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 IHB number 3801 and 3802, both EMD GP38-2s | |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Hammond, Indiana |
| Reporting mark | IHB |
| Locale | Northwest Indiana, suburbs of Chicago, Illinois |
| Dates of operation | 1896–present |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
| Other | |
| Website | www |
The Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad( reporting mark IHB) is a Class III railroad [1] in the United States.
The IHB is jointly owned by Conrail Shared Assets Operations (51%) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited (49%). These shareholders trace their ownership stake in IHB to previous mergers and acquisitions in the railroad industry. Conrail's ownership is traced back to the Penn Central Transportation Company and prior to that, the New York Central Railroad and Pennsylvania Railroad. CPKC's ownership is through its subsidiary, the Soo Line, which inherited it from the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (also known as the "Milwaukee Road"). Also, the IHB's northern terminus is the Milwaukee District West Line in Franklin Park, Illinois, which is operated by Metra and CPKC.
The line comprises 320 miles (510 km) of track—30 miles (48 km) of single mainline track, 24 miles (39 km) of double-main track and 266 miles (428 km) of additional yard and side track—starting northwest of Chicago in Franklin Park, Illinois at CPKC's Elgin Subdivision, traveling southeast around the city to its headquarters in Hammond, Indiana. [2]
The railroad's largest yard is Blue Island located in Riverdale, Illinois. [2] The Gibson Yard, located in Hammond, Indiana, is arguably the largest automobile traffic switching operation in the United States. Other yards include Burnham, Calumet City, Alsip, Argo, LaGrange, Rose, Norpaul, Whiting, Michigan Avenue, and Lakefront.
Since the 1970s, the IHB has operated an extensive interlocking tower system including: East End, Osbourne, Calumet, State Line, Gibson, Stewart Avenue, Graselli, 55th Street and Argo towers. Switch tenders are located at North Harvey and Columbia Avenue. IHB also took over State Line tower from the Chicago and Western Indiana Railroad.
Hammond is a city in Lake County, Indiana, United States. It is part of the Chicago metropolitan area, and the only city in Indiana to border Chicago. First settled in the mid-19th century, it is one of the oldest cities of northern Lake County. As of the 2020 United States census, it is also the largest in population. The 2020 population was 77,879, replacing Gary as the most populous city in Lake County. From north to south, Hammond runs from Lake Michigan down to the Little Calumet River; from east to west along its southern border, it runs from the Illinois state line to Cline Avenue. The city is traversed by numerous railroads and expressways, including the South Shore Line, Borman Expressway, and Indiana Toll Road. Notable local landmarks include the parkland around Wolf Lake and the Horseshoe Hammond riverboat casino. Part of the Rust Belt, Hammond has been industrial almost from its inception, but is also home to a Purdue University campus and numerous historic districts that showcase the residential and commercial architecture of the early 20th century.
The Soo Line Railroad is one of the primary United States railroad subsidiaries for the CPKC Railway, one of six U.S. Class I railroads, controlled through the Soo Line Corporation. Although it is named for the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railroad (MStP&SSM), which was commonly known as the Soo Line after the phonetic spelling of Sault, it was formed in 1961 by the consolidation of that company with two other CPKC subsidiaries: The Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railway, and the Wisconsin Central Railway. It is also the successor to other Class I railroads, including the Minneapolis, Northfield and Southern Railway and the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. On the other hand, a large amount of mileage was spun off in 1987 to Wisconsin Central Ltd., now part of the Canadian National Railway. The Soo Line Railroad and the Delaware and Hudson Railway, CPKC's other major subsidiary, presently do business as the Canadian Pacific Railway (CP). Most equipment has been repainted into the CP scheme, but the U.S. Surface Transportation Board groups all of the company's U.S. subsidiaries under the Soo Line name for reporting purposes. The Minneapolis headquarters are in the Canadian Pacific Plaza building, having moved from the nearby Soo Line Building.
The Grand Trunk Western Railroad Company was an American subsidiary of the Grand Trunk Railway, later of the Canadian National Railway operating in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Since a corporate restructuring in 1971, the railroad has been under CN's subsidiary holding company, the Grand Trunk Corporation. Grand Trunk Western's routes are part of CN's Michigan Division. Its primary mainline between Chicago and Port Huron, Michigan serves as a connection between railroad interchanges in Chicago and rail lines in eastern Canada and the Northeastern United States. The railroad's extensive trackage in Detroit and across southern Michigan has made it an essential link for the automotive industry as a hauler of parts and automobiles from manufacturing plants.
The Belt Railway Company of Chicago, headquartered in Bedford Park, Illinois, is the largest switching terminal railroad in the United States. It is co-owned by six Class I railroads — BNSF, Canadian National, CPKC, CSX, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific — each of which uses the switching and interchange facilities of the BRC. Owner lines and other railroads bring their trains to the Belt Railway to be separated, classified, and re-blocked into new trains for departure. The BRC also provides rail terminal services to approximately 100 local manufacturing industries. The company employs about 440 people, including its own police force.
The Michigan Central Railroad was originally incorporated in 1846 to establish rail service between Detroit, Michigan, and St. Joseph, Michigan. The railroad later operated in the states of Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois in the United States and the province of Ontario in Canada. After about 1867 the railroad was controlled by the New York Central Railroad, which later became part of Penn Central and then Conrail. After the 1998 Conrail breakup, Norfolk Southern Railway now owns much of the former Michigan Central trackage.
The Chicago and Western Indiana Railroad was the owner of Dearborn Station in Chicago and the trackage leading to it. It was owned equally by five of the railroads using it to reach the terminal, and kept those companies from needing their own lines into the city. With the closure of Dearborn Station in 1971 and the Calumet steel mills in 1985, the railroad was gradually downgraded until 1994 when it became a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Corporation.
