Schiller Park

Does anyone know how CP gets to Schiller Park? I’ve looked on their website at the maps and it seems strange to me.

To get to Schiller Park from the north/Canada, do they use CN trackage (seems more direct) or UP trackage (seems like a big end run around O’Hare).

Whatever the case is, I also have trouble finding where the CP tracks actually join either the CN or UP tracks to facilitate that move. In Lake and Cook Counties, I’m seeming diamonds-not turnouts-where they intersect. The CP website looks like trackage rights on the UP and then joining CP tracks south of O’Hare which is okay to get to Bensenville. But I can’t figure out how to get to Schiller without some weird reverse move from comIng back up from the south.

I’m from IL originally and would like to understand this to inform my next layout. It would probably be easy to just camp out near Schiller for the day and see how this works. But I’m in the Army and stationed in Japan right now, so I’m pretty much limited to what I can see on the internet.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.


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I moved away from Chicagoland 40+ years ago and a LOT has changed, but the CP map you found shows CP (what I knew as MILW) connecting from the south at Franklin Park's Tower B12 using CN (what I knew as SOO and EJ&E) north to Schiller Park.

True, B12's interlocking layout is not convenient for this movement, but that kind of thing is surprisingly common. What I can't figure is why CP maintains an intermodal terminal at Schiller when their very large Bensenville Yard intermodal facility is so close by. Maybe they have a capacity need. I do see a CP automotive ramp at Schiller and there's not one at Bensenville.

 

Yes!!! this is exactly what is confusing me. I saw this map, but when I try to follow along on Google Maps, I’m not certain how to get north towards Schiller Park. If I have my power in the front and I’m coming from Bensonville (or points north or west, which is where I think that intermodal/autorack traffic probably originates if it isn’t stopping at Bensenville ) then based on what I can see on Google Maps for tracks I think I have to do one of two things

1) Turn south at Franklin Park, head south to clear that intersection, and then “push” back north toward Schiller (I can’t see the run around-I might be missing it)
Or
2) Keep heading east and then “push” back west and north toward Schiller (Again- I can’t see the run around-I might be missing it).

Bensenville looks straightforward-pull in from the west, and then do a runaround with the power when it’s time to go east.

But Schiller-if CP only has trackage rights from the south like I think the map shows-seems like a pretty big pain in the behind. If thats prototypical for Schiller, then that answers my question. I just assumed that there they (CP) have a better, more efficient way that I can’t see from out here.


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I think I was posting while you were editing. I see the autorack stuff too. Looks new. It isn’t there in 3D Google Map view and it wasn’t there on Google Maps a couple months ago when I looked last before tonight.

There were a couple of web results that looked like in the last few years CP needed more capacity and made Schiller more than just container storage due to that need.

So do you think they do that one of those “push” moves?


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Most modelers don't drill down to that kind of exacting operational detail. Your best bet would be to perhaps review or join a Chicago area Facebook group or two and ask. If they're like the Facebook groups in my area, there are members that have an astonishing knowledge of routes, train numbers, schedules, consists and even locomotive assignments.

 

Could be. I've seen quite a few "don't try this at home" routine shoves with long trains on curves and grades, just another day on the job for experienced crews. What we don't know is CP's volume on this route, inconsequential or of vital importance.

 

Near as I can tell, it looks like CN owns the north tracks going into/past Schiller but CP doesn’t have trackage rights.

I know this is a strange/exacting detail type question but I’ve been playing around with track plans sketches and am trying to understand what’s prototypical so it can inform sketching. I’m still a year+ from moving back to the US, so I don’t even know what kind of space I will have available to use for a layout there yet. But I can’t keep from sketching out possibilities.


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I've lost track of all of the MILW/Soo/WC/CN/CP transactions that got us to where we are today, but SOO operated both lines until at some point it sold its original line to WC. It's like New England railroading where there have been so many transactions that I don't know who owns what up there.