I found some very good vintage black and white photos of the six downtown Chicago passenger train stations on a website named Wander Wisdom.
I think that interested railfans will enjoy seeing these old photos.
Further credits are given on the Wander Wisdom website.
Here is an excellent photo of the train shed at Grand Central Station.
Very interesting website. Rich
Because of your deep and wide knowledge about Chicago rail history, may I ask you, to suggest me other websites related to interurban and trolleys in Chicago and Milwaukee areas (North and South Shores incl) and Illinois.
Thanks in advance. Philippe
Here are some very good sites on interurbans and trolleys in Chicago and Milwaukee.
Chicago Interurbans
Chicago Trolleys
Milwaukee Interurbans
Milwauke Trolleys
Good morning Rich,
Thank you for your quick answers. No doubt, I will spend a nice evening studying all these documents.
Philippe
Enjoy. There is some good information on those sites.
Rich
Take a look at shore-line.org. Much about Chicago, past and present, in their excellent quarterly magazine.
That is a good site and one that I had not seen before.
Rich
Hi rcdrye,
Thanks a lot for your help and so far I am still studying that site which contains in addition many valuable sub sites. Do you know where I could get the tracks plan of the loop especially where North Shore coming from Milwaukee was joining it and/or leaving back to Milwaukee?. Do you also know why the CA&E was not directly rail connected to the loop and where the overhead trolley was put up or down when reaching Chicago? Thanks again for your help. Philippe
Chicago L track diagrams are on Chicago-L.org. The 1952 track maps should show what you’re looking for. CERA (CERA-Chicago.org) did a bunch of “Bulletins” in the 1960s, which are sometimes available on used book sites.
Note that the loop operated counterclockwise on both tracks between 1913 and 1969. Lake St and Met shared the inner track, North Side and South Side shared the outer track. At Tower 8 (Wells and Van Buren), Met trains crossed over from the right-hand eastbound track to the left-hand Inner Loop. Outbound trains turned from the Inner Loop to the right-hand westbound track at Tower 8 as well.
CA&E trains operated over the Metropolitan West Side Elevated line. The MWSE (“Met”) was completed before the Loop was built - the Met’s first downtown terminal was at Franklin St, a block west of the later Met/CA&E station at Wells St. The north (Lake) and east (Wabash) sides of the loop were built by the Lake Street Elevated, the west (Wells) side by the Union Elevated Railroad, the south (Van Buren) side, including an extension west to Market (Wacker) and north to the MWSE by the Union Consolidated Elevated Railroad. MWSE closed its Franklin terminal in 1905.
The AE&C (CA&E after 1922) began operating over the Met in 1905, not long after the MWSE built a new terminal at Wells St. between Van Buren and Congress.
The AE&C/CA&E never seems to have tried operating its trains on the Loop. The Wells Street Terminal was used, shared with MWSE/Chicago Rapid Transit/CTA until downtown operation ended in 1953.
CA&E cars did operate over the Loop, as the North Shore regularly borrowed CA&E equipment, especially during World War II, mainly for Waukegan-Chicago extras for sailors at Great Lakes Naval Training Center, though CA&E equipment did make it to Milwaukee from time to time. Likewise, CA&E leased CNS&M equipment as needed.
CA&E wood and steel cars had no problem negotiating the Loop, except for the former Washington, Baltimore and Annapolis trailers in the 600 and 700 series, which were fine on the Met, but needed some pilot and step changes to work in the Loop.
Wow, that is a ton of great info. Nice post.
Rich
Never knew that WB&A cars made it to Chicago after they shut down the passenger operations and moved it to busses.
Great detailed infos, giving me a better understanding of the CA&E and North Shore connections within Chicago Downtown. I have still my other question, where CA&E cars were switching from third raiI to trolley when moving out of Chicago downtown? Philippe
Before 1939, CA&E Aurora line cars switched to trolley before entering Broadway. After 1939 they ran on third rail to the end of track. Elgin cars had a short stretch of trolley wire in Elgin. Batavia branch had a short section of trolley wire at State Road, and some at Batavia. The Geneva Branch (abandoned in 1937) had trolley wire in St Charles and Geneva, where track in the street was shared with the all-trolley AE&C Fox River Division (Later the Aurora, Elgin & Fox River Electric). The Mt. Carmel/Cook County & Southern branch that left the main at Bellwood for access to freight customers and cemeteries, was all overhead wire. Except for some overhead-only tracks in the area of the Wheaton shop, the rest of the CA&E was all third rail.
Take a look at greatthirdrail.org for loads of CA&E details.
Thank you,
Yesterday late evening, I did go through the ‘greatthirdrail’ web site, but I missed the info. Nevertheless, once again, many thanks for your help.
Philippe
Philippe, we haven’t heard from you lately. Any progress updates?
Rich
HI Rich ,
I have spent the last month in Zurich (Switzerland) visiting my wife and our son families. Unfortunataly back to Paris, I have noticed the lost and/or access of many files related to the past and surviving US interurbans and trolleys, including those received through our Forum. Maybe you could help me in recovering some of them from your personal data or from your wide network.
Please let me know if you could give me some help. In the mean time, I am working on finding other files which might also have been lost and while securing my filling system for the future.
Philippe
The links to those websites relating to interurbans and trolleys are further up in this thread. Do they not show up on your computer?
Rich
Shed a tear for Dearborn. Not even anything left here for the buzzards to pick over:
jb3685 Feb 1977 By By Dearborn by Jim Burd, on Flickr
Abandoned Dearborn station by Gary Morris, on Flickr
Abandoned Dearborn station by Gary Morris, on Flickr
Cheers, Ed
Note that the map Ed provided is from Hungerford’s Flight of the Century, which contained a detailed description of how the Century’s cars were turned to put the Hudson views on the ‘correct’ side of the cars…
