04-16-2013, 04:31 PM
There is a little progress to report. On the website Memphis Rails (operated by Tom Parker) there is a subcategory entitled IC Track Diagrams. Among them are several for Driving Park, which was north of downtown and was pretty much shared by IC and URY. Driving Park took its name from the early race track located there around the turn of the twentieth century. It quickly turned into a heavily industrialized area more recently known as New Chicago.
There is also on the 'web a first-draft environmental impact statement regarding making approximately 2.4 miles of the abandoned URY along Chelsea Avenue into a "Green Path". It's a hoot to read. If that route ever does get turned into a path, I cannot imagine anyone using it except for urban warfare training with live ammunition. New Chicago is an apt moniker.
URY had its very own Leewood Yard a block away from the CSX nee L&N Leewood Yard, and both function to this day, although nothing like they used to. Going north and west from the URY Leewood Yard, the track currently ends at a large concrete batch plant. It is beyond the concrete plant, beginning between Hollywood and Evergreen Streets the proposed pathway begins. CNIC uses the CSX tracks (parallel to the old URY) between CSX Leewood Yard and Aulon Junction, a distance of approximately 2.7 miles.
I'm still not real clear on when URY ceased operating under its own name, but I believe 1968 was a watershed year. URY was owned by MoPac, and operations were a melange of shared trackage with IC and to a lesser extent Frisco. These days the old URY Leewood Yard is a UP operation, and that is where the Memphis-Little Rock local operates from. Sargent Yard is a very busy interchange between UP, BNSF, and NS.
It's fun trying to piece all this together.
There is also on the 'web a first-draft environmental impact statement regarding making approximately 2.4 miles of the abandoned URY along Chelsea Avenue into a "Green Path". It's a hoot to read. If that route ever does get turned into a path, I cannot imagine anyone using it except for urban warfare training with live ammunition. New Chicago is an apt moniker.
URY had its very own Leewood Yard a block away from the CSX nee L&N Leewood Yard, and both function to this day, although nothing like they used to. Going north and west from the URY Leewood Yard, the track currently ends at a large concrete batch plant. It is beyond the concrete plant, beginning between Hollywood and Evergreen Streets the proposed pathway begins. CNIC uses the CSX tracks (parallel to the old URY) between CSX Leewood Yard and Aulon Junction, a distance of approximately 2.7 miles.
I'm still not real clear on when URY ceased operating under its own name, but I believe 1968 was a watershed year. URY was owned by MoPac, and operations were a melange of shared trackage with IC and to a lesser extent Frisco. These days the old URY Leewood Yard is a UP operation, and that is where the Memphis-Little Rock local operates from. Sargent Yard is a very busy interchange between UP, BNSF, and NS.
It's fun trying to piece all this together.