Pardon me boy, is that the Harbor Belt choo-choo?
Jerry Banik, March, 2022
They’ve been workin’ on the railroad—all the livelong, last hundred-and-twenty-five years or so—on a railroad of particular importance to our local industrial economy. Below you’ll find a carload of fascinating photos, most of them from the archives of the Library of Congress, showing us what it was like to work on a freight railroad in 1943.
But before the photos, a little bit of background on the Harbor Belt, and an apology to Glenn Miller and Tex Beneke for having doctored the lyrics above from their classic 1940s tune.
A portion of an IHB print advertisement from 1910.
Belt line and terminal line railroads are short line railroad operations in and/or around a city. They interchange car load shipments with larger, trunk line railroads that handle long distance, through traffic.
In the late 1800s, as more and more long-distance railroad lines ran through the Calumet Region and maneuvered for connections, the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad, or IHB, got its start.
It was chartered in 1896 as the Chicago, Hammond and Western Railroad, serving the needs of the livestock business and the local meat packers in Hammond. For a while the G.H. Hammond Meat Packing Company held a majority interest in the rail line.
As it grew, it merged with two other lines and was renamed the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad in 1907, when it came under the control of the New York Central system.
Eventually the IHB became the largest true belt line in the country.
Its main line ran just 40 miles, from Hammond to Franklin Park, Illinois, but with all of its connecting lines and sidings, it maintained 561 total miles of track. As its slogan states, the IHB truly did connect with all Chicago railroads.
A local portion of an IHB map showing two routes through Whiting and Robertsdale in 1909.
Locally, one IHB line ran south from the major trunk lines on Whiting and Robertsdale’s Lake Michigan shoreline to a station at Roby, primarily to serve the Western Glucose Company (later to become American Maize and still later, Cargill). The line continued on south, down the causeway that runs through Wolf Lake, and on to the East-West trunk lines that run through downtown Hammond.
Another stretch of IHB track ran south from Whiting’s Standard Oil refinery, then curved west along the north shore of George Lake, bending behind what would later become Clark High School’s football field, and down to a junction just off Sheffield Avenue. At the Sheffield station the two lines met and continued into Hammond.
Our present day Whiting Lakefront and George Lake walking trails were built on right of ways for that now abandoned stretch of IHB track.
Today, in The Region, the IHB still operates yards at the Cargill plant in Roby, at the BP refinery in Whiting, in East Chicago (near the former Youngstown Sheet & Tube mill, where it primarily services the steel industry), in Burnham (adjacent to North Hammond near Pulaski Park), in Hammond (the Gibson Yards), in Calumet City (confusingly, referred to as Calumet Park), and other nearby locations on both sides of the state line.
Locations of these yards are shown here. The IHB’s largest yard is in Blue Island, Illinois.
Now, on to the pictures.
Between 1939 and 1944, the U.S. government's Office of War Information took thousands of photos of life in these United States. Some of those images depict aspects of World War II mobilization, including factories and railroads. As a result, nearly eighty years later, we can enjoy scenes from 1943 of the men and machines of the IHB at work. In the pictures below, the captions in quotation marks and italics are taken directly from the OWI’s own descriptions.
Climb aboard! You may spot someone you know.
And, if you like, allow Glenn Miller’s 1941 hit to take you back in time as you scroll through the images.
The clock says it’s twenty ‘til twelve, so this must be the start of the graveyard shift. “The engine crew, engineer and fireman report at the roundhouse office to be assigned their engine and given orders for the day. The cylinder at the left is the pool board; it lists the names of the men and the order and shift in which they will work.”
“Getting his way bills, Conductor Cunningham telephones his own yard-master the number of cars he has to handle and where the delivery is to be made.” Check out the potbelly stove, the candlestick phone on a wall-mounted scissors extension arm, and the stretcher cabinet, which hopefully didn’t need to be opened much.
The YMCA had a facility at the Harbor Belt yard in Hammond. Here is “Mr. Timothy H. Fitzpatrick, sixty-eight, who has been living at the railroad YMCA for many years. He has been working on the railroads off and on for over fifty years. He has also been a coal miner, farmer, and is a generator tender at the Gibson shops of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad.”
