The new alignment of UP's Milwaukee Sub north of Proviso is progressing. The old bridge over Green Street (the road running along the south edge of CP's Bensenville Yard) has been replaced by both a temporary structure and a new one. A new girder bridge is in place over the portion of the Bensenville Yard currently (?) crossed by one of the C&NW's ubiquitous Whipple truss bridges. (Sadly, we were not able to pull off the road and explore to see just what's what around here. The truss bridge is still in place, but might no longer be in use.)
Progressing north along the UP, the line is still following a temporary realignment. The newer, permanent realignment (including a large new girder bridge over Irving Park Road) appears to have rails, concrete ties, and ballast over most of its length; the rails and ballast stop some distance short of the connection with the temporary realignment on the north end.
All of this is in connection with the expansion of O'Hare Airport, which has already claimed the original O'Hare bypass (in the days before O'Hare, the C&NW's track went straight north from Bensenville to Des Plaines; the alignment was curved around the airport in the 1950s or '60s). Nearly all of Bensenville north of Green Street and east of York Road, which used to contain some commercial establishments and blocks of residences on both sides of the old MILW (now Metra, used by CP/IC&E) east-west main line, has been leveled for the expansion.
This is an area that will be worth watching in the next couple of years. After the UP route is finished, the area once occupied by Bensenville will have to include an overpass for CP at Irving Park Road (that's going to be a stiff grade, on a curve, out of the yard there!), and the right-of-way for a new T-shaped Tollway connector between the Tri-State, I-90, and the Elgin-O'Hare Expressway (and possible new airport entrance) west of the airport.
We saw a somewhat mysterious train while we were there. Heading north out of Bensenville on the CP was a string of empty ethanol tanks, powered by a pair of older UP units. Many of the cars were carrying a new (to me) reporting mark: TRFX. The cars were built beginning last spring, but they still aren't shown in the January 2012 Official Railway Equipment Register (according to a source I have for such things...I can't afford those books any more!).
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
