Please excuse the late reply and/or multiple posting; my internet
connection was down for two days and Yahoo!!! blocked sending me any
traffic since last weekend.
The station is Congress Park. The wreck occurred in 1918. It looks
like the South Interchange Track turnout was still west of the
station as the steps up to the eastbound main are still in place.
The subway was under the tracks at this time (built in November,
1913) but the center platform stairway wouldn't be added until 1929.
I don't know if the wreck caused the removal of the front elevation
of the building and the relocation of the interchange turnout to
Maple Avenue; it may have been done with a further raising of the
main (evident by concrete caps on top of the stone bridge piers over
the IHB). At one time the main was at the same level as the floor
of the station; the line was raised in 1895 to accomdate crossing
the Chicago, Hammond & Western (IHB predecesor).
Pictures in Brookfield, Illinois A History (1994, Brookfield History
Book Committee) indicate that the wreck involved a number of steel
coal "flats" and they were piled up about to Maple Avenue.
Charlie Vlk
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