• Union Pacific/Chicago train break ins

  • Discussion about the Union Pacific operations past and present. Official site can be found here: UPRR.COM.
Discussion about the Union Pacific operations past and present. Official site can be found here: UPRR.COM.

Moderator: GOLDEN-ARM

  by MACTRAXX
 
Dave - The better location description is the Austin neighborhood on Chicago's West Side...Austin extends over
two miles from the Chicago-Oak Park boundary on Austin Boulevard (6000 W.) to Belt RR/Kenton Av. (4600 W.)...
Main N/S roads in between are Cicero Avenue (4800 W.); Laramie Avenue (5200 W.) and Central Avenue (5600 W.)

In the City of Chicago 8 long blocks equal one mile-primary road; 4 long blocks equal 1/2 mile-secondary road...
The rail route is the former C&NW West Line paralleling CTA's Lake Street L (Green Line) to Harlem/Lake (7200 W.)

The ABC7 Chicago news report video mentions Lockwood Avenue (5300 W.) and Lake Street...Right in that area
just west of the Laramie CTA station is the end of the L structure as it goes on the former C&NW embankment
westward towards Oak Park...I was thinking of a yard facility and not a stopped stack train along the UP route
making this a crime of opportunity for some locals to break in and steal merchandise from containers...

There is a separate suburb: The Village of West Chicago - that is on the same rail route about 20 miles west...
I wanted to mention this and correctly describe what the geographical diffrerence was...MACTRAXX
Last edited by MACTRAXX on Sat Oct 12, 2024 8:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
  by Gilbert B Norman
 
Some news reports stated the train was stopped to interchange cars with another?

I'm trying to figure out with whom.

As of the 5A newshour, WBBM 780/105.9, was reporting that METRA service C&NW Station (whoops, Ogilvie) to Maywood remains suspended.
  by GRSdave
 
Thanks MACTRAXX and Gilbert. I'm in Cleveland OH and here we have East Cleveland, it's own city as well. A place no agency wants to patrol. Still learning about Chicago and areas west, south and the rails in Indiana and east. A big metropolis indeed!

Just sad to see blatant crime occuring along our rails.
  by Gilbert B Norman
 
CBS Local News (WBBM: "We Broadcast Better Music") reports that there have been arrests arising from the incident:

https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/th ... west-side/

As an aside, the slogan from which the call letters originate are today "non-operative"; the radio station's (780/105.9) format is "all news all the time" - and has been so since 1967.
  by Allouette
 
The train involved was probably waiting to enter the Rockwell Sub at Western Avenue, the route to NS (via former PRR Panhandle) or CSX (via former B&OCT). The Western Avenue interlocking signals start about a mile east of the spot where the break-in occurred.
  by Gilbert B Norman
 
I'm starting to wonder if this theft was an "inside job"?

The manifest of any train is proprietary information. I think I had hired on for about a day before learning that.

They sure knew the containers carrying higher value, transportable, consumer goods, and not, say, industrial cleaning agents loaded in 55 gallon barrels.

disclaimer: author Long UNP