Dear All:
I grew up in Berwyn (1958 model), and my dad worked at EMD across the tracks from the Reynolds Aluminum plant.
I want to have an aluminum facility on my home railroad, and I loosely want to model the activities that went on at Reynolds.
From what I have read on line, this facility was put up during WWII. The plant trackage was switched either by the IHB or the B&OCT (not sure of this, but the aged memory seems to recall a B&O switcher there once). The EMD plant was / still is switched by IHB for as long as I can remember. It appears that Santa Fe also had access to switch this plant, but I can't ever remember seeing them doing so.
The facility was a primary and secondary processor of Aluminum, and one of the largest power consumers in the Chicago area. They cast huge aluminum billets, which I assume were both consumed at the McCook facility, and possibly also transported to other Reynolds plants. Their aluminum was used for cans, autos, airplanes, and military applications.
So, now the questions:
- In the early 1950s, does anybody know if this plant received bauxite, or alumina?
- How was it shipped in? For the early 1950s, I am assuming in box cars, and then in covered hoppers when it became more commonplace.
- Any idea how many cars of raw material they received in a week?
- I remember seeing a huge amount of box cars getting loaded off of 47th street, with what I'm assuming would have been coiled aluminum, but did they also ship out ingots?
- Anybody remember if structural aluminum was shipped in gondolas?
- Did they have their own in-plant switcher? If so, can anybody point me to a pic?
Following is a link to aerial photographs and topographical mapes from Historic Aerials for if this helps jog anybody's memory:
http://www.historicaerials.com...227051&year=2007
Thanks in advance for any information you can provide on this facility.
Regards,
Jerry
