Joliet Union Station

I've seen a lot of pics of the RI side of Joliet station, and it shows 2-3 tracks usually. When were those torn out? It sees like they would be handy for train storage or loading during rush hour. It's my guess they were torn out when the yard was built or rebuilt - was the yard an RI creation or Metra/RTA creation?

I was told sometime ago that in Rock Island days, there was a two or three track storage yard for suburban equipment, located just west of the station. I looked at the area on Google Earth, and if you focus in on the area between the diamonds and the Des Plaines river bridge about a 1/2 mi west, it's not too hard to discern evidence of the former trackage along the south portion of the current single track ROW.

Metra's current Joliet yard was built with RTA funding, as part of its overall modernization of the line at the time in conjunction with the arrival of the newer locomotives and bilevels. I don't have the exact dates, but I''m guessing that the yard was completed circa 1980, and the old storage tracks west of the depot were ripped out around that time as well...

There used to be 4 at one time. In the late 60's it was trimmed back to 3.
In 1986 the new yard was built at Collins and van Buren St.'s, and the diamond was trimmed down to one.

Where did HC/GM&O trains tie up? I suspect after RTA took over, they kept HC trains in the RI yard as is done today. How about pre-RTA?

They were parked at S.Joliet, just south of I80.

neato - google earth shows a large unused yard on the easterly set of tracks, don't know if thats ATSF or GM&O