The building of the Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal and the dredging and widening of the Main Stem and South Branch of the Chicago River provided enough flow of water from Lake Michigan to flush the sewage and industrial wastes in those bodies of water towards the Gulf of Mexico. But the North Branch did not have a strong enough flow of water to flush it. So the MWRD built the North Shore Channel from where it turns west north to the lake at Wilmette. This provides a strong flow to flush the output of the Lawrence Avenue Pumping Station that is just a couple blocks south of the terminus of the channel.
To regulate the level of the channel, and consequently the North Branch, a pumping station and lock was completed under Sheridan Road in 1912. For years I have wondered why they built such a long channel to the north rather than a short channel to the east because the level of the lake doesn't change as they go north. When I saw the date of 1912, it occurred to me that the land further from the lake would still be undeveloped. If they dug the channel to the east, they would have had to purchase a lot of developed land along the lake shore.
MWRD posted A view to the southwest from Wilmette Harbor showing the Wilmette Pumping Station, lock and Sheridan Road Bridge on May 5, 1926.
Looking towards the lake, under Sheridan Road, we see the pumping station on the left and the lock(s) on the right. On the far right is the Baha'i House of Worship.
Screenshot from a MWRD video. Note that, except for the first sentence, the YouTube comment is for another facility.
It was rebuilt in 2012 for $17.5 million. Since they discovered since 1912 that four pumps were not needed, only two pumps were replaced. The other two tunnels are now used just for water flow. They have grates to prevent the Asian Carp from migrating into the lake in case the electric dispersal barrier down by 135th street fails. [SlidePlayer, Slide 4] But I never figured out what is supposed to prevent the carp from going through the locks when the lock gates open. The 30' wide lock was replaced with three diversion tunnels. (Another source said it was three 10' locks, but it looks like that source was wrong.)
Unfortunately, there was a significant rainfall event, and thus river flooding, during the construction.
WGNTV Flooding causes a breach of the locks under Sheridan Road in Wilmette, overwhelming construction at the rehabilitation of the diversion pumps at the Wilmette Pump Station. (Chris Walker, Chicago Tribune, April 18, 2013)
A video describing the facility after its rebuild. (Skip to the professional voiceover.) The narration at 5:10 says the gates provide fish migration. This drives me nuts every time I hear it because the purpose has to be to prohibit fish migration, specifically the Asian Carp.
Because any remaining old style signals are going to soon be replaced to implement Positive Train Control, some railfans are taking pictures of the signals instead of trains. B&O and Pennsy were the two railroads that had their own unique design of signal heads. I have already covered Pennsy's yellow light positional design . This is looking south along the former B&O branch line (Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton) in Deshler, OH . The tracks just on the other side of the depot is the former B&O mainline to Chicago. Both of these routes are now CSX. 20151101 5338,cropped I cropped the above picture to make it a little easier to see that the horizontal red lights really are lit up. Also, you can see in the lower left corner that the signal head for southbound traffic on the southeast quadrant has a stop aspect. I stepped to the side for the closeup because I was trying to reduce the effect of the sun that was still rather high in the sky. What I inadvertently did was dem...
( Bridge Hunter , Historic Bridges , HAER , Satellite ) P&LE = Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad Photo from HAER PA,4-BEAV,1--1 from pa3716 One of 26 images posted by Mike Brady [Many of the images show the stresses calculated for each member of the truss.] Pictures are of the original Stress sheet of the P&LE cantilever bridge at Monaca - Beaver PA . Appears to be drawn on vellum type paper using a ink well pen. All of the math about the bridge is here. Live load,dead load, impact load and wind load Date is Jan. 31, 1908. Bought this on eBay around 20 years ago. Was unaware at the time of purchase of what I was getting. Wow, when I actually received it. Total calculated design load on one of the main bearings is 11,994.000 or 12 million pounds or ( 6 thousand tons). One of 26 images posted by Mike Brady Photo taken by Bob Harris in May 2012 from Bridge Hunter ( new window ) Mark Arnold posted five photos with the comment: " CSX's Ohio River cross...
( 3D Satellite ) I can't believe I drove right past this bridge when I went to the Hollywood Casino to get photos of Sam M. Fleming 's tow. Sydney Lane posted three photos with the comment: South of Joliet, Illinois just off Rt6 at the Johns Manville plant is this turn bridge that crosses the historic and now abandoned I & M canal. Though functional in the era of mule towed barges, it sets welded in place. It is still used today as an industrial spur line. It was Elgin Joliet and Eastern in my memory but I think it may be Canadian Northern now. The historic Illinois and Michigan canal linking Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River closed around 1930 when the current I&M opened to much larger barge traffic. Dennis DeBruler The industrial lead goes north to what was the Rock Island. This part of the Rock Island route is now controlled by CSX. 1 2 3 Sydney must have caught after some heavy rains. This satellite image is probably or more normal flow in the canal. 3D sat...
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