The "NEW" Aurora Depot was built using old shop buildings and is on the
level of the old Aurora freight yard/shop complex which was started building
in the 1850's. In the 1915-1934 project to elevate the Railroad thru town a
new yard was built for freight at what we now know as Eola Yard. Once the
freight was removed from the Aurora Yard (most often refered to as the Hill
Yard)area this was used mainly for passenger and freight for the local area.
Most of the suburban trains terminated in the new Aurora Depot on River St.
A switch engine (most often the SW-1 9153 was used to switch the Depot(later
BN 97) and haul excess cars to the Hill Yard. You can still see the grade
up to the mainline used by both the light engines moving from the depot to
the roundhouse and the switch engine hauling the passenger cars.
Second trick at Aurora Tower was very busy with train arriving. Engines
cutting off(pre all electric) and heading for the roundhouse. Switch eng
grabbing either the east end and hauling the entire train down to the hill
yard. (Against the in coming trains and following the lite eng. moves) or
working the west end of the yard shunting the cars into the tracks of the
yard. There was a signal out on Hurds Island which protected Main 3 and
into the yard that was called the Christmas Tree because of the many signal
displays it could put out. There was a button on the machine which if a
switch move was being made into a bonded track with cars already on it. The
move had to be in the right place and with a push of the button you could
get a lunar signal in on top of the cars.
Switching out the west end of the yard was also hindered by the arriving
trains engine cutting off moving west then back east to the roundhouse.
Once the switch eng had some of the extra cars ready they would shove the
cut down following an engine to the Hill Yard against the inbound trains and
yes we did run a few freight trains thru during rush hours. If you could
work second trick at Aurora Tower during the early 70's you were tapped to
go to Cicero(House 9)to be a Train Dispatcher.
sjh
----- Original Message -----
From: <cttnghmrl@a...>
To: <BRHSlist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2001 1:42 PM
Subject: Re: [BRHSlist] Aurora Shops
> The story published at the time the new center was opened and the old
depot
> was closed stated that in order to stop at the new station Amtrak would
need
> to go "down" to the station and climb back "up" to the main line, and they
> didn't want to take the time to do so. The suburban tracks at the new
center
> are considerably below the elevated main line tracks at that point. I
don't
> know if this truly was a real problem, but it was the excuse Amtrak used
for
> moving their suburban stop from Aurora to Naperville.
>
> Ray Cottingham (who was living in the Aurora area at that time.)
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
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