Where can one find photos of the Englewood (Chicago) Depot?
This is based on memory from over 50 years ago so it might need checking but from having spent a number of hours watching the show I don’t think a picture would show you anything. If memory serves, all of the ticket office, baggage counters, etc were below ground level. The three RRs serving Englwood were all on elevated embankments and all there was above ground were the platforms.
Actually, five railroads (CWI, Erie, MON, WAB,C&EI) served Englewood. Like most railroads in Chicago, the tracks were on an embankment in an early form of grade crossing elimination and the ticket office and waiting room were mostly within the embankment.
Parts of the platforms and canopies are still in place but no trains stop there. The only passenger trains through the station site are the “Cardinal” and “Hoosier State” and Metra’s Southwest Service to Orland Park.
Which Englewood Station are we talking about? I assumed sma11cat1 was talking about the PRR/NYC/RI Englewood station. That facility is totally gone. The facility csshegwisch is alluding to was nicknamed “Little Englewood” and was west of the other facility.
All of the various 63rd Street stations in Chicago (at least five of them) had a similar layout since the tracks were all on embankments. The five stations of which I’m aware are: Woodlawn (IC, Big Four, MC, CSS&SB)
Englewood (NYC, PRR, RI)
“Little Englewood”, (CWI, Erie, MON, WAB, C&EI)
63rd Street (near Western Ave) (B&O, PM/C&O)
Chicago Lawn (GTW)
63rd Street was a stop for through trains since it was served by a major east-west streetcar route, one of the few in Chicago to be equipped with PCC’s.
The Englewood Station that was served by NYC, PRR, and Rock Island was also served by the Nickel Plate.
Regarding the earlier comment about 63rd Street having PCCs, that was true only from 1948, when the pre-war cars were sent to 63rd from Madison Street (except for the cars that were retained to run the Madison/10-cent shuttle until 1951). As you might expect, there was a period during the phase-in of the pre-war PCCs on 63rd when they co-existed with the Brills and Big Pullmans on 63rd. There’s also photographic evidence that some post-war PCCs were on 63rd for a short time during early 1948.
The pre-war cars stayed on 63rd until mid-1952 when they were re-assigned as one-man cars to Cottage Grove. Thereafter, some post-war PCCs were used on 63rd, intermixed with Big Pullmans, which had returned to the line, and would finish out streetcar operation on this line in May 1953.
My 1968 Official Guide to the Railways showed a heck of a lot of trains stopping at the stations mentioned above. By the time Amtrak took over in May 1971, I don’t think any of their trains stopped at those stations.
That district is south of Hyde Park, and changing racial boundaries, racial antagonisms and redlining made the area a slum from which it is only now escaping. Pity, because those “medium south side” stations were darn handy. Living in Hyde Park and not having to take the IC (Metra) Electric all the way to Homewood, say, to catch the City of New Orelans.
Green Frog has a new DVD with a lot of color footage of Englewood. It’s the first in their “Twilight of Steam” series. It’s a good one.
work safe
The Fall 2005 issue of Classic Trains arrived Saturday with some photos of trains at the NYC/PRR/RI 63rd St. Englewood Station. Even some shots of the diamonds.
Here’s a shot of a NYC streamlined J3a Hudson at Englewood Station. It was taken by my father a year or so after I was born, when these locomotives were still new. My father took me to watch trains at Englewood several times in the 1940s.
Are you looking for pictures of trains that happen to be at Englewood, or for actual photos of the depot, platforms, etc.? Have RI, NYC, NKP and PRR train shots on their tracks within the station, but nothing that really shows the station house.