What happened to the various shippers that had sidings along the CNS&M when the premier interurban shut down? How much track was connected to the C&NW and was continued to be used for freight? How much is still used today?
When the Shore Line suburban line was abandoned (1957?) was any consideration given to abandoning it entirely and having maintenance and overhaul work done at the CTA Skokie shops thensforth? Rather than keeping Highwood in operation?
After the Shore Line was abandoned, much of the replacement suburban service on the Skokie line ran up unnecessary mileage, running almost empty from Deerpath north to Waukegan or Mundelein. Why wasn’t part of the Mondelien branch made operationally single track with the redundant second track used for layup overnight to considerably reduce car mileage?
There was an interchange with CNW in Skokie and up until recently the UP aka CNW had used the former CNSM right of way from Skokie Northward for several miles to bypass maintenance issues on its own right of way which paralleled it. The vast majority of industries changed over to truck haulage. Hough in Libertyville had the Milwaukee Road who relaid track to reach it. The Shore line was never, to my knowledge , ever considered for CTA operation but the Skokie Valley Route was. Pulling out trackage was not an option as it would just delay the inevitable end due to loss of passenger traffic to the then new expressway. Mundelein was a storage terminus for alot of runs. I know this because I lived 2 blocks from the station.
As implied in the above posting, North Shore, like most interurbans, had only a marginal amount of freight traffic. Much of it was in locations where access to other railroads was not a major problem.
The abandonment of the Shore Line in 1955 came too early for CTA or any other governmental body to consider a takeover. The CTA originally only planned to purchase enough North Shore trackage to gain access to Skokie Shops when North Shore was abandoned in 1963. Planning for the Skokie Swift began when Federal grants for a demonstration project became available.
Only as far north as Waukegan. The CNW inter-city trains went beyond Waukegan to Kenosha, Milwaukee (and beyond), but you could not really call them a viable “suburban” service. The North Shore trains went to Milwaukee on an hourly schedule for many years.
I am not certain all my questions were understood. In reviewing both the written history and my own memories, it would appear that once the Shore Line had been ripped up south of Highwood Shops, that economies could have been made by moving all repair and maintenance that could not be handled by the continued use of the Milwaukee facility, to the CTA Skokie shops, allowing removal of the trackage between Highwood and North Chicago Junction as well. Also, most suburban passengers that switched to the Skokie service, and there were enough for the line to increase service on that line, boarded and left trains south of Deerpath, and much of the mileage that the trains ran up to Waukegan and Mundelein was not productive. So if a part of the eastern section of the Mundelien Branch would have been made single track, the redundant second track could have been used as alayup track for the overnight storage of some of the rush hour Skokie commuter trains, reducing car mileage. Possibly if these two economies had been made, the line would have survived long enough to enter the era of government subsidy of commuter lines.
Yes but on the entire original shore line route , the CNW was literally a few feet away . Ineresting that before 1948 there was yet another competitor between Kenosha and Milwaukee. In addition to the CNS&M , CMStP&P, CNW, the was also TMER&L
Randy
The third economy that should have been made was for all trains that ran with only one car to be operated by only one man when not on CTA property. This would have required some minor modification of about ten or twelve of the newer steel cars from the 1930 order…
When the Shore Line passenger service was abandoned in 1955, track remained in place between North Chicago Junction and Highland Park, in part to serve Highwood shop but also to provide tri-weekly freight service to a number of on-line coal yards.
Closing of Highwood shops and relocation to other facilities, especially CTA’s Skokie Shops, may not have been not have been a realistic alternative and may have run afoul of existing union contracts. One man trains may have also run afoul of contract requirements and would not have been practicable, how would fares have been collected, North Shore did not have high-level platforms or flat fares that would have been necessary for prepaid fares and one-man operation.
You mentioned one-man conversions of NSL equipment. There was a drawing the NSL prepared showing a 737-class car set up for this type of service. If I remember correctly (and that’s a HUGE “if”), the car had double-stream doors at the vestibule, much like a PE 1100-class car.
