Illinois

Grand Trunk Western
Blue Island, Illinois (Blue Island Crossing)
July 26, 1971




The Grand Trunk Western (generally better known as simply the Grand Trunk) runs from Port Huron, Michigan to Chicago, Illinois, with a branch to Detroit, providing a Chicago connection for the Canadian National as well as carrying a healthy load of automobile parts and finished automobiles. Originally a subsidiary of Canada's famed Grand Trunk Railway, it escaped nationalization when the Grand Trunk, Canadian Northern and National Transcontinental railways were folded into Canadian National in 1919, due to provisions of U.S. law. It is wholly owned by CN, however, and these units carry the CN paint scheme current at the time, complete with its rather alarming striping, with the "noodle" CN logo replaced by a similar GT one, and here seen at Blue Island Crossing in the southern Chicago area.

Incidentally, the tower seen at the left of the slide is sometimes misidentified as the Blue Island Crossing tower; in reality it is a highway crossing watchman's tower.




This page posted 2/1/2018. Text and photo ©2018 Lamont Downs.