It is of interest also is the enclosed gate tower at Main St in DG The turntable was an 80 foot deck girder built by American Bridge for Creston, Iowa in 1910 recycled in 1936 when it was installed at DG It was electric powered
Thanks for sharing the link Steve in SC
On Tuesday, November 11, 2014 9:51 AM, "Michael Matalis mmatalis@sprynet.com [CBQ]" <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
I just got cued in on this great little blog page covering Downers Grove railroad history. A lot of the photos I've seen before, but it also includes the first clear shots I've ever seen of the Downers turntable, as well as a photo of the wooden tower that stood before the brick tower went up, something that I didn't know existed.
Thank you kindly,
Michael Matalis Downers Grove IL
And you can now find me on Facebook
Glen and Michael,
The two tracks in the photo both crossed Forest Ave and went into the Lord Lumber Company property which occupied the area south of the tracks to Gilbert Ave and west to about where the first homes are on Gilbert. Lord Lumber had an sales
office there and a lumber supply yard as well as some rock storage adjacent to the RR ROW. After Lord Lumber closed down,the tracks were removed and the property was sold to the A&P Grocery chain that built a store there. Today, I think a bank occupies the site with another building west of it on Gilbert.
Lord Lumber also owned the property to the north side of the tracks bounded by Forest, Warren and the Dicke Tool Co. That yard was serviced by a track that came from a switch near the turntable, adjacent to Oakwood and Warren Ave., and proceeded east all the way to Forest. Remnants of that track can still be seen. When I was a kid, the switch crews in both steam and diesel days would run their locomotives down to Forest Ave. to go to lunch at the Snacktime Restaurant across from the Tivoli Theater.
In the area bounded by Forest, Burlington on the south and Main
Street, there were several tracks that the way freight crews used to switch industries in the are. A locomotive could run around several cars in that area. Today, it is a parking lot. When I was a kid in the early '50s, it was tracks an weeds. At one time, there were five or six tracks that crossed Main Street; the three main line tracks north of the station and two or three yard tracks south of the depot including the run around track that Glen described. Near the east end switch of the run around was another switch that went east across Washington Ave and continued into the building where the village offices are today. At that time, it was Shafer Bearing Co. which later moved to a new facility west of Belmont Ave, was purchased by Limk Belt Co, and I believe, eventually closed down. There was a large old silver bell hanging from a cradle that was located near the tracks just west of Main Street. I never knew what it's function was and I never
heard it ring. It's location was about where the east end of the old freight depot (former passenger before 1910) was located. The freight depot disappeared about the end of WWII. I don't recall ever seeing it, but I have seen photos of it. The bell disappeared after I moved away from DG in the 1960s.
My dad was present the night that the TCZ wrecked and he came back the next day to take photos of the wreck seen which I still have. In fact, I have the original negatives. According to Dad, all of the east bound passenger trains that followed the TCZ into Aurora, were held there. All three main tracks were blocked because the E5 pulling the train lay sideways across all three tracks about where the Tivoli Theater is. Once the RR officials were satisfied that the track around the south side of the depot was in satisfactory condition, about midnight, they assembled all of the eastbound passenger trains into one
big train powered by an O-5. He said that it was quite a sight to watch an O-5 creep cautiously around the depot with an extremely long passenger train and RR people watching carefully for any problems. The Barriger photos show several trains using that track including the Zephyr that Michael mentioned. There is also a photo of people boarding an eastbound commuter train and a freight with four F units using that track. That practice continued for several days until the main line was cleared and repaired. The repair of the depot took a while. Evidence of the wreck can still be seen on the depot. The coping along the top of the exterior walls around the ticket office are different and much more modern than that around the roof area of the rest of the structure.
Bill Barber Gravois Mills, MO Sun Nov 9, 2014 5:59 pm (PST) . Posted by:Michael: You have the location right. Photo is looking westward toward Forest Avenue
and 4 track signal bridge 21.30. The shovelnose is on back track #52 which left Main 3 just west of the signal bridge, went behind the depot, and tied back into Main 3 just west of Washington St. The turnout in the photo is to spur track #54, which was about 400 feet long, and curved southwesterly across Forest Avenue and stubbed behind a building identified on the station map as the A&P Grocery. The nearest track in the foreground was another stub track (#58) which began off of track #52 behind the depot and ran west and parallel to the main tracks until it stubbed at the east edge of Forest Avenue.
Glen Haug
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Posted by: STEVEN HOLDING <sholding@sbcglobal.net>
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