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Trackside Old Timers

Today was one of those rare blue-sky February days in Northern Illinois. For some oddball reason, I wound up wandering along a couple of railways and pointing the camera at rusty relics, the type that should have been demolished decades ago.

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Elevator and Signal at Manlius Illinois

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Coal Chute and Clouds at DeKalb Illinois​
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Today was one of those rare blue-sky February days in Northern Illinois. For some oddball reason, I wound up wandering along a couple of railways and pointing the camera at rusty relics, the type that should have been demolished decades ago.


Well, Tom,

Then we are the beneficiaries of your good fortune too! Interesting how that sign stops is even scanning the first picture. I knew single points dos that, but an X shape is even more effective!

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Elevator and Signal at Manlius Illinois


My next place of fixation was the curved roadways N the dirt in front of the sign....it disappears abruptly in a field of grass. This picture takes its time in feeding itself to ones brain. Interesting that it seems to work that way, but it does.

The "elevator" is something else! I love the shape and would love to see it isolated in some French countryside and the Torists would come by train to paint it!


A delightful image!

Asher​
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
The second picture at first seems to be all trees and clouds...


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Coal Chute and Clouds at DeKalb Illinois​

....but it is not only bucolic, but fascinating too. Because the trees are pretty bare of leaves still, we can easilly make out the elegant form of the wooden structure, (which I would have missed recognizing), a coal shute.

You obviously are well versed in railways. I will have to see if we have such treasure near us in California!

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Tom,

original.jpg

Coal Chute and Clouds at DeKalb Illinois​

Here's what I discovered of these coaling towers. This is new information to me. It never occurred to me that there was a whole supply chain of coal to keep the locomotives running, LOL! Like assuming peas just get into a can, there's a whole story behind what we take for granted

What seems to be missing in most of the pictures is the mechanism for actually getting the coal into the tower so it could come down the shoot!

How did they do it? Where there special trains filled with coal that had some mobile crane or conveyer belt and that is why we just see bare towers?

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Well, Tom, doing a bit more digging, (isn't Google wonderful), I found a wealth of information
on the methods of loading the towers with coal from a special coal transport car.

It's very interesting reading. They did all the imaginable from dropping coal below the track to a conveyer system to bring the coal up to the tower to the unthinkable, actually lifting up the coal car, LOL and tipping it until empty!

That is not something I'd imagine they'd do outside of Soviet Russia in a snowed in Siberian Gulag!

Si I can see that diesel or electricity is far more efficient and needs less clumsy infrastructure!

Asher
 

Wolfgang Plattner

Well-known member
Hi

I especially like the first one for it's number of subtle informations.
Both of them are appreciated views of a country far away from where I live.
 
Thanks for comments, all!

Old grain elevators are seldom used these days and are becoming rarer as they are torn down. The little town of Manlius (population 300) doesn't have the wherewithal for their removal, so its relics remain standing. In time, nature herself will eventually finish them off.

The coal chute in DeKalb was scheduled for demolition a dozen years ago. It was constructed of steel reinforced concrete and is practically indestructible. Its removal would entail shutting down both tracks of the line, and Union Pacific does not want to disrupt rail traffic.

The chute itself consists of a main tower which straddles two main tracks. Water and coal was fed to steam locomotives by gravity from above while they were parked underneath. Behind the trees, just to the left of the main tower, a smaller concrete building straddles a third track. Coal was delivered and stored there. A bucket conveyor, vestiges of which remain, was used to move the coal to the top of the tower.

A railroad part yard sits nearby. I'd like to get much closer to the chute to explore a bit, but the place is closely watched by railroad personnel, and a charge of trespass is not currently on the to-do list. So, winter views of the tower through the bare trees will have to do.
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Asher,

Well, Tom, doing a bit more digging, (isn't Google wonderful), I found a wealth of information
on the methods of loading the towers with coal from a special coal transport car.

Thanks so much for doing the nice research on coaling towers. I know that I wasn't at all familiar with the details.

Alamogordo was founded around a coaling and watering station for the railroad that still passes through here (now a major line of the Union Pacific, primarily heading to Mexico). The water tower is still here (stark black and ugly as hell, it is a major historical landmark). I'm not sure about the coaling tower - there are various remains in that part of town and one set might be of the coaling tower. I will look into that.

Tom: Wonderful photos.

Best regards,

Doug
 
Thank you Cem and Doug!

The ugly-as-hell water tower at Alamagordo sounds like an absolute gem to me. David Plowden's photo book, Vanishing Point, was filled with subjects on the verge of disappearance. It inspired an appreciation of abandoned structures such as your water tower. It's fun to follow abandoned railways on Google Earth to search for abandoned, forgotten, and unloved relics.
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Tom,

Thank you Cem and Doug!

The ugly-as-hell water tower at Alamagordo sounds like an absolute gem to me. David Plowden's photo book, Vanishing Point, was filled with subjects on the verge of disappearance. It inspired an appreciation of abandoned structures such as your water tower. It's fun to follow abandoned railways on Google Earth to search for abandoned, forgotten, and unloved relics.

