Hennepin, IL Dearborn Division

[J484fan]

I had looked this area up on GE and find no yard. There is however a large industry that I tried searching on Google to find out what it is with no luck. I am assuming this industry is why Hennepin shows up in the Division. Does anyone know what this place is?

[NS145]

The industry you are seeing is the ISG Hennepin steel plant.  ISG has a cold rolled steel operation at the plant.  I don't know about the NS, but Conrail used to run dedicated unit coil steel trains to and from the plant from Chicago.

The line to Hennepin is the former Kankakee Belt, part of the NYC.  The line continued N-NW across the Illinois River at De Pue and made connections with the Rock Island, Milwaukee Road, and finally the CB&Q at Zearing, Illinois.  Now the primary traffic on the old Kankakee Belt are run-thru trains to and from the BNSF at Streator, IL and coal trains going to the NIPSCO power plant on the east stub at Wheatfield, IN.  The eastern-most portion of the Kankakee Belt was abandoned back in the Conrail days.  Now trains have to use the north end of the old Danville Branch to reach the Kankakee Belt at Schneider, IN.  Trains for Streator and Hennepin head west at Schneider, while the coal trains head east.  Back when I lived in eastern Illinois, ~15 years ago, a lot of the coal for the NIPSCO plant came off the UP at Momence from mines in Southern Illinois.  I don't know if this is still the case, or if the power plant has now switched to Wyoming coal.

Hope this helps...

[J484fan]

Thanks for the info! I did a bit more search from what you provided. That is part of Mittal Steel who is the single largest steel produceer in the U.S.