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April 1943. "Tracks at Chicago & North Western railroad's Proviso yard, Chicago." Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. View full size.
I worked night shift in the Burlington's Clyde hump yard in Chicago back when I was in college.
Once you get the sounds in your head on a quiet night, it never goes away. I can still hear it 55 years later.
I grew up less than a mile south of the yard in the '50s and '60s. Fond memories of hearing them move cars from one train to another on a warm summer night.
The great Yellow Rail Controversy of aught eight.
Those of you born after 1974 ... go ask your grandparents.
The tracks really do come together in the distance.
Where the tracks are paved with gold.
... you can just make out Boxcar Willie practicing. (btw, that's a really cool photo ... talk about vanishing points)
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