I wouldn't put too much stock in the Chicago bottleneck theory as far as
perishables....
The CB&Q had strict shedules to drop eastbound reefers and livestock at the
IHB interchange at Congress Park. I believe the IHB forwarded the cars to
the NYC, NKP, etc.. with equal haste... an extra 2-3 days for produce, meat
(live or hanging) would not be tolerated by either the railroads or the
shippers...too much money at stake.
Charlie Vlk

Charlie is quite right. Low priority freight such as coal and other bulk
minerals might have taken two or three days to thread its way through the
Chicago maze, but perishables were handled expeditiously. For example,
eastbound SFRD reefers arriving at the Santa Fe's Corwith Yard in South
Chicago were switched immediately to the Indiana Harbor Belt, which would
ice the cars if necessary at Blue Island and then forward them to the Erie
at Hammond, IN for 10 p.m. departure to the New York City area and New
England, to the Grand Trunk Western for southern Canadian destinations, or
to the B&O for mid-Atlantic destinations. In all cases, the cars spent
less than 24 hours in the Chicago area - often much less. The Santa Fe,
like PFE, avoided handing off perishable traffic to the Pennsy, which had
the nation's worst record for timely movement of perishables, or the New
York Central, which moved its own perishable traffic fairly quickly but
tended to be much less efficient in handling traffic that originated off
line.

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520