Our Sixth Anniversary

January 21, 2021February 8, 2022David Sadowski 21 Comments

North Shore Line car 413 heads up a southbound train under wire at the Loyola curve in June 1961, from a Kodachrome II slide. Kodachrome was first introduced in 1935, and it was reformulated in 1961 although still a very slow film at ISO 25. Prior to this it was ISO 10. Don’s Rail Photos: “413 was built as a trailer observation car by Cincinnati Car in June 1924, #2765. It was out of service in 1932. 413 was rebuilt on May 28, 1943.” (J. William Vigrass Photo)

The Trolley Dodger blog started on January 21, 2015, making this our sixth anniversary. We chose the date deliberately, as it was also the day when the fabled North Shore Line interurban ran its last. We wanted there to be beginnings, as well as endings, associated with that date.

In our six years, we have had 262 posts. Here is a breakdown of page views by year:

2015: 107,460
2016: 127,555
2017: 118,990
2018: 121,147
2019: 101,902
2020: 133,246
2021: 8,436 (21 days)
Total: 718,736

Add to that the 297,195 page views from my previous blog, and we are now over a million page views. We thank you for your support.

We have lots for you this go-round… plenty of new images, including many in color, a rare article about the Metropolitan West Side Elevated, some submissions from our readers, and more photos from the William Shapotkin collection, and even a product review. We also have some North Shore Line content.

Enjoy!

-David Sadowski

For more photos and discussions, consider joining the Trolley Dodger Facebook group, which, although new, already has 151 members.

Our Annual Fundraiser

We thank our readers for making 2020 our most successful yet, with 133,246 page views, surpassing our previous record of 2016, and a 30% increase over the previous year. Each January, we ask our readers to help defray the expenses involved with file storage, web hosting, domain registration and other overhead, the “nuts and bolts” things that make this blog possible. Fortunately, thanks to all of you, we have have received $565 to date, meeting our original goal. Additional donations are always welcome, and will be used to purchase more classic images for this site. If you enjoy what you see here, and would like it to continue, please consider making a donation by clicking on this link, or the one at the top or bottom of this post.

We thank you in advance for your time, consideration, and your generous support.

Recent Finds

CTA 979 is southbound on State, just south of Lake Street. Romance on the High Seas, playing at the State-Lake theater, was released on June 25, 1948, probably about the time when this picture was taken. The streetcar still has a CSL emblem as this was early in the CTA era.

A North Shore Line train at Randolph and Wabash.

The North Shore Line’s headquarters in Highwood, with line car 604 out front. Not sure what caused the lightstruck portion of the neg, but I may try to repair the image in Photoshop at some future date since it is distracting.

A close-up of the previous image. Don’s Rail Photos: “604 was built by the C&ME in 1914. It was acquired by IRM in 1963.”

I was very fortunate to purchase this 1950s negative showing the CTA Stock Yards branch. Daniel Adams: “The view is facing east, at the intersection of Exchange and Packers Avenues. Racine Avenue Station, the first station encountered when a train consist pulls into the famed Stock Yards loop, can be seen in the distance. This train is beginning to make the first curve of the loop, to be heading south and soon pulling into Packers Station, which just a short distance away. Way back in the background, we can see the rather hazy tower of the Stock Yards National Bank, which stood on the west side of South Halsted Street.” Andre Kristopans notes, “A correction re Stock Yards – the first station on the loop was Racine, the second SWIFT, then Packers, then Armour.” So this train is between Racine and Swift.

Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company (aka Red Arrow) double-ended car 18 at 69th Street Terminal in July 1963. Don’s Rail Photos: “18 was built by St Louis Car Co in 1949, #1755. It became SEPTA 18 in 1970 sold to BERA in 1982.”

Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company (formerly the Philadelphia & Western, aka Red Arrow) Bullet car 207 in July 1963. 207 was built by Brill in 1931, order #22932, as P&W 207. It became PST 207 in 1948 and SEPTA 207 in 1970. I understand it is now preserved at Seashore Trolley Museum in Maine. This car had extended wheelbase trucks and was tested up to 100 mph.

