Chicago & Alton RR

Trains Magazine General Discussion
21

I was looking at the tracks that appear on the left side of the diagram, just above the ATSF connection into the IC tracks, as the Alton main. The track that runs off the top of the diagram above the words “54 LEVER FRAME” seems to be running too much in a northwesterly direction to be the main line. But, I will take your word for it since I have no way of knowing for sure one way or another. If I am mistaken, where are those two tracks heading on the left side of the diagram, just above the ATSF connection into the IC tracks ?

Thanks again for your insights.

Rich

22

[quote user=“artschlosser”]

richhotrain wrote: After further researching the genealogy of the predecessor railroads, the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railway and the Chicago, Madison & Northern Railroad, which are identified by name in the title to this track diagram, I would place the date of this diagram between 1903 and 1918.

Can anybody give a more precise date?

Not sure how you reached those dates. The IC had the spline completed to Freeport, Illinois, and on to Dubuque and Fort Doge, Iowa, in 1870. The 1870 Guide shows no line from Freeport to either Madison or Chicago. The C&NW has a line from Rockford to Chicago, though. No mention of a CM&N in the index.

The June 1897 Guide shows the IC has lines from Freeport to both Madison and Chicago, and the Iowa line extending to Omaha. No mention of a CM&N in the index of railroads nor in the “Old and New Name” section.

The February 1901 Guide lists Chicago Madison & Northern as an old name with Illinois Central as the new name.

Perusing the IC entries in the 1897 Guide shows a Train #1 heading from Chicago to Cairo and another Train #1 heading from Chicago to Freeport at a much different time. It would seem that the CM&N was deleted from the list of railroads but hadn’t yet been included in the new/old name section. And the IC was still struggling with train numbers.

My 1916 Guide shows that the Pennsylvania Railroad was still showing “Lines West of Pittsburgh” separately from those east. The various trains are each listed under separate names, such as “Pittsburgh Fort Wayne & Chicago”, Erie and Pittsburgh", “Pittsburgh Cincinatti Chicago & St Louis” (The Panhandle), and “Vandalia Railroad”. However, these names are not in the list of railroads nor in the old/new section.

As a side note, the Panhandle initially entered Union Passenger Depot from th

23

Rich, without a date on the drawing, trying to determine when it was drawn is pretty iffy. The flourishes and writing style makes it look like an18th century product.

Judging by the way extensions of the Alton and Wabash occurred, a company was formed to build the extension, and after it was functioning, it would be folded into the parent company. Therefore, I would think that the CM&N name lasted just long enough to get the extension built. Given that, I would assume the drawing was made soon after the corporation papers were drawn up and long before 1897 when it was being used by the IC.

Using ‘railroad chicago madison nothern’ as a Google search argument, I got this url.

http://www.tdf23.info/html/Railroads/ChicagoMadisonAndNorthernRailroad.htm

and inside the url is this:

To address these issues, the IC chartered the Chicago, Madison & Northern in July of 1886.

So I would assign a date of about 1887 to 1890 for the drawing.

Also, I’m pretty sure I was wrong about the line up of the tracks to Bridgeport. The Alton was laid first, close to the waterway. The Santa Fe laid tracks to the south of the C&A, and I found on the web a thing on Bridgeport that says the IC squeezed their track in between the other tracks.

http://www.uic.edu/orgs/LockZero/ii.html

Leave it to gossips to get it straight!

Art

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Rich, I don’t have documentation to back up my statement that the track in the top left was the original Alton main. IIRC, an old head from the C&WI told me that. Another clue to support that theory is that track is protected by a high signal and not a dwarf, which would be expected for an industrial spur. I believe the Alton mains were relocated slightly when they were elevated, along with the IC and ATSF tracks through Bridgeport. Art’s link gives a date for that project, 1899. If I am correct about all this, that would indicate that the diagram dates from 1899-1916. If anyone has information to show otherwise, I’m all ears.

I have an article about the St Charles Airline elevation which I will check tonight to see if there is any information about the east end of the mysterious Alton trackage.

