'Two bandits humpin' slow' at Bensenville, 10/1996
This video, recorded Oct. 2, 1996, mid-afternoon, is of the waning days of the former Milwaukee Road Railroad (now CPKC) hump and classification yard at Bensenville, IL (15-17 miles west of downtown Chicago). The VHS tape pretty much captures the sights and sounds, especially from a locomotive engineer's perspective, of a typical day of grabbing long cuts of freight cars, pulling them ahead (west) and then shoving them (east) on the hump lead track slowly at about 1.0-1.5 mph to be gravity dropped from the 20 ft. high crest of the hump into the classification yard tracks below.
A little over a month after this was recorded, a new hump (much lower in elevation), hump tower and a classification yard with 34 tracks would replace what was seen here. The older hump first went into operation in the summer of 1953 and originally had 70 classification tracks with capacity ranging from 52 to 102 cars each track (at a time when the average freight car length was 40 ft. long). Total classification yard capacity was 5,311 cars. 33 of the tracks were operated as a westbound classification yard and 37 tracks as a combination eastbound classification and departure yard for transfer movements. At the time of this video (1996), the yard was down to about 30 remaining tracks.
One interesting fact is when the Bensenville hump facility became operational in 1953, it was considered the world's largest and most modern, freight car, classification yard employing retarders and equipped with retarder speed control and automatic switching.
This hump yard used air operated retarders that were manufactured by the Union Switch & Signal Co. of Swissvale, PA (once part of the Westinghouse Co.). These retarders, controlled from a single manned "A" tower (there was also a "B" tower when the yard had its original 70 tracks), literally grabbed the sides of the wheels of freight cars to slow their speed as they gravity dropped from the crest of the hump. A dragging equipment detector was in use on the hump lead for added safety. Also, at one time on the lead, freight car wheel journals were oiled. Hot lubricating oil used to be sprayed into the journal boxes previously opened. This oiling practice came to an end as sealed wheel roller bearings largely replaced the older brass wheel bearings/journals.
The orange and black hump locomotives are EMD (Electro Motive Division (General Motors)) MP15AC units. Soo Line MP15AC, SOO 1556 was originally built in 1975 as Milwaukee Road, MILW 490. The trailing unit, 1551, was also built in 1975 as MILW 485. These and other former Milwaukee Road locomotives became known as "bandits" to some when their "Milwaukee Road" titles on the sides of the engines were painted over with black paint and replaced with "SOO" on the sides of the cab and a new engine number.
And "yes indeedy," that's Jim K., the "Birdman" expertly running the whole show from the top of the hump tower! Other Bensenville based, yard workers heard and/or seen in this video include Ed L., John B. (("J.B.!"), "don't take my picture!"), Bobby G., Danny M., Vince R., Mike K., Dave F. (engineer briefly seen running the other humper set), Roger (discussing making money) and finally Otis J., ("O.P."), the yard foreman on the 15:30 (3:30 PM) hump job I was working. There you have it!