Chicago Aurora & Elgin wood car 28 in Forest Park in 1952. The front of the car is not in sharp focus because it was moving towards the photographer. Back then, film speeds, and therefore shutter speeds, were quite slow. The fastest film speed in use then was Kodak Super-XX, introduced in 1940, at ISO 200. But this is probably not that film. Panatomic-X, which Kodak began selling in 1933, was ISO 32, and Plus-X, introduced in 1938, was originally ISO 50 (later bumped up to 125). Photographers often dealt with the shutter speed problem by taking their pictures while a train was still at a distance. The tracks curve off to the right in the distance. I am not sure of the exact location, although the Eisenhower expressway is here now.

North Shore Line Silverliner 740 at Howard Street, probably in the late 1950s. This was an Ektachrome slide that was not date stamped, which means it is probably before 1958, but after 1955. It had faded to red, like many other such early Ektachromes that had unstable dyes. It was an attractive alternative to Kodachrome in that era, though, because the film speed was 32 instead of Kodachrome’s 10.

While not the greatest photo, from a technical perspective, this is an original Kodachrome slide taken by George Krambles. This is perhaps only the second such slide I have purchased. It was shot at North Chicago Junction on January 20, 1952. Occasionally, railfan photographers would trade original slides, and this one was owned by J. William Vigrass.

NSL 707 heads up a northbound train crossing Dempster Street in Skokie in September 1958. Just behind the train, you can see a tiny bit of the station, which has been preserved and moved to a slightly different location. The southbound shelter was much more basic, and was approximately where the CTA built a new platform for Skokie Swift trains in 1964. Again, this was an early Ektachrome slide that had shifted to red (actually, it was the other color dyes that badly faded, leaving mostly the red visible) and was restored in Photoshop. (J. William Vigrass Photo)

A northbound North Shore Line train rounds the curve at Lake and Wabash in June 1961. We are looking to the east. This is an early Kodachrome II slide. The film had a faster ISO than the original Kodachrome, and was said to be sharper, with a thinner emulsion. But not all photographers were happy about the change, and it had a bit less contrast, and some missed the “Rembrandt blacks” of the old version. (J. William Vigrass Photo)

A view of the North Shore Line’s massive station at Zion, taken from the front of a train in July 1960 by J. William Vigrass. The city insisted on a large station, as they were confidant that their religious community would quickly grow, which it did not. It was torn down soon after the line quit in 1963. This is from an Ektachrome slide that had not faded, suggesting that Kodak had fixed the dye fading problem by 1960.

Milwaukee and Suburban Transport car 995 is on Route 10, the last Milwaukee streetcar line in the classic era, in August 1957. The 995 was one of the last two cars operated (along with 975) there on March 2, 1958. Streetcar service returned to Milwaukee on November 2, 2018, when a 2.1 mile route, known as “The Hop,” opened.

The North Shore Line’s Harrison Street Shops in July 1960. (J. William Vigrass Photo)

J. William Vigrass took this picture in July 1960 and marked it as “NSL” at Harrison (presumably, by the shops in Milwaukee). Edward Skuchas: “This is a Western 20 yard air dump car. They were used on railroads and trolley lines. Wilkes-Barre Railways had 2 or 3 and they adapted the ends for a radial drawbar. Car Works imported models in O & HO scale brass. They tilt and the sides lift.” David Cole thinks this may be the remains of the NSL weed sprayer shown in CERA B-106.

A northbound Electroliner stops at Adams and Wabash on the Loop “L” in September 1959. While I am sure the sailors are about to board, chances are the woman in the blue dress is too, since she is carrying a small suitcase. (J. William Vigrass Photo)

A closer view of the last image. Carl Fischer Music, at 312 S. Wabash Avenue, was a place where you could buy sheet music for both popular and classical. They still sell online. This location closed on April 16, 1999. The Epicurean Restaurant, at 316 S. Wabash, served Hungarian food and may have closed in the 1970s.