I'll shoot it as soon as I get a chance.

But here's a shot from the Internet:

aa50acfe464e0e1348a1907b35cded64.jpg

Best regards,

Doug
 
Wow Doug, now this is a subject to sink your teeth into! I'm looking forward to your go at it. Just a notion, but it might be a good one for monochrome processing of one sort or another.
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Tom,

Wow Doug, now this is a subject to sink your teeth into! I'm looking forward to your go at it. Just a notion, but it might be a good one for monochrome processing of one sort or another.

A very good observation. Thanks.

Best regards,

Doug
 

Jarmo Juntunen

Well-known member
Hi Tom and other, nice set of photos and interesting stories. It great that you take pictures that preserve these old sights to us and to those who come after us.
 
While visiting Superior, Wisconsin, I took my dog Sammy and a trusty Nikon for a evening stroll in an port-side industrial area near the hotel. The photo below shows a 'Laker Boat' moored for at least the past couple of years by a grain elevator that's still active.

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Here's a disused railway track running between no longer used warehouses and elevators.

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These photos have a different mood from Tom's great pictures, in which the elevators are aging old timers of a gentle class. To me, those in Superior are hurt and mad as hell at what the second part of the 20th century did to them: rough brutes that won't go gently into that dark night.

Cheers, Mike
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I am impressed with that "Laker Boat". Wonder why it's just sitting there. Lots of good steel in it. Maybe it will make its way eventually to Bangladesh to be broken down!

Asher
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Michael.
While visiting Superior, Wisconsin, I took my dog Sammy and a trusty Nikon for a evening stroll in an port-side industrial area near the hotel. The photo below shows a 'Laker Boat' moored for at least the past couple of years by a grain elevator that's still active.

A lovely boat. The best information I have is that she has been laid up at the Fraser Shipyard in Superior since May, 2009.

Thanks for this great shot.

Best regards,

Doug
 
Those are fine additions, Michael. The old lake freighter brings back memories of summers growing up along Lake Huron. There was at least one freighter on the horizon at any given moment during the late 50s and early 60s. They're still out there now but not nearly in the same numbers, probably due in part to the decline of steel manufacture in the Midwest.

Some very interesting thoughts on old elevators, as well as taking photographs meant to illustrate essence of place (genius loci), is the book, "Thoughts on Landscape" by Frank Gohlke. Very much worth a read.
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Tom,

Those are fine additions, Michael. The old lake freighter brings back memories of summers growing up along Lake Huron. There was at least one freighter on the horizon at any given moment during the late 50s and early 60s. They're still out there now but not nearly in the same numbers, probably due in part to the decline of steel manufacture in the Midwest.

Yes, this was all wondrous. I grew up in Cleveland (1936-1961), on Lake Erie, and the lake freighters were a regular part of life. On of my best high school (and beyond) buddies was from a lake sailing family: his father has been master of an ore boat, his older brother was First Mate of the Clarence B. Randall, and he had worked on an ore boat during several summers.

All wondrous indeed.

Best regards,

Doug
 
Thanks Asher, Doug and Tom for comments and sharing memories. (And Tom, I'll get that book).

Elevators and Laker Boats signify dockside occupations that originated in the 19th century and continue in reduced forms to the present day. Superior WI shared with my home city of Thunder Bay ON a boom time belief that the railway, grain and Laker Boats would elevate each to the status and wealth of a 'new Chicago'. Those boom times didn't last but they had lasting effects on everything from the architecture to prosperity to generosity to a strong sense of community. Blue collar cities at their best.

Here's a couple more photos taken during that evening dog walk. The first I call Under the Overpass. The overpass bridges the bay between Superior and Duluth MI. You can see elevators on both sides of the overpass but the photo only shows one set.

under_the_overpass_by_rufusthered-db1ch74.jpg

The second photo shows where the workers go when finished their shift. Dayshift, nightshift, anytime shift doesn't seem to matter. Like many nearby taverns that likely date back to the early 1900s, Lost in the 50's stays open round the clock as far as I can tell. I first went there at about 7.00 in the morning hoping to get a bacon and eggs breakfast. The barman shook his head, said they didn't serve food, but "Would I like a nutritious Bloody Mary instead?" "Yes please!" :) Cheers, Mike.

lost_in_the_50s_by_rufusthered-db1cnei.jpg
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Tom,

Do you remember hearing the incredibly deep base note of the freighter fog horns, Doug?

Oh, yes.

When I was perhaps 10 years old or so, a favorite pastime for Friday or maybe Saturday night was to for my parents to drive with me down to the mouth of the Cuyahoga River and watch the shorter freighters steam up the Cuyahoga and out into Lake Erie. I would wave at the pilots in the wheelhouse, and they would usually blow the whistle for me.

Great nostalgia.

Thanks.

Best regards,

Doug
 
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