Good morning all. I bring sad news for all of you CB&Q fans out there. The 1920’s vintage CB&Q passenger station on Broadway in downtown Aurora is being torn down as I write this. During last week’s big rain storm part of the station roof collapsed onto Broadway and it was finally decided to tear the old station down after over 20 years of being vacant (Metra moved to the old CB&Q roundhouse/station back then and Amtrak moved to Naperville…down the track to the east). Yet another chance to salvage a wonderful old building has been missed…RIP.
Sad, but if the roof collapsed during a rainstorm it should give you a pretty good idea of what the general condition of the building was like. Probably in pretty poor shape all around.
It’s been said that structures, especially houses, know when no-one wants them anymore.
Sad to see it go, although it was a wreck. It was built on the site of my great-grandfather’s stone quarry long ago.
I first rode through here by train in 1970. I remember a railfanning trip that I took there while still single, and the place was depressing even then.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but although passenger trains for both routes west of there made the stop at the station before splitting off in their respective directions, freight trains don’t need to split beyond the station that way. In other words, you don’t see all of the westbound freights right at the station site, right?
Too bad…it would make a nice train-watching park, between the street and the river, possibly with what’s left of tunnels under the tracks.
The building was standing vacant for 20+ years and I would presume that nobody made a serious proposal to rehab the building for subsequent use. I’m a bit surprised that BN/BNSF/Metra had not demolished the building some years ago.
Carl, no, ALL freights in both directions (west on the “main line” to Denver and beyond via Galesburg and northwest to Minneapolis and beyond on the “C&I” line) DO go by the old station site…the only exceptions would be the locals that go up the “river” line that roughly follows the Fox River up towards West Chicago (this line happens to be the original CB&Q line laid from day #1).
It would have been great for railfanning, but it would require a lot of work to be clean and safe. The Aurora depot and the Wheaton stations, C&NW and CA&E, were my first places to watch trains in the mid1950’s
Sad indeed. I was just by it again last month on the CZ and wondering what, if anything, would ever be done with it.
Does anyone have any plans/photos of the place?