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Brighton Park was a railroading icon until July, 2007, when this infamous manual interlocking was modernized to remote control operations by NS and Union Pacific. This event triggered the 2007 renovations to my GM&O as I felt that Brighton park just HAD to be modeled!
The Brighton Park section will be the first visible location on the railroad out of staging. It will also feature live connections for interchange jobs with Pennsy, B&O, and Chicago Junction (a subsidiary of NYC).
Some views of Brighton Park as it is in it's final state on the layout!
These four views of Panhandle Crossing and Brighton Park are (top left) looking south at the small yard. The reefers are spotted here for Plochmann's use as well as for perishable shipments south out of Chicago; (top right) looking east along the PRR, B&O, and CJ lines; (bottom left) Panhandle itself; and (bottom right) California Ave. ducks under Brighton Park yard.
Here are photos of the original plant at Brighton Park as well as a couple of shots of the Brighton Park section under construction here! Duane at Tomar Industries is building those great gantried semaphores for us!!!
Here is the Brighton Park domino under construction... (We had run out of 90 degree diamonds at this point!)
This is a close-up of the diamonds, left is "north". The first three tracks are Chicago Junction RR (a subsidiary of NYC/MC), next two are B&OCT, followed by 3 tracks of Pennsy (westbound, eastbound, and finally the "running" track). The right hand picture is taken from what is the north side of the domino. Since installation in its final location on the railroad just outside of upper deck staging, the CJ Connection and the track it connects to have been eliminated.
After several months of no construction on the upper deck we got things in gear
in early March, '08. The goal was to get Chicago Staging connected to the rest
of the railroad. We re-thought the position of "always standing on the west side
of the track" and the bad curve associated with the previous positioning on
Brighton Park. The good news out of this is that we NOW have a coach yard and
businesses at Brighton Park and some opportunities for creative city-scapes. To
that end, here are the most recent pictures of the Brighton Park LD in it's NEW
final location.
Main lines are now connected completely across the railroad and trains are going/coming from Chicago Staging (Union Station). The next stage will get to extend the PRR/B&O/CJ tracks in the proper curvature (from the prototype) which will allow true interchange at Brighton Park!!!
California Avenue underpass with the correct bilboard slogan! Note the street front is lower than track height. I took several old buildings, trimmed them to a reasonable size and then used ACC to attach them to the narrow fasica board. The unpainted area below the bridge will have a color photo trimmed to fit showing street traffic under the bridge. The bridge wings are Walther art-deco underpass. The girder plate is from a deck girder bridge kit.
Looking southward from the Rockwell St. Bridge on the left photo. Notice that the local customers are apparently quite busy and it's a little humid today judging from the output from the many smokestacks in the area! The right photo is the north side of the manual interlocking and shows the GM&O signals. The CPL is operated by the Bridgeport operator admitting trains to that segment of trackage. The oddball semaphore is the GM&O Southward/CJ Westward manual signal which is operated by the Brighton Park block operator. The next four pictures are the billboard bridge sides I've recently added (03/08) and the street front as well as the northward view toward Bridgeport and Chicago Staging.
