In General
Getting Here
Map
Sights
Pictures
Signals
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In General

Location / Name:
Griffith IN, Lake County

What's Here:
the Griffith Diamond
the Griffith Historical Society and Museum

Data:
GPS Coordinates: 41.520241, -87.427528 (at the diamond)
ZIP: 46319
phone A/C: 219
27 miles SSE of the Loop in downtown Chicago

Access by train/transit:
None
Closest Amtrak: Hammond IN, about 12-1/2 miles NNW across the tracks from the Horseshoe Hammond Casino

The Scoop:

Griffith, for railfanning purposes, could be considered a distant suburb of Chicago, located in the upper northwest corner of Indiana, just "over the line".  It is south of Gary.  Only two railroads come thru here today, the Grand Trunk, and the EJ&E, Elgin, Joliet & Eastern, but traffic is still sufficient to offer the railfan a good reason to come here.

The following description of Griffith comes from Mark Egebrecht, from his page linked below:

Griffith IN, located near the Chicago suburbs, was once one of the largest railroad interlockings in the world.  At one time, FIVE railroads lines intersected here.  The Grand Trunk Western came in from the west and crossed the Elgin Joliet & Eastern, and NYC Joliet Branch.  The EJ&E had a branch line heading east from here to Porter, Indiana.  The Erie Lackawanna and C&O formed a joint line south of the junction, and crossed the other three.  Some of the diamonds were actually IN Broad Street!

The NYC was abandoned in 1976, the C&O in 1983 and the EL in 1984.  The EJ&E Porter Branch followed in 1985.  The tower was closed in December, 1999, and efforts were being made to preserve it, (note the banner).  They were successful, and the tower was moved to the north side of the tracks where the small railway museum is located.  A piece of the EL remains to the north, and a piece of the C&O remains to the south to serve a chemical plant.  Now the GTW and EJ&E are the only two main lines that cross.  Griffith is still a busy place, but is not the amazing gaggle of tracks it once was.

When I last visited this location in September, 2011, Broad Street became a quiet zone, and CN had a new connecting track on the northwest quadrant.  Now, westbound trains on the GTW can swing north onto the EJ&E to head to Kirk Yard in Gary.  The spur track that is a piece of the former EL mainline has been severed from the mainline, and may be removed soon.  Average train frequency is around 40 per day, although the pace is moderate, and there are extended periods of time with no activity, usually in the late afternoon.  Predecessor power still predominates, but CN is repainting diesels fast.

The small museum includes the tower, watchman’s shanties, an EL concrete phone booth, and three EJ&E cabooses.  The cars and tower are open for inspection on Sunday’s, when the museum is open.  Shirley Welch is the curator of the property, and she is a very nice person to converse with.

If you are near the Illinois-Indiana state line, Griffith is still worth a stop.


A short history comes from the Historical Society's page:

Griffith has been called "The Town that Came to the Tracks," and with good reason.  The town was once an interchange point for five railroads - the Michigan Central, Erie, Grand Trunk, Elgin Joliet & Eastern, and the Chesapeake & Ohio.

In 1891, real estate speculators Jay and Elmer Dwiggins bought up farm land surrounding the interchange Point to found what they called "a factory town."  Because of its proximity to the railroads, the Griffith they envisioned was a manufacturing metropolis to rival Chicago.  Their vision never materialized.  When a depression hit in 1893, the Dwiggins Brothers borrowed heavily against the land.  Overextended and badly in debt, they eventually left the town behind and headed for greener pastures.

The railroads, however, remained and provided a stabilizing force for the fledgling town.  Few long-time families in town were not connected to the railroads in some way - either by having had a family member directly employed on one of the railroads or by having owned or worked in a business that catered to the railroads.

At one time, more than 180 trains came through Griffith each day, but the pace has slowed dramatically since the 1970's.  Today, only two railroads still operate through Griffith - the EJ&E and the Grand Trunk.

Some controversy surrounds the origin of the town of Griffith's name, but the one most generally accepted is railroad related.  A surveyor by the name of Griffith set the grade for the Grand Trunk Railroad in this area in the 1870`s and, in the course of his activity, prepared and signed maps.  Afterward, railroaders began to refer to this area as "Griffith's Section" and since so many people worked in railroading, the name stuck.  The town founders, Jay and Elmer Dwiggins, toyed with the idea of changing the name to "Dwiggins Junction," but thankfully chose to name streets after themselves instead.


