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