Updated December 25th, 2018
Otto, IL
Otto was sanctioned off on December 11th, 1855 from Limestone and Aroma townships. By townships, I refer to how Kankakee County is divided, and in fact, Otto has no actual downtown or town to it. This is one of the seven townships in current existence; this is shown if you ever visit Chebanse, IL. Chebanse is one of the southern-most towns in Kankakee County that is half on the border of Kankakee/Iroquois County that contains Otto Township Fire Department. Otto’s name is best known on the railroad as a point of the Illinois Central railroad where there was a yard on the Chicago District (referred to occasionally, or early on, as the South Kankakee Yards) and as a location of a wye that starts the Bloomington District that heads straight west to Buckingham, IL before turning southwest towards Bloomington/Normal, IL. Currently, that is spur that ends in Herscher, IL; the next town east of Buckingham, IL. Otto is Mile Post 60.3 on the 2010 CN Chicago Division timetable.
Signaling
As with the Illinois Central in general, the area had gantry signaling with US&S equipment. Today, the signals have recently been removed and replaced with Safetran wayside LED signals. Images are available on the homepage. No longer are there any overhead gantry signaling at Otto anymore.
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Track Layout in Otto
Otto is home to a good deal of rail structure and design. The area is still used for holding cars and switching to this day and has crossovers and holding points for trains north and south. The area switches were controlled by Otto tower. A few tracks were removed, I will be showing a Google Earth overlay to illustrate this below, first though, a track chart of the area supplied by Skip Luke. Included are track charts from the Chicago District chart [dated 1957] (shows more accuracy on the mainline) and the Bloomington District [dated 1923] (shows more accuracy on the Herscher branch):
Note, below are images by Google. I own nothing, but use this for reference to illustrate location of tracks.
Blue lines are current rail placement. Red is abandoned rail placement that I can confirm was there from chart. Grey is rail placement that makes sense and logically was there, but cannot confirm at the moment.
Blue lines are current rail placement. Red is abandoned rail placement that I can confirm was there from chart. Grey is rail placement that makes sense and logically was there, but cannot confirm at the moment.
Trains & Otto Tower
The main traffic through Otto is the usual freights and 6 Amtrak trains through the CN Chicago Subdivision and the Herscher branch which leads to the Lehigh Quarry of Vulcan (west of Kankakee, in Lehigh, IL). The Kankakee switcher (CN R960/R961) will come down to pull or spot a few cars and the Markham Local (a more frequent visitor) will also do the same.
To date, the tower remains. It is the only tower left along the IC Chicago District besides Ashkum and the once Metra-owned tower in Homewood, IL tower. The signals have since been cut over and installed. See updated images below.
Updated Images as of Christmas 2018...
Since the last edit to this page the CN railroad has finished cutting over and installing PTC at Otto. This installation and upgrade included removal of all the old signal hardware and replacing it with updated LED “vader” styled signals that are offset and more compact compared to the spread-out gantries IC has originally installed. The CTC signs are still in the same spots and operationally the area is the same. The only big difference is CN adopts a flashing red aspect for restricted, but I am unsure if this has changed anything in this area. Illinois Central themselves have gone between lunars and flashing red, older installations tending to be lunars for restricting aspects. A restricting aspect is given in this area due to the dark territory the wye leads to that is the “Otto Branch”. This projected included a new floodlight near the tower and antenna equipment for the PTC communications. Each image has a caption to explain the particular subject.
Video
Resources
- "Otto Township, Kankakee County, Illinois." . Wikipedia, 29 Nov. 2013. Web. 5 Aug. 2014. <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Township,_Kankakee_County,_Illinois>.
- 2010 Canadian National Chicago Division Timetable
- Skip Luke, graciously provided the track charts.