California
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Good find!
Working rail roads and their tracks.
- Thread starter ArlyA
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MossRoad
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I can get sucked down the google earth rabbit hole following train tracks for hours! 
5030
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94 goes right over that quarry btw. The pictures bring back lots of memories too and my post was getting long so I didn't allude to everything. Spent a lot of time there, walking around and looking. The last picture where the smokestack is, just in front of it was where the resistor banks were, where they tested the output on the completed engines and I delivered the cranks and cams in the building just under the stack. Only view of the front, corporate part I had was driving in and out on the driveway and no guards there either , but then that was before all the high crime in Chicagoland. What isn't pictured is the tracks out back where the wrecked engines were stored.
I used to watch them tote completed engines as well as 'houses' which is what they called the cabs. They just bolted to the rolling chassis. Sometimes they used one crane, sometimes 2, depending on the total weight and one guy ran them both. They were pendent cranes, not radio controlled and there was no one in the control cab of the crane up high either. I found of special interest the part of the shop where they assembled the power packs. EMD engines used individual power packs that were complete with injectors and exhaust valves, Remember the engines were all 2 stroke, so no intakes, just exhaust valves and the injector.
Used to watch them heat treat the cylinders too. They used electrical induction heating to heat treat them. They always had a big stock of turbo chargers and that is where I learned that they were gear driven plus exhaust driven as the exhaust flow at really low rpm was insufficient to spin the turbo so they had an arrangement where the gear drive would kick out when the exhaust flow was sufficient to spin them, Big turbo's too.
I'm pretty sure that not too many people know that Eaton Corporation in Kalamazoo, 'borrowed' EMD's dyno room to test their final drives to destruction. I got to see them in the dyno room one time.
I'd back the trailer into an enclosed dock, drop the trailer and hook to the empty one and come back to Park Ohio and drop that trailer in their loading dock, which was a PITA because the dock was at the end of a dead end street so I always had to blind side it in. After doing it a few times I could get it right in, no fuss, but the first few times I had sweaty palms.
Good gig too. Paid 2 bucks a mile each way, I actually made enough to buy a second road tractor, A Diamond Reo conventional to be exact. Wish I had it today. 2 bucks a mile on my my odometer, not Rand McNally book miles.
Only downside was, if Park had the trailer loaded at 1AM, I had to go pick it up right away and deliver it asap as EMD back then worked on the 'just in time' policy, but then I lived in Cleveland at that time anyway.
Lots more to tell as the memories come back... I bet not many people got to do what I did and I still remember walking through the Chrysler Engine Plant in Trenton, Michigan as well as Fords Rouge stamping operation. They were all during production hours, not on a tour of any sort.
I used to watch them tote completed engines as well as 'houses' which is what they called the cabs. They just bolted to the rolling chassis. Sometimes they used one crane, sometimes 2, depending on the total weight and one guy ran them both. They were pendent cranes, not radio controlled and there was no one in the control cab of the crane up high either. I found of special interest the part of the shop where they assembled the power packs. EMD engines used individual power packs that were complete with injectors and exhaust valves, Remember the engines were all 2 stroke, so no intakes, just exhaust valves and the injector.
Used to watch them heat treat the cylinders too. They used electrical induction heating to heat treat them. They always had a big stock of turbo chargers and that is where I learned that they were gear driven plus exhaust driven as the exhaust flow at really low rpm was insufficient to spin the turbo so they had an arrangement where the gear drive would kick out when the exhaust flow was sufficient to spin them, Big turbo's too.
I'm pretty sure that not too many people know that Eaton Corporation in Kalamazoo, 'borrowed' EMD's dyno room to test their final drives to destruction. I got to see them in the dyno room one time.
I'd back the trailer into an enclosed dock, drop the trailer and hook to the empty one and come back to Park Ohio and drop that trailer in their loading dock, which was a PITA because the dock was at the end of a dead end street so I always had to blind side it in. After doing it a few times I could get it right in, no fuss, but the first few times I had sweaty palms.
Good gig too. Paid 2 bucks a mile each way, I actually made enough to buy a second road tractor, A Diamond Reo conventional to be exact. Wish I had it today. 2 bucks a mile on my my odometer, not Rand McNally book miles.
Only downside was, if Park had the trailer loaded at 1AM, I had to go pick it up right away and deliver it asap as EMD back then worked on the 'just in time' policy, but then I lived in Cleveland at that time anyway.
Lots more to tell as the memories come back... I bet not many people got to do what I did and I still remember walking through the Chrysler Engine Plant in Trenton, Michigan as well as Fords Rouge stamping operation. They were all during production hours, not on a tour of any sort.
5030
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Been to the Lima Tank plant as well but that is for another time. Truck driving isn't at all boring when you get to go to places I've been to.
Hay Dude
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Yeah I do sometimes, too. It’s interesting for some strange reason to see if you can see where long ago railroads ran by the way the trees growI can get sucked down the google earth rabbit hole following train tracks for hours!
MossRoad
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I don't think that's the same quarry. I don't see a highway over it. You may be thinking of that monster quarry on 294 just west of where 94 turns north.
Glad we could read some of your memories of the places you've been.
MossRoad
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Yep. You can even see them in long plowed fields some times.
5030
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You could be right. When I cross that bridge, I look straight ahead. I'm scared of heights, always have been.I don't think that's the same quarry. I don't see a highway over it. You may be thinking of that monster quarry on 294 just west of where 94 turns north.
Glad we could read some of your memories of the places you've been.
5030
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Used to be an interurban track that ran just south of me and you can still find tie plates and spikes in the farm field once in a while.
gstrom99
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Thornton Quarry - Wikipedia
Material Service quarry. Thornton, IL. I've heard they can see this from space. It's huge. I lived nearby.