J.I. Case Company South Works; Racine, WI
1970’s ¾″ plywood had become the most common crate material. Tractors bound for Canada were shipped fully assembled. Loads to Eastern Canada were usually sent to Milwaukee via the C&NW to make the fast cross-lake connection on the Grand Trunk Western or Pere Mar- quette (later C&O) car ferry routes that connected with lines running across lower Michigan into Ontario. When the plant opened in 1913,
about 99 percent of all parts going into J. I. Case tractors were manufactured at the plant. This had changed, howev- er, by 1959 when the Case 800 series tractors went into production. Case subcontracted with many outside sup- pliers for components going into the tractors. Parts arrived at the plant in boxcars that were in dedicated auto parts service, and the empty steel bins that carried the parts were returned in the same car to the supplier. Other inbound loads at the plant were foundry sand, gasoline, wood, propane and oil, and lubricants, paint, and ma- chine tools. Among the most commonly
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
seen cars were C&O and B&O 50-foot boxcars carrying tractor tires from Ohio. In the 1970’s, foundry coke was brought in from Indianapolis by specialized
Monon coke container cars. The J. I. Case Company relied heavily
on rail transportation for getting fin- ished tractors and parts from the plant
Switching the South Works S
witching at the South Works was a relatively simple operation of take and put. The C&NW switch crew shuttled cars between the yard and the plant. Much of the switching was done in-house by the Case Company up until about 1960.
The C&NW kept their locomotive on the south end of the cut of cars as they pulled
down the plant’s lead track beside the mainline. Then they shoved to the north and east across the highway and M-R-K crossings into the plant. The location of each car was worked out in advance between the Case traffic depart-
ment and the yardmaster. The dock locations were noted by hand on the conductor’s switch list. The crew cut off the inbound cars on the run around track and proceeded into the
foundry to pull empties. These cars were brought back to the run around track, and then the inbound cars were spotted at the foundry. If the run around track was full, the C&NW crew headed back to the yard to drop off
the cut and pick up the empty flat cars for the west side of the plant. These were shoved in and cut off on the run around track. Then the locomotive ran back to the tractor loading dock. The loaded flats were doubled up, pulled back to the run around track, and dropped. The empty flats were then shoved back to the dock tracks. Back at the run around, the loads were coupled on to and pulled to the yard for weighing and classifica- tion into blocks for pick up.–KEITH KOHLMANN
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