“Fireman Larry Adams.” Railroads were still in the process of replacing steam locomotives with diesel power in 1943. This steam locomotive used coal fires to boil water to create the steam, and the fireman had to keep the coal coming as needed.
“The crew leaves with instructions to pick up a train. It is a cold winter day and the first thing the brakeman Zerkel does is to build a good fire in the stove.”
“In the background, his train starts to pull out and head-man Lee Hines throws switch to clear the track.” Track 29, perhaps? Many photos in this collection appear to indicate this train made a round trip between Franklin Park, Illinois and Hammond.
“While the train is waiting at Calumet City due to a derailed car somewhere ahead on the line, a switchman drops in for a few minutes to warm up a little.” Notice the one-legged table that folds down from the wall when needed.
“Belt Line cabooses never go long distances or at very high speeds and are therefore constructed differently from trunk line cabooses. The crew stops twenty minutes for dinner.”
“The ice plant, icing platform and yard of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad at Blue Island.”
“Refrigerator cars waiting to be iced at the icing station of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad. The station could ice up to forty reefer cars simultaneously. The little carts on the platform are used for carrying the crushed ice up and down the platform and dumping it down the chutes into the cars.”
Dumping ice into a refrigerator car at the icing platform of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad.
The IHB Calumet City yard was also confusingly referred to as the Calumet Park livestock yards. “A stock watering, feeding and resting point. The law requires that stock be watered, fed, and rested every thirty-six hours of a journey.”
“Calumet City, Illinois. Sheep being loaded into a stock car at the Calumet Park stockyards.”
“Daniel Senise at lunch in the work shanty at an Indiana Harbor Belt Line railroad yard. With him are (left) switchman John McCarthy and (right) switchman E.H. Alrecht.” Nothing fancy — a sandwich, a cup o’ joe and newspapers for a tablecloth.
“Daniel Senise releasing a pin on a moving car at work in an Indiana Harbor Belt Line railroad yard.” It’s unlikely OSHA would approve of this technique today.
“After the delivery to the Erie railroad, the crew heads back. The caboose will now be going in the opposite direction so rear brakeman Zerkel changes the signal lights to the other end.”
“Lester Gale (left), signal maintainer on the Indiana Harbor Belt railroad, and Charles Cornetta, railroad mail clerk, having dinner in the cafeteria of the railroad YMCA.”
“Daniel Senise and his crew with their engine in an Indiana Harbor Belt Line railroad yard. Left to right: Daniel Senise, switchman, conductor and foreman; Edward Kletecka, fireman; F.K. Gwinner, engineer; E.H. Albercht, switchman and John McCarthy, switchman.”
“Part of the train inspection consists in seeing that all air hose connections are properly made.”
“Part of the train inspection consists of releasing the hand brakes.”
You’ve got to have water if you want to make steam. “Locomotive stopping for water on its way back to Franklin Park, Illinois after having made a delivery at Hammond, Indiana.”
“At lunch time, sandwiches are toasted on the stove.”
The Blue Island yard had icing facilities for refrigerated shipments. Here’s a look inside the IHB’s Blue Island ice storehouse. It could produce up to 1,000 tons daily.
The Blue Island IHB ice storehouse had a storage capacity of almost 15,000 tons.
The Blue Island icing station. The brick building on the left side of this image sent crushed ice via a chute to carts on the icing platform.
During World War II, through the Lend-Lease program, America supplied Allied nations with food, oil, and materiel. These are barrels of powdered eggs in IHB cold storage, awaiting shipment overseas.
“Members of a section crew riding a hand car at an Indiana Harbor Belt Line railroad yard.”
“Calumet City, Illinois. Unloading horses at the Calumet Park stockyards.”
“Calumet City, Illinois. Watering hogs at the Calumet Park stockyards.”
“The train arrives at the yard and the brakeman Zerkel stays with the last car of the train as the caboose is cut off.” Stencils on the crate the brakeman is hanging on to tell us it contains ‘Search light power plant model 1942; manufactured by United States Motor Corporation, Oshkosh, Wisconsin”, and it was enroute to Brooklyn, NY.