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Just checked the date for the PRR lift bridge. If Wiki is correct, construction began in 1913 and was completed in 1914, further narrowing the date range of the drawing.

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I learned long ago that the “best evidence” rule is to trust the word of an old head. Those guys are never wrong,

Rich

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Art,

This is all interesting stuff and I thank you for sharing it.

Rich

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Yeah, I agree. The signals support the fact that those tracks are probably the Alton main.

But, where do those othe C&A tracks lead to as they disappear off the left side of the diagram?

Rich

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I am going with 1890 - 1910 unless someone tells me differently.

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I will anxiously await anything you can find out about the east end of the Alton trackage. I wonder if the IC started to use the former C&A tracks once the IC merged with the GM&O and then abandoned the old CM&N tracks. In black and white photos that I have from 1959, there is a pretty good separation between the IC tracks and the ATSF tracks indicating that a couple of tracks may have been removed. The signal bridge is wide enough to accomodate four tracks but only two tracks run under the signal bridge just before entering the St. Charles Air Line.

Rich

31

The C&A built northward from Alton and reached Joliet in 1858. It used the Rock Island tracks to its depot until it leased the Joliet and Chicago Railroad. That road was started in 1857 and reached the Ft. Wayne’s tracks at 21st Street in 1858. This data is from Gene Glendinning’s ‘The Chicago & Alton Railroad’, an excellent, well annotated book in my opinion.

But the Ft Wayne had not built a depot yet so the first train’s destination is unknown. The current name at that time for the C&A was St.Louis, Alton and Chicago. It got renamed often. Quotes from the book:

The J&C had reached agreement with the Pittsburg(h) Fort Wayne & Chicago the previous year for a half interest in PFt.W&C’s bridge over the Chicago River near Archer Road and its track from the bridge along Stewart Street to the line’s terminus at Van Buren Street, similar to the arrangements the MC reached with the IC and the MS with the Rock Island.

Another quote:
Though the first ceremonial run may have used the west side track, it more likely switched over to the Rock Island and ended its run under the train shed of that road’s depot at Van Buren and LaSalle Streets.

And another:
After a few months, likely because relations between the St.LA&C and Rock Island had deteriorated, the St.LA&C’s passenger trains began using the IC’s lake front depot near the Chicago River, reaching the track of that railroad over the St. Charles Air Line.

And how do you get up to the Air Line? Using that infernal track that sort of parallels the CWI track that leads toward the Air Line but we didn’t know why!

When the old Union finally got built, things got simpler.

Art

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[quote user=“artschlosser”]

The C&A built northward from Alton and reached Joliet in 1858. It used the Rock Island tracks to its depot until it leased the Joliet and Chicago Railroad. That road was started in 1857 and reached the Ft. Wayne’s tracks at 21st Street in 1858. This data is from Gene Glendinning’s ‘The Chicago & Alton Railroad’, an excellent, well annotated book in my opinion.

But the Ft Wayne had not built a depot yet so the first train’s destination is unknown. The current name at that time for the C&A was St.Louis, Alton and Chicago. It got renamed often. Quotes from the book:

The J&C had reached agreement with the Pittsburg(h) Fort Wayne & Chicago the previous year for a half interest in PFt.W&C’s bridge over the Chicago River near Archer Road and its track from the bridge along Stewart Street to the line’s terminus at Van Buren Street, similar to the arrangements the MC reached with the IC and the MS with the Rock Island.

Another quote:
Though the first ceremonial run may have used the west side track, it more likely switched over to the Rock Island and ended its run under the train shed of that road’s depot at Van Buren and LaSalle Streets.

And another:
After a few months, likely because relations between the St.LA&C and Rock Island had deteriorated, the St.LA&C’s passenger trains began using the IC’s lake front depot near the Chicago River, reaching the track of that railroad over the St. Charles Air Line.

And how do you get up to the Air Line? Using that infernal track that sort of parallels the CWI track that leads toward the Air Line but we didn’t know why!

