HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Brighton Park crossing is a major railroad crossing in
Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
,
Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...
, hosting three major freight
railroads Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to road ...
. The crossing is northwest of the intersection of Western Avenue and
Archer Avenue Archer Avenue, sometimes known as Archer Road outside the Chicago, Illinois city limits, and also known as State Street only in Lockport, Illinois and Fairmont, Illinois city limits, is a street running northeast-to-southwest between Chicago's ...
, in the Brighton Park neighborhood of
Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
,
Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...
. The railroads involved in the crossing are
CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Railroad classes, Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Operating about 21,000 route miles () of trac ...
,
Canadian National The Canadian National Railway Company () is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN is Canada's largest railway, in terms of both revenue an ...
and
Norfolk Southern The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...
. The crossing consists of the CN's two-track Joliet Subdivision in a roughly east–west orientation intersecting five north–south tracks operated by NS and CSX. Collectively, these railroads operate approximately 80 trains per day through the crossing. The junction is visible from the CTA Orange Line trains that pass on an elevated structure immediately southeast of the crossing. The CN line was formerly the main line of the Gulf Mobile & Ohio and its predecessor
Alton Railroad The Alton Railroad was the final name of a railroad linking Chicago to Alton, Illinois; St. Louis, Missouri; and Kansas City, Missouri. Its predecessor, the Chicago and Alton Railroad , was purchased by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1931 an ...
, and this location hosted the GM&O's Brighton Park passenger stop. The line currently carries
Metra Metra is the primary commuter rail system in the Chicago metropolitan area serving the city of Chicago and its surrounding suburbs via the Union Pacific Railroad, BNSF Railway, and other railroads. The system operates 243 train station, stati ...
Heritage Corridor The Heritage Corridor (HC) is a Metra commuter rail line in Chicago, Illinois, and its southwestern suburbs, terminating in Joliet, Illinois. While Metra does not refer to its lines by colors, the Heritage Corridor appears on Metra timetables as ...
commuter trains to Joliet and
Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...
passenger trains to
St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...
. Metra formerly operated a Brighton Park station located near the crossing, but this station was closed in 1984. Until July 6, 2007, the crossing was controlled by a human switchtender in a cabin near the crossing using semaphore signals to govern train movements through the diamonds. Because the crossing was not interlocked, all trains were required to make a stop before proceeding over the crossing as signaled by the specific semaphore signal governing the track the train was on. As a major crossing, and one of the few remaining locations with this classic method of operation, Brighton Park was a major attraction for rail enthusiasts, but had become increasingly inefficient for Chicago area rail operations. As part of the
Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency Program The Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency (CREATE) Program is a $4.6 billion program to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of freight, commuter and intercity passenger rail and to reduce highway delay in the Chicago regi ...
(CREATE) project, the Brighton Park crossing, the semaphore signals, and switchtender's cabin were taken out of service on the evening of Friday, July 6, 2007 and conversion to an interlocked crossing ensued over the following weekend. As part of the conversion project, some of the tracks at the crossing were realigned and new crossing
diamonds Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Diamond is tasteless, odourless, strong, brittle solid, colourless in pure form, a poor conductor of electricity, and insol ...
were put in place.


