75th St Chicago

Also known as Forest Hill crossing, this was one of the last manual interlockings in the Chicago area. Originally built in 1894 with a 132 lever frame, it protected the crossing of four routes, the Wabash and Belt Railway of Chicago running east-west and the PRR Panhandle line (P.C.C. & St.L.) and the B&O Chicago Terminal running north-south. There were connecting tracks and associated crossovers from the BRC to both B&O and PRR lines in the north quadrants. The PRR tracks were removed after Conrail, accounting for the missing levers in the interior views. Even with the PRR gone, it remained a busy location, averaging 100 moves a day, mostly freight and transfer moves from all the major Chicago RR's except IHB, and passenger trains on the ex-Wabash were operated by METRA.

When all 4 routes were still there, it was a veritable signal museum, with searchlight and traffic light type color light signals, PRR Position Light signals, B&O Color Position Lights, and manually operated mast and dwarf semaphores, switches and catch points. It was also unusual in using curved deflecting bars to turn operating motion at right angles instead of the more usual bell cranks. The tower was closed in November 1997, remoted to CSX dispatchers, and the building was demolished in 1998.

My thanks to the operator for inviting me up into the tower. He had the strongest coffee I've ever tasted. "I never make it fresh, I just add more on top" The pot looked like a bucket of road tar.

Video from three visits in 1994 and 1995.