Websites and other additional information sources of interest for the area:
http://www.railroad.net/griffith-indiana.html  additional information and links to YouTube videos by the page author
http://www.geocities.ws/eriewalt/el.html Walt Fles's ERIE LACKAWANNA Home Page
http://www.dhke.com/CRJ/griffith.html Bill Gustason's index page for Griffith Junction
http://www.dhke.com/CRJ/index.html Bill Gustason's index page for Chicago Rail Junctions.  Great Page!!!
http://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/2015/11/griffith-in-ej-and-cngtw-junction-tower.html  info on the tower

Pictures and additional information is always needed if anyone feels inclined to take 'em, send 'em, and share 'em, or if you have something to add or correct.... credit is always given! Contact info is here


Getting Here

Getting here is fairly easy:

If you are travelling the Indiana Tollway, I-90, get off at exit 10 for state road 912 and head south.

Ditto goes for the parallelling US20, there is an interchange between it and 912.

Same for I-80/I-94, but the exit number is 5... again, head south on 912.

912 eventually turns into N Cline St.  This will take you to Main St where you will want to take a left.  Go one block and take a right, and you will hit the diamonds in another block.

If you're using GPS, the museum's coordinates are 41.520977,-87.427644


Maps






This is what the crossings looked like back in the heyday.....


Another vintage shot....


Sights


  Griffith Historical Society

GPS: 41.520977,-87.427644

Their website is here.

The Griffith Historical Society. founded in 1983, was empowered by a Griffith Town Council resolution to preserve the history of the town of Griffith.  At that time, ownership and operation of the Depot Museum was given to the Society by joint action of the Council and the Community Spirit Organization.

In 1994. the Society purchased the land adjacent to the Depot to create an Historical Park in tribute to Griffith's railroading past.  The Griffith Historical Park was formally dedicated in May, 1995.  The Park and Museum are open on the first Sunday in June till the last Sunday in August from 2-4pm and throughout the year for special tours.

Two major events are sponsored by the Society:

-- The annual Railroad Fair held at the Park the last full weekend in September, featuring railroad-related merchandise, entertainment and Hobo Stew cooked over an open fire.

-- "Santa in the Caboose" on two Saturdays and one Sunday before Christmas.


Pictures


Pictures from the Diamond and the Museum

Many thanks to Denver Todd for the photos.  He took these in 2005.

  

  

  


Pictures at the Front St Crossing and Diamonds

I dunno about you, but I betcha busy times on the railroad really test the patience of the locals! :-)  These come from Google's Street View.

 


Signals


No Pictures - Yet.... The diamond and interchange tracks seem to be well signaled.  They all look like new color light signals.


Floobydust


the Tower

The tower was moved in July 2000 to its current location, a few hundred feet from its previous location right at the diamond.

Picture from: http://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/2015/11/griffith-in-ej-and-cngtw-junction-tower.html





Griffith 1897


G&G's Hobby Store

 


Disclaimers:

I love trains, and I love signals.  I am not an expert.  My webpages reflect what I find on the topic of the page.  This is something I have fun with while trying to help others. 

Please Note:  Since the main focus of my two websites is railroad signals, the railfan guides are oriented towards the signal fan being able to locate them.  For those of you into the modeling aspect of our hobby, my indexa page has a list of almost everything railroad oriented I can think of to provide you with at least a few pictures to help you detail your pike.

If this is a railfan page, every effort has been made to make sure that the information contained on this map and in this railfan guide is correct.  Once in a while, an error may creep in... darn :-)  :-)

My philosophy: Pictures and maps are worth a thousand words, especially for railfanning.  Text descriptions only get you so far, especially if you get lost or disoriented.  Take along good maps.... a GPS is OK to get somewhere, but maps are still better if you get lost!  I belong to AAA, which allows you to get local maps for free when you visit the local branches.  ADC puts out a nice series of county maps for the Washington DC area, but their state maps do not have the railroads on them.  If you can find em, I like the National Geographic map book of the U.S..... good, clear, and concise graphics, and they do a really good job of showing you where tourist type attractions are, although they too lack the railroads.  Other notes about specific areas will show up on that page if known.

Pictures and additional information is always needed if anyone feels inclined to take 'em, send 'em, and share 'em, or if you have something to add or correct.... credit is always given! BE NICE!!! Contact info is here

Beware: If used as a source, ANYTHING from Wikipedia must be treated as being possibly being inaccurate, wrong, or not true.

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NEW 11/22/2013
Last Modified 07-May-2017