[%-)]Can’t recall… was that “The Clash” or “The Jam”…? brain’s fading… [sigh]
Anyway… on new plans for an exhibition layout - with a difference…
Someone mentioned Chicago having underground freight… so I started to search and all I’ve found is stuff on the abolition of slavery… then someone else mentione narrow gauge… [%-)]
So can someone put me in the picture on Chicago underground rails please?
Also… did anyone ever make any models of the El?
TIA
[8D]
Chicago once had an underground narrow gauage railroad. The railroad served the Businesses and industries through there basements. The railroad got abonded in the 40s or 50s and now it’s used for running electrical cables. Chicago almost got flooded by this railroad. When they where driving piles in the ground for a bridge they struck one one of the tunnels the river water rushed through it and flooded the basements. I couldn’t find it on the history channel because they changed the site, but I’ll keep on looking.
Dave,
Here are a couple of links to materials on the Chicago Underground Railway.
http://www.pentrex.com/tunnel.html
http://www.bestwebbuys.com/Forty_Feet_Below-ISBN_0916374548.html?isrc=b-search
I have the book, but not the video. Interesting stuff.
gene
I have seen the Pentrex video mentioned above (although I don’t own it). Really interesting stuff. They sure moved a lot of goods around between stores and what not under the city. If I remember right, some of the electrics and rolling stock are still under there.
Try this site…
Tom Mann over at the Railwire has a good site on Chicago area switching. Check out the link.
Lee
There was an episode of Trackside, a show on PBS from Aurora Public Television near Chicago, about that underground railroad.
At one time, it was a rather extensive network that was 20 feet or more underground A lot of the rolling stock and some of the electric locomotives are still there because they couldn’t get them out when use of the line was discontinued. At its height, even the mail and packages were being delivered by this system.
The remaining tunnels are being used for utility lines.
It was a narrow guage electric railway the served a lot of the business’s under the Chicago loop and downtown area. If I remember correctly, they stopped using it in the late 50’s. By the way, all the streetcars there stopped running in the early 60’s too. The was one of the terminal barns near my house on the NW side when I was a kid.
I love that Tom Mann site [:D] - been there before- and this time it has a CNW gon pushed way down old tracks not used for a long time. [:D]
Thanks for the help everyone. [8D]
I’ve checked out the sites [:D]. That system was really scarey! We have no idea what awful conditions people took for granted and worked their whole lives in. many of them were probably quite happy and glad to have “good secure jobs”.
They should make a museum of some of it and take kids down there before they start their modern soft jobs. [:-^]
the new subway tore into some of its trackage paths and kinda took out its operating.
They took coal in and hauled ash out.
I cant think of any other place in the world with this kind of installation, Washington DC however has its underground.
Chicago is one heck of a 3D town, Elevated, streetcars subway, freight tunnel, has it all.
Dust off your old High School copy of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. You’ll find that the protagonist, Jurgis, is for a time employed digging the freight subway tunnel which, in 1906, was an attempt to circumvent the teamsters’ union. (Which, at that time, were actually drivers of teams of horses.)