History

By the early 20th century, the Brighton Park crossing comprised tracks belonging to the
Baltimore and Ohio Chicago Terminal Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Chicago Terminal Railroad is a terminal railroad in the Chicago area, formerly giving various other companies access to (Chicago's) Grand Central Station (Chicago), Grand Central Station. It also served to connect those rai ...
; the
Chicago Junction Railroad Progressive Rail Inc. is a shortline railroad and owner of several other shortlines. PGR is directly operating several separate branches in Minnesota including the Airlake Terminal Railway. Progressive Rail also acquired the Wisconsin Northern ...
, eventually controlled by the
New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected New York metropolitan area, gr ...
as the Chicago River and Indiana; and the
Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad The Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad, commonly called the Pan Handle Route (Panhandle Route in later days), was a railroad that was part of the Pennsylvania Railroad system. Its common name came from its main line, whic ...
, commonly known as the "Panhandle Route", which was controlled by the
Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad ( reporting mark PRR), legal name as the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, also known as the "Pennsy," was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At its ...
(PRR) running north to south and crossing the Chicago and Alton main line running east to west. The PCC&StL was the first railroad to cross the C&A at Brighton Park in the 1860s and therefore was responsible for arranging the safe crossing of trains. As other railroads built along the Panhandle
right of way A right of way (also right-of-way) is a specific route that people, animals, vehicles, watercraft, or utility lines travel, or the legal status that gives them the right to do so. Rights-of-way in the physical sense include controlled-access h ...
, this arrangement remained in effect with the responsibility passing to the PRR. For the PRR the Panhandle Route connecting Pittsburgh and Cincinnati via Indianapolis was of secondary importance to its Main Line via
Fort Wayne, Indiana Fort Wayne is a city in Allen County, Indiana, United States, and its county seat. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 at the 2020 census ...
, with the latter having direct access to
Chicago Union Station Chicago Union Station is an Inter-city rail, intercity and commuter rail terminal station, terminal located in the West Loop neighborhood of the Near West Side, Chicago, Near West Side of Chicago. Amtrak's flagship station in the Midwest, Uni ...
from the south, while the Panhandle route ran west of the city to loop around and access the station from the north. The Baltimore and Ohio was somewhat late arriving into the Chicago market and had to use
trackage rights Railway companies can interact with and control others in many ways. These relationships can be complicated by bankruptcies. Operating Often, when a railroad first opens, it is only a short spur of a main line. The owner of the spur line may c ...
and the Panhandle right of way to eventually reach
Grand Central Station Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to as Grand Central Station or simply as Grand Central) is a commuter rail terminal located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Grand Central is the southern terminus ...
via a similar out and back loop route and arrived south of downtown via the St. Charles Air Line Bridge. The Chicago Junction Railroad was a
switching and terminal railroad A switching and terminal railroad is a freight railroad company whose primary purpose is to perform local switching services or to own and operate a terminal facility. Switching is a type of operation done within the limits of a yard. It gener ...
that served the stockyard area and was eventually purchased by the New York Central. At its peak the crossing involved a total of 8 tracks of the PRR, B&OCT and CR&I crossing the two tracks of the C&A. Also included in the complex were a number of hand-operated crossovers and wye tracks. Each of the 4 railroads involved in the crossing employed
switchtender A railroad switch ( AE), turnout, or (set of) points ( CE) is a mechanical installation enabling railway trains to be guided from one track to another, such as at a railway junction or where a spur or siding branches off. Design Th ...
s on site to manage any crossover or connecting movements, with the PRR maintaining two tender stations, north and south of the crossing, to protect the two B&OCT to C&A wye tracks where they each crossed the Panhandle main line and the C&A crossing itself. Switchtender cabin "A" managed the Alton crossing and would continue to do so until the crossing was interlocked in 2007. For both the B&OCT and PCC&StL, Brighton Park was one in a string of non-interlocked railroad crossings at grade with others at Ash Street, 26th St and 12th St. Maximum speed on the route was between 20-30 mph. Interlocking the Brighton Park crossing would have been of limited value without upgrading the entire line. As passenger traffic on the route dried up and the railroads entered financial hardship, investment in the line became less and less of a priority. With the formation of the
Penn Central The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals, the Pennsylvania, New York Central and the ...
and later
Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busine ...
, the PCC&StL and CR&I lines through Brighton Park were united under a single railroad. The Panhandle route was ultimately abandoned with Conrail shifting traffic to the C&RI, ripping up the two Panhandle tracks, thus reducing the number of tracks crossing the Alton to 5. Under Conrail the CR&I was designated as an industrial track, its lowest classification. Since the PRR era crossing agreement with the Alton successor
Illinois Central Railroad The Illinois Central Railroad , sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, is a railroad in the Central United States. Its primary routes connected Chicago, Illinois, with New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama, and thus, ...
was still in effect, Conrail had little incentive to upgrade the signaling on the line.


Modernization

The modernization effort to automate the Brighton Park crossing was undertaken as part of the
Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency Program The Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency (CREATE) Program is a $4.6 billion program to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of freight, commuter and intercity passenger rail and to reduce highway delay in the Chicago regi ...
(CREATE) in 2007. It involved
Safetran Safetran Systems Corporation was an American company that manufactured switch machines, railroad wayside signal systems, rail transit signaling and rail-highway level crossing active warning systems. The company was a major supplier of freight/ ...
Systems, (part of
Invensys Invensys Limited was a multinational engineering and information technology company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. At its height, the company had offices in more than 50 countries and its products were sold in around 180 countries. I ...
Rail) with the crossing's application development, site mock-up, and preliminary factory testing taking place in
Rancho Cucamonga, California Rancho Cucamonga ( ) is a city located just south of the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and Angeles National Forest in San Bernardino County, California, United States. About east of Downtown Los Angeles, Rancho Cucamonga is the List ...
in an in-house project called "Brighton Park / Pershing Main." In addition to the full automation of the crossing, additional interlocked crossovers would be installed north and south, eliminating a number of hand-operated switches. This was all done in conjunction with a centralized traffic control project on both the ex-Conrail and B&OCT lines, upgrading them from
dark territory Dark territory is a term used in the North American railroad industry to describe a section of running track not controlled by signals. Train movements in dark territory were previously handled by timetable and train order operation, but since ...
and
automatic block signaling Automatic block signaling (ABS), spelled automatic block signalling or called track circuit block (TCB ) in the UK, is a railroad communications system that consists of a series of signals that divide a railway line into a series of sections, ...
respectively. Ultimately control of the new remote crossing would pass to the
Norfolk Southern The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...
railroad, who had previously employed the switchtender.


Future

As a part of the CREATE project, a flyover on the CN/Heritage Corridor over the Western Avenue Corridor tracks would be constructed. The flyover project would reduce congestion to the 76 freight and passenger trains that go through the diamond crossing every day. The project is currently unfunded.


References


External links


Chicago Rail Junctions: Brighton Park

CREATE Project

Photos of trains passing Brighton Park Junction at Railpictures.Net
{{coord, 41.8267, -87.6871, type:landmark_region:US-IL, display=title Rail infrastructure in Illinois Transportation in Chicago Canadian National Railway facilities CSX Transportation Norfolk Southern Railway BNSF Railway Railway stations in the United States closed in 1984