Trains and tractors
JERRY FISHER: RACINE, WI; SEPT. 13, 1947
Duplex car 1184-1185 (above) zips past the J.I. Case Tractor Works on a private right-of-way that was sandwiched between Sheridan Road and the C&NW mainline. The M-R-K (Milwaukee-Racine- Kenosha) Rapid Transit line crossed the C&NW spur into the plant just north of this location. It was protected by a simple swing arm
threshers and implements at the Main Works in downtown Racine. A sepa- rate, high-capacity production facility was needed to build the new line of four-cylinder gas tractors,
including
models with cross-mounted engines. The massive new South Works plant
was located between the bluffs of Lake Michigan and the Chicago-Milwaukee mainline of the Chicago & North West- ern Railway a few blocks south of the city limits. The 1.4 million square feet of modern plant space included a foundry, forge, heat treating, machine shops, steel fabrication, engine production, as- sembly lines, test facility, wastewater treatment plant, fire department, ware- houses and a shipping area. The foundry’s four massive cupola fur- naces extended through two floors and
AUTHOR’S COLLECTION
gate interlocking. The M-R-K stopped near the plant’s main
gate.The Plymouth switcher (below) from the J.I. Case South Works rests outside C&NW’s Proviso yard roundhouse after being retired. Note the lettering on the cab. The plant was given several names over the years, including “Clausen Works” and “Tractor Works.”
had a daily output of 200 tons. Travel- ling cranes on a huge overhead craneway unloaded scrap steel, coke, and pig iron from gondolas in the yard outside. One side of the foundry floor was open, allowing the overhead cranes to drop charges of pig iron and scrap steel from magnets into the furnaces be- low. Coke, flux and alloys were handled in containers. An overhead monorail system distributed buckets of molten metal to the pouring floor. Foundry sand was shoveled out of boxcars into the basement, where it was combined with reconditioned sand and fed up to the sand slingers to produce molds. Begin- ning in the 1940’s, covered hoppers were used to bring in the foundry sand. Located away from the main build- ings on the edge of the lake bluff, there
was a coal-fired powerhouse where hopper cars (usually L&N from Ken- tucky mines) were spotted for unload- ing. The main smokestack was 225 feet high. There was also a propane unload- ing spur track with horizontal storage tanks placed a safe distance from the plant. A company firehouse stood at the main gate. Two old TMER&L streetcar bodies were placed on the ground inside the turn-around loop to serve as a waiting room at the end of the local streetcar line. The M-R-K (Milwaukee-Racine- Kenosha) interurban line ran past the plant gates and joined the tracks of the streetcars outside the plant for entry into Racine. Initially, the company used their own steam-powered 0-4-0 switch engines for moving freight cars around the plant. Later, until 1970, a small four- wheeled diesel was used. After the company switching locomotive was re- tired, the switch crews of the Chicago & North Western Railway moved freight cars around the plant. This was usually done with one of the CNW’s model S-2, SW9 or H10-44 switching locomotives assigned to the yard at Racine Junction.
The company trackage looped around the complex, with sidings at many points adjacent to the assembly line to allow materials to be unloaded from boxcars directly into the build- ings where they were to be used. Sever- al travelling cranes around the plant unloaded steel bar stock from gondolas or lifted steel-wheeled tractors on to flat cars. When the South Works was in
74 FEBRUARY 2012
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