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April 1943. Galewood Yard of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (Milwaukee Road) at Chicago. View full size (if you don't, you're missing a lot). 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano.
Yes the yards are still there....or were a year ago. I retired from CMSt.P&P RR...I hired out on the Southeastern Division and later transfered to the D&I and worked the suburban trains that ran right past theese yards. and you were correct about ramps...they bridged the distance with very hweavy constructions that were set in plase with forklift.
Great pict, Milw RR had some huge yd in Chicago, of interest would be how they unloaded & loaded the boxcars accross 5 tracks without platforms inbetween them, I bet they used ramps inbetween the cars so they could access them and save a lot of money on constucting many platforms. The cars would be spotted (placed) so the doors would line up with all 5 tracks. Just make sure the switch yd crew would do a good job of lining the cars up. I like the Alton car which looks just recently painted. I wonder if any of this yd is still around.
Hi Jeff,
Actually, a better place to find the Delano images is to head straight to the Library of Congress' website and doing a search for "Jack Delano". YOu want a full sized image? How about a 200 meg TIFF?
[You won't find anything on the LOC site like our full-size version of the image above. Plus, the LOC images are all uncorrected.- Dave]
This was probably one of thephotos Jack took during a survey of american railroads during WWII for the Office of
War Information (OWI). His work can be found in a great railroad book, the "Iron Horse at War" (out of print).
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