Although photographer J. William Vigrass labelled this September 1960 slide as “NSL,” readers on our TD Facebook group have identified it as the Chicago & North Western’s Racine Depot, which still exists, although no longer used as a train station.

This circa 1955-58 Ektachrome slide, with the color restored, shows an Electroliner on the four-track section of the north side “L”. Not sure of the exact location. (J. William Vigrass Photo) Mike Franklin: “This is looking west from the Sedgwick Station on the North side L. (House to the right is still there at 1542 Hudson Ave.)”

CA&E 410 awaits scrapping at Wheaton on April 23, 1962. It was built by Pullman in 1923. sister car 409 is now at the Illinois Railway Museum. (K. C. Henkels Photo)

Red Arrow car 83 on the Media line in September 1959. The street sign says School Lane.

Red Arrow car 77, signed for the West Chester line, is at 69th Street Terminal in January 1954.

From the standpoint of classic railfan photography, this is perhaps the best shot in today’s post, and shows Red Arrow car 24 on the Media line in May 1956.

Red Arrow car 13 on the Media line in November 1959.

Red Arrow Brilliner 5 on the Ardmore line in July 1959. This narrow street may be why this line was somewhat rerouted after being converted to bus at the end of 1966.

This map, although not very clear, shows the track arrangement on the Loop “L” as it was in 1906, seven years before it was changed to run counter-clockwise, with all trains going in the same direction. That was done to facilitate through-routing north side and south side trains. North is down on this map. In 1906, the Loop was bi-directional with left-hand running. The Lake Street and Northwestern “L”s also ran left-handed, while the South Side and Met trains ran right-handed. From the October 19, 1906 edition of the Electric Railway Review.

Although this old real photo postcard identifies this as the “N. W. “L”,” this is actually the Met crossing the Chicago River over two side-by-side bridges. According to Daniel Adams, this picture cannot have been taken after mid-1915, as swing bridge shown, on Jackson Boulevard, was replaced then. Once I receive the original of this in the mail, I will post a better version. Thanks to J. J. Sedelmaier for improving this one.

The Metropolitan West Side Elevated – 1895

We recently purchased the June 6, 1895 edition of Leslie’s Weekly, which has an extensive article, including numerous photographs and drawings, of the then-new Metropolitan West Side Elevated in Chicago:

The Normandy Flats was a large apartment building, purchased by the Met and moved to a new location. The 1894 Chicago Blue Book gave the Normandy Flats’ address as 2300-2302 S. Indiana Avenue, presumably where the building was relocated during the construction of the Metropolitan West Side “L”, as it was apparently in the way of something.

The original Franklin Street Terminal was only open from 1895 to 1897, and this is the first time I have seen a description of what it looked like. As far as I am aware, no one has yet found a photo. It closed when the Union Loop opened. At the same time, a new “L” station was opened at Franklin and Van Buren. Another terminal was later built on this site, extending back to Wells Street. It opened in 1904.

Why aren’t there more images of the Franklin Street Terminal? Well, for one thing, it opened late, apparently too late to be photographed for the big publicity push that coincided with the opening of the Met “L”. Hence this illustration. There is a photo showing the other side of the building (or buildings– the accompanying article seems to indicate the terminal went through two buildings). Then, it closed little more than two years later, coinciding with the opening of the Union Loop, and any publicity surely concentrated on that, and not the terminal closing.

From the Collections of William Shapotkin:

A “meet” between a steam train and a Chicago & West Towns Railway streetcar in LaGrange in the late 1940s. You can see evidence of the postwar construction boom in the background. Not sure if this was a fantrip.

