawn 18’x36” design from 1879 and the tower from 1900. All photos Robert Fiedler collection."

Richard Fiedler shared

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LaCrosse, IN: Junction Tower: Monon vs. PRR Panhandle

(Satellite info is below)
The Panhandle went east/west through here and the Monon went north/south.

Sunny Smith posted
I loved LaCrosse growing up. Monon Michigan City Branch crossing PRR. My Grand father worked this tower in LaCrosse 49 years.

Satellite

Matt Ditton posted
We're looking north on the Monon with the crossing of the PRR and the Tower. The first picture was taken by Lowell Susdorf in the 70's.

Matt Ditton posted
The picture was taken by M.D. McCarter of an eastbound train on the PRR crossing the Monon.

Matt Ditton posted
The picture was taken by Jim Sinclair probably in the early 70's looking east on the former PRR from the junction with the Monon Railroad.

Darren Reynolds posted four images with the comment:

Conrails "La Crosse" tower (EX- PRR/CI&L/ PM)

La Crosse, Indiana

This tower is no longer standing

Tim Shanahan shared

1

"La Crosse" tower in La Crosse,Indiana was at the crossing of the CI&L & PRR and a connection track with the C&O(PM)....1968

Photo by: John Fuller

2

Looking down the PRR mainline at "La Crosse " tower

You can see the Dimonds of the CI&L..April 1971

Photo by: Rob Mandeville

3
A PRR track and interlocking diagram and interlocking machine information for "La Crosse " tower in Indiana.

4

The old days at "La Crosse" tower and before the aluminum siding..

Photo & Date: Unknown

Jim Sinclair: That was asbestos siding, not aluminum. The PRR used asbestos a lot to eliminate the need to paint and otherwise maintain wood exteriors. It was virtually indestructible and required very little maintenance, so of course, the railroad was interested. What they didn't know then is exposure to asbestos causes mesothelioma.