There were extensive studies done by CTA about operating rapid transit-type service on the Skokie Valley as far as Waukegan. Unlike the CTA’s studies on the CA&E (which were based on use of the pre-war PCCs from the surface division), the CNS&M service was predicated on use of pole-equipped 6000s. ‘A’/‘B’ service would have been implemented on the Skokie Valley for that operation. But without a reasonable source of funding to operate these suburban services, they were not carried forward.
As one of the earlier commenters noted, the “Swift” began under a Housing & Urban Development (pre-UMTA) grant for a demonstration project. The Village of Skokie was concerned about congestion on the Edens Expressway in the early 1960s (among other things).
Shifting to current events, the Village is in the process of selecting a team to do the preliminary engineering for a new station at Oakton Street, opposite downtown Skokie. CTA will receive qualifications packages early next week for teams that would do the alternatives analyses on the Yellow Line (AKA "Swift) extension to Old Orchard Road, a Red Line extension south to 130th Street or so, and an Orange Line extension south to Ford City/79th Street.
I was told that Kenosha motor coach (KMCL) and Westland Greyhound never realized the predicted traffic after the rail abandonments.
I think what Jay Maeder said was very true , "people just don’t want to ride busses if they can help it ".
The TMER&L route wasn’t the best but if there had been a transit authority perhaps the intercity routes would have been rationalized to use the best of all four routes as well as Milwaukee’s own suburban and interurban trains, too bad they were in such a hurry to get rid of them !
Randy
And now Wisconsin is seroiusly considering extending Metra service from Kenosha to Milwaukee.
As much as I like trains, this is the silliest waste of transportation money I’ve seen in quite a while. Who is going to ride this? A few during rush hour, a few more out shopping during the day. But come on! It would be far more cost-effective to create a viable, frequent bus service.
The Hiawatha takes just under 1.5 hours Milwaukee to Chicago. Metra already takes 1.7 hours just from Kenosha to Chicago. So there is no way Metra is going to be able to compete with Amtrak. In addition, the passenger count out of Kenosha does not justify running the trains that far north; the only reason that they do is the servicing and layover facilities in Kenosha.
To make the service attractive for commuters, the transit time would have to be greatly reduced, which is not possible due to already crowded schedules from Waukegan south. Although triple-tracking the entire line would solve that problem, in most locations there is not room for a third track. Also, to make the service attractive to off-hour travellers, the train schedule would have to be fairly frequent (lots of capital investment in equipment).
Too bad the North Shore is not still around. It solved all of the above problems. With style!
The extension of Metra service to Milwaukee is primiarly to benefit people who live in Racine and Kenosha and adjacent areas and who wi***o work and shop and entertain themselves in Milwaukee. It will also draw similar people from Waukegan and even Highland Park and Glencoe. It is not intended specifically to compete with Amtrak on downtown Chicago to downtown Milwaukee. It will also benefit the sailors at Great Lakes and people who work there. It will make it possible for Milwaukee people to visit Ravinia for concerts in the summer without driving there. It will reduce traffic congestion on the expressway into Milwaukee during rush hours. It will actually revenue for Amtrak because anyone going or coming from north of Milwaukee will have connecting services to all the Michigan shore suburbs.
The Boston Rever Beach and Lynn did not need high platforms for prepaid fares. Which also save money regardless of crew size. Just a fenced right-of-way and turnstiles are needed. Rather than convert some of their open platform mu electrics (600V dc, like the CNS&M) to one man, they bought four Eastern Massachusetts Brill semi-convertable streetcars and put them on narrow gauge trucks. They had no high level platfoms anywhere.
Regarding markets for the K-R-M commuter rail extension, there were also a fair number of people living in WI, but working at Abbot labs in northern IL that were expected to use the extension trains. The K-R-M service is not capable of competing with the “Hiawatha Service” trains on the ex-Milw tracks. Those run fairly fast with very few stops.