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Some personal recollections from 58 years ago and reflections today on this topic in general:
As a lad in the 1950's I regularly visited that port and grain elevator operation in the Calumet Harbor where my dad was a weigh master for the Chicago Board of Trade taking grain samples from incoming and outgoing grain shipments. The opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway brought an enormous amount of seasonal traffic to that port. What I recall the best was the way the 40' box cars were lifted, turned on their sides and had the contents pour out through the side door opening, down through the grate in the elevator floor where it disappeared like magic. The number of box cars around the area was staggering as were all the grain trucks during the Fall grain rush. Birds were everywhere gobbling up leaking and spilled grain. It was one big cloud of grain dust as one can imagine. No EPA or dust masks around in those days. It was interesting to see the big semis dump their grain loads as well. The entire rig tractor and trailor was picked-up tilted back so the grain could flow out the back end. Truck was returned to the floor, pulled out. Next customer please. Wham bam, thank you.... The grain elevators were some of the biggest structures this kid had ever seen. Then there were the ever present Russian cargo ships that to a kid were mysterious and dangerous and seemed to always in port being loaded with American grain to feed the starving Russian population. The arrival of Russian ships were the occasions my Dad most often brought me down there. How scary it was to hear the Russian sailors who shouted to each other in a mysterious language. Were they plotting to kidnap me? Before I knew it those days had vanished and the port closed as most grain was shipped south to New Orleans on the IC and other railroads as that southern port remained open year around not being subject to the Winter freeze over as the St. Lawrence Seaway had been. Sorry I never brought a camera with me to record all the action.
Dad would be 100 years old in February of 2014. As you can well imagine now that I know what questions to ask him, not just about his days working for the Board of Trade in the Calumet Harbor Port, but his years of riding the NYC and PRR, the MOP and Rock as well as other trains as an MP on POW troop transport trains from New York City through Chicago, my home town, to the POW camps throughout the West from 1943 through the end of the war. He often traded cigarettes to Italian POW's and received little hand-made objects in return. I still have a small plane he got from an Italian POW who signed it for him on the base, "P.O.W. Italian. Bi?da. Felice." If I only knew then what I know now. Coulda, shoulda, woulda!!!
Later, Dave Sarther Tucson, AZ
-----Original Message-----
From: Hank <hkraichely@sbcglobal.net> To: CBQ <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Thu, Jul 25, 2013 10:06 pm Subject: [CBQ] Re: Burlington, South Chicago Terminal RR CO. I believe that earlier someone said the Q was planning to build a grain elevator with the grain loaded on ships. If correct this will eat into the available.
Sent from my iPad Hank __._,_.___
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