The Porter Subdivision is a railroad line owned by CSX Transportation in the Chicago, Illinois, area. Formerly a part of the main line of the Michigan Central Railroad, it now connects CSX's former Baltimore and Ohio Railroad line and the Chicago Fort Wayne and Eastern Railroad from the east with the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad towards Blue Island, Illinois.
The Indiana Rail Road is a United States Class II railroad, originally operating over former Illinois Central Railroad trackage from Newton, Illinois, to Indianapolis, Indiana, a distance of 155 miles (249 km). This line, now known as the Indiana Rail Road's Indianapolis Subdivision, comprises most of the former IC/ICG line from Indianapolis to Effingham, Illinois; Illinois Central successor Canadian National Railway retains the portion from Newton to Effingham. INRD also owns a former Milwaukee Road line from Terre Haute, Indiana, to Burns City, Indiana, with trackage rights extending to Chicago, Illinois. INRD no longer serves Louisville, Kentucky, and the Port of Indiana on the Ohio River at Jeffersonville, Indiana, through a haulage agreement with the Louisville & Indiana Railroad (LIRC).
The Gateway Eastern Railway is a railroad subsidiary of the Kansas City Southern Railway (KCS), owning a 17-mile (27 km) main line between East Alton and East St. Louis, Illinois, United States. Originally created in 1994 as a subsidiary of the Gateway Western Railway, which acquired the East St. Louis-Kansas City line of the Chicago, Missouri and Western Railway in 1990, it was acquired by KCS along with its parent in 1997.
Interstate 94 (I-94) is a part of the Interstate Highway System that runs from Billings, Montana, to Port Huron, Michigan. I-94 enters Indiana from Illinois in the west, in Munster, and runs generally eastward through Hammond, Gary, and Portage, before entering Michigan northeast of Michigan City. The Interstate runs for approximately 45.8 miles (73.7 km) through the state. The landscape traversed by I-94 includes urban areas of Northwest Indiana, wooded areas, and farmland. The section of I-94 between the Illinois state line and Lake Station is named the Frank Borman Expressway.
The Kankakee Belt Route is the nickname for the Illinois Division of the New York Central Railroad, which extended from South Bend, Indiana, through Kankakee, Illinois, and westward to Zearing, Illinois. This line was sometimes referred to as the "3 I Line", in reference to a corporate predecessor, the "Indiana, Illinois & Iowa Railroad". That portion of the line west of Kankakee to Moronts, Illinois, roughly parallels the Illinois River in Northern Illinois and was used, in large part, to transport corn toward eastern markets. See Kankakee Outwash Plain
The Chicago, Ft. Wayne & Eastern Railroad is a short line railroad offering service from Tolleston, Indiana to Crestline, Ohio, United States over the former Fort Wayne Line of the Pennsylvania Railroad. It began operations in 2004 as a division of the Central Railroad of Indianapolis (CERA), under the overall corporate ownership of RailAmerica. CFE operates 273 miles (439 km) of rail leased from CSX.
North Township is one of 11 townships in Lake County, Indiana. As of the 2010 census, its population was 162,855 and it contained 67,828 housing units.
Franklin Park is one of two stations on Metra's Milwaukee District West Line in Franklin Park, Illinois. The station is 13.2 miles (21.2 km) away from Chicago Union Station, the eastern terminus of the line. In Metra's zone-based fare system, Franklin Park is in zone C. As of 2018, Franklin Park is the 123rd busiest of Metra's 236 non-downtown stations, with an average of 392 weekday boardings.
The Calumet River Railway built a 4-mile (6.4 km) rail line in Chicago, serving industries on the east side of the Calumet River. The company was incorporated on March 5, 1883, and completed the line on September 16, 1895. From opening, it was operated by the Pennsylvania Company, which also operated the lines to which it connected - the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway near 100th Street in South Chicago and the South Chicago and Southern Railroad near 132nd Street in Hegewisch. On February 5, 1901, the Calumet River Railway was merged into the South Chicago and Southern Railroad. The lease was transferred from the Pennsylvania Company to parent Pennsylvania Railroad on January 1, 1918, and to the Penn Central Transportation Company in 1968. In 1954 the South Chicago and Southern Railroad was merged into the Penndel Company, and in 1976 ownership and operation of the line was acquired by the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail).
The Chicago Junction Railway operated a switching and terminal railroad in Chicago, connecting the Union Stock Yards with most other railroads in the city. It also briefly operated an outer belt, which became the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad in 1907. The New York Central Railroad acquired control of the company in 1922 and leased it to subsidiary Chicago River and Indiana Railroad. The line is now owned and operated by the Norfolk Southern Railway.
The Chicago and Milwaukee Subdivision is a 85.5-mile (137.6 km) railway line running between Chicago, Illinois and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is mostly dispatched by Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited from a CP Rail facility in Minneapolis. From Pacific Junction to Chicago Union Station, it is dispatched by Metra's Consolidated Control Facility. The C&M Subdivision is the primary of CPKC's two northern routes from Chicago. The Union Pacific Railroad operates its Milwaukee Subdivision, a former Chicago & Northwestern Railway line, parallel to the C&M.
The Vandalia Railroad Company was incorporated January 1, 1905, by a merger of several lines in Indiana and Illinois that formed a 471-mile railroad consisting of lines mostly west of Indianapolis.
The Freeport Subdivision is a railroad line in Illinois which runs from 16th Street in downtown Chicago to Freeport, Illinois. It is owned and operated by the Canadian National Railway (CN). As of 2016 the line is almost exclusively freight-only, with only a small segment within Chicago, between 21st Street in Chinatown and Ashland Avenue in Bridgeport, hosting Amtrak and Metra passenger trains.
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