| Great story, thanks!
I’m now trying to figure out the warehouse track connected with the mainline as it and the bulk product track do not align.
Thank you kindly,
Michael Matalis Downers Grove IL
And you can now find me and my fine felines on Facebook
Michael I worked at Congress Park in early 1973 and the East End Wayfreight use to come out of Eola with Airslides of flour to be set out there. On occasion we would get an insulated box car set to the warehouse and ship out stuffing bread. In the first six weeks of '74 the Congo went out and picked up a load of stuffing bread for the west coast. I billed the car in the COMPASS computer system we were using at the time and it went into Cicero. Someone tossed the billing and made it an empty in the computer as it did not have the typed up paper waybill the BN was trying to get away from using the computer. On my one nite a week at Eola as operator third trick we got the car in to be moved to PF in Downers Grove. When the carman looked at it it had seals on both sides and he reported it to the Trainmaster who said it had to be an empty as it came out of Cicero for the car distributor. (the operator had to enter the codes on the car cards so it could be switched) and when I saw the number I told the TM it was a load for Calif. of stuffing bread. He said not it wasn't SO him and the carman went out an busted a seal off and got hit in the head by a box of stuffing bread when they opened up the door. Wasn't too long after that PF quit shipping out loads of bread by rail in box cars.
A lot of Golden Loaf air slides went in full of flour. along with Bay States Milling so even in the 70-80's there were colorful cars in service Rainbow Bread use to get airslides of flour on the NIFA Branch till the new bakery was built up on the northeast side of Aurora.
Steve in SC
The current stub track has been the bulk product unloading track for decades. Air slides early on and now pressure differential(PD) cars are the norm. The track a little West had two door spots as I recall for frozen food outbound. In the 70s it's my recollection we'd spot an empty mechanical reefer from the servicing track at Cicero on the Congress Park job one night and pick it up loaded the next.
Pepperridge also shipped out bread in baggage cars from the track behind the Downers Grove depot which would be picked up by an eastbound night dinky. Several of the old heads I once worked with mentioned it and it's in the 1950s ETT footnotes that a night dinky was to pickup from behind the depot.
Leo Phillipp
there was an additional track at pepperidge farm called the freezer track. mech reefers were loaded.what was shipped i do not recall.
Michael,
I believe that they may have shipped flour into the plant and that additional track was used for unloading. They also may have received other material such as knocked down carb boxes. My uncle had the original trucking contract with that Pepperidge plant in the early 1950s when it first opened. His trucks delivered bread and other products to all of the Chicago downtown railroad stations for shipment on passenger trains to other destinations. The loaves of bread were packed in large cardboard boxes.
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