When the old Union finally got built, things got simpl

33

In the MBI IC book, it states at first the IC used the Galena & Chicago Union (C&NW) to get from Chicago to Freeport. Later, this traffic shifted to the Chicago & Iowa RR (CB&Q). In 1886 work began on it’s own line. The IC depended on other lines for the first several miles west of Chicago. In 1891 the Chicago line was completed with the St Charles Air Line. The Air Line provides the connection between IC’s north-south & East West lines.

I have seen other pictures where other roads would have transfer service to the GM&O’s Glenn yard. Because of the angle of the crossing, interchange from the GM&O to PRR south may have been via a backup move. Not sure what connections were possible in Brighton.

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A few more bits of info. According to an article about the St Charles Airline in the ICHS Green Diamond, the crossing at 21st St was rearranged between 1899 and 1901. The article mentions that at this time the Alton operated left handed. That is shown in the first diagram that I posted and is the reason for the crossing/double slip close to the bridge. The article also indicates that before 16th St was elevated, the ATSF/C&WI junction was east of the RI/NYC/SCAL crossings. That explains the origin of the two ATSF tracks south of the IC between 16th St and 21st St.

Here is a map from the 1915 Smoke Abatement book. This shows the two Alton lines coming in from the west, just like the other diagram. It also shows that the east end of the Alton tracks crossing the entire mess of trackage connected to the joint Rock Island/NYC line and the SCAL. The map comes out too small to make out the details here. I can share the original for anyone interested.

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Glenn,

Thanks for that info. This is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. It is very helpful and informative to me to see this all coming together.

Rich

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pullman jct,

Thank you so much for this latest information and diagram. You continue to pull rabbits out of the hat.

I would be very grateful if you could provide me with an original copy of that diagram. I have sent you a PM.

I mentioned in my original post that I am seriously considering a layout in HO scale that covers Dearborn Station at Polk Street to Alton Junction at 21st Street and Stewart, including the ATSF passenger car facility between 16th and 18th Streets. Initially, my main interest was in capturing the correct trackage for the AT&SF. When I started planning the layout, the Chicago & Alton was not even an issue in my mind. But, then the appearance of the Alton tracks east of the Junction in a 1931 map began to r

37

Location of depots in 1855:

Galena & Chicago Union, corner of Wells and North Water

Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, corner of Wells and North Water

Michigan Southern, corner of Van Buren and Sherman

Chicago & Rock Island, corner of Van Buren and Sherman

Chicago & Milwaukee, North Branch, near Kinzie

Chicago, St. Paul & Fond du Lac, North Branch, north of Kinzie

Illinois Central, foot of South Water

Michigan Central, foot of South Water

Chicago, Alton & St. Louis, foot of South Water

http://books.google.com/books?id=lN8CAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA204#v=onepage&q&f=true

Historical data about St. Charles Air Line

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=pphhdatapage&fileName=il/il0800/il0837/data/hhdatapage.db&recNum=3

Mike

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Nice info Mike, but just one question, just where is South Water Street? Searched a few old maps, so far, and can’t find it.

I did enjoy the ads in the City Directory though. Especially the piano-forte ad; haven’t heard it referred to by it’s full name since Daniel was a pup. My home town used to publish a city directory. If Chicago issued one nowadays with the info present in that old one, it would have to weigh a ton!

In my quest of ‘Where is South Water Street?’,I’ve uncovered a few, not quite gem quality, items.
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/su/maps/chi1890/

Interesting set of maps.
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/su/maps/chi1900/

From the above url, a map of the business district showing railroads. Doesn’t seem detailed enough.
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/su/maps/chi1900/G4104-C6P3-1904-T3-N.html

Art

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South Water Street was/is an east-west street along the south bank of the Chicago River, most of which was replaced by the double-decked Wacker Drive in the 1920’s. There is a short stretch by that name running east of Wabash, one block north of Lake Street.

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Thanks, Paul, I had thought that before Wacker, it was Water. Suspect the foot of South Water would currently be somewhere in the vicinity of just west of Old Grand Central Station.

Names and norms change through the ages.

Art