NYC and use of IC's Central Station in Chicago

Gilbert B Norman wrote:Regarding Michigan Central trains use of Central Station, I must admit that even pre-dates me (well at least railfanning).

According to a 1951 "Thousand and One", MC trains used Central Station.

Anyone know their routing between the IC and the MC at Porter? was the CSS&SB used or another routing.

Enquiring mind wants to know.

From what I know, the MC went all the way to Kensington and joined the South Shore within the limits of Kensington interlocking just before the ladder across the IC. There were slip switches on the ladder to allow MC trains to join the IC intercity tracks. Looking at Kensington with Google Earth, you can see a track disappearing into the woods between the IC and SS about 1/4 mile south of Kensington. I believe that is the old MC.

A few years ago (can't find it right now) First and Fastest had a really good first-person article about Kensington tower written by a former operator. It includes a detailed track diagram and shows, among other things, the former MC track connection, which was as described by lstone in the post just above.

ExCon90 wrote:A few years ago (can't find it right now) First and Fastest had a really good first-person article about Kensington tower written by a former operator. It includes a detailed track diagram and shows, among other things, the former MC track connection, which was as described by lstone in the post just above.

It was titled "Please Don't Snag the Hangers" and can be found at http://www.shore-line.org/_pdfs/kensing ... 06_F&F.pdf.

lstone19 wrote:It was titled "Please Don't Snag the Hangers" and can be found at http://www.shore-line.org/_pdfs/kensing ... 06_F&F.pdf.

Is anyone besides me having difficulty opening the pdf? I'd love to read it but it won't open for me.

The thing that comes to mind over the NYC use of IC's Central Station is the fight between the two Centrals when New York Central did try and withdraw its trains around 1960. Illinois Central claimed it had a valid contract for the use of the station by NYC and the contract had a ways to go. IC complained that it could not afford the loss of revenue by losing NYC useage payments.

A while back I found a series of Chicago Tribune articles detailing the fight. If I can find them I'll post more details.

Tommy Meehan wrote:

lstone19 wrote:It was titled "Please Don't Snag the Hangers" and can be found at http://www.shore-line.org/_pdfs/kensing ... 06_F&F.pdf.

Is anyone besides me having difficulty opening the pdf? I'd love to read it but it won't open for me.

No. I just checked it and it opened in my browser (Safari) just fine. If it won't open in your browser, try downloading and saving it (generally right-ckick and then Save Linked File As... or something like that) and then opening it locally.

Thanks I did right-click and saved the article to my desktop. Well worth the trouble. Excellent article and some nice pix too.