This picture has been the subject of some discussion on Facebook. It’s a Pennsylvania Railroad “Doodlebug,” probably after 1948, at Baltimore, MD. It is apparently a Parkton local. John Engleman: “Actually, actually, it’s just sitting in what was called “the sleeper yard” at Pennsylvania Station probably between morning inbound and afternoon outbound trips to Parkton. A and B tracks and the platform that served them can be seen just beyond the Charles Street bridge.”

A Delaware, Lackawanna and Western electric commuter train in New Jersey. This railroad merged with the Erie in 1960 to form the Erie Lackawanna. The commuter service continues under NJ Transit.

Aurora, Elgin & Fox River Electric diesel switcher #5, which continued freight operations after the remaining remnant of the line was de-electrified. A section of this line is now the trackage of the Fox River Trolley Museum in South Elgin, IL.

Chicago & Eastern Illinois #4, the “Whippoorwill,” arrives at 63rd Street (Little Englewood Station) in July 1947.

A Milwaukee Road diesel engine at Fox Lake, IL.

Milwaukee Road passenger trains at Fox Lake, IL.

Louisville & Nashville Railroad passenger engine #241, taking water.

Louisville & Nashville Railroad freight engine #1827 after being overhauled at the South Louisville Shops.

Wabash #21 Blue Bird at 63rd Street (Little Englewood Station) in July 1947.

A Chicago & Interurban Traction Company car. This line operated between 63rd and Halsted and Kankakee, and was abandoned in 1927, due to increased competition from the Illinois Central Electric.

Chicago & Joliet Railway #212. This system ran from Archer and Cicero Avenues in Chicago and connected to the Chicago, Ottawa, & Peoria interurban. It was abandoned in 1933.

Chicago & Joliet Electric car 200. This car, the “Louis Joliet,” was built by C&JE in the 1920s.

Milwaukee Road #E-5.

Long Island Railroad snow plow #193.

Pittsburgh Railways at Resee-Charleroi. The car is signed for Riverview. Larry Lovejoy adds: “The picture of Pittsburgh Railways Company low floor car 3769 is on the Charleroi line northbound at White Barn Siding. The date is 27 July 1952 and the occasion is a fantrip sponsored by the Pittsburgh Electric Railway Club. The line was abandoned ten months later. Today’s Pennsylvania Trolley Museum is the direct descendant of PERC and preserves sister car 3756. While “Riverview” was a turnback point on the Charleroi line, that destination sign is actually inappropriate at this particular location.”

Pittsburgh Railways line car M212 at the Washington Junction Yard. Larry Lovejoy: “The photo of Pittsburgh Railways line car M212 is at Castle Shannon Car House. There was no yard at Washington Junction, which is about a mile south of Castle Shannon.”

Philadelphia & Western Strafford car 161 at Norristown on December 27, 1958. It was built by Brill in 1927 and continued to operate until sometime between 1888 and 1990. It is now owned by the New York Museum of Transportation.

P&W Strafford car 163 on June 24, 1955. After retirement in the 1990s, it was rebuilt into a gas-mechanical car and operated in Mt. Dora, Florida, but it is not certain whether it still exists.

P&W Strafford car 162 on September 28, 1958. Don’s Rail Photos: “62 was built by Brill in June 1927, #22529. It was rebuilt as 162 in 1931 and became PST 162 in 1948. It became SEPTA 162 in 1970. It was sold to Rockhill Trolley Museum in 1991.” Today it is the only survivor of the fleet preserved as a modernized 160 series car.

Don’s Rail Photos: “64 was built by Brill in June 1927, #22529. It was rebuilt as 164 in 1931 and became PST 164 in 1948. It became SEPTA 164 in 1970 and became a de-icing car in 1989. It was sold to Travel Northern Allegheny in 1992 but never used. It was sold to East Troy Electric Ry in 1994 and rebuilt as ETE Ry 64 in 2000. It was sold to Electric City Trolley Museum and will be restored as P&W 164.” Here it is on September 28, 1958.

P&W 165 at 69th Street Yards on November 12, 1958.

Product Test – The Pixl-Latr

The Pixl-Latr is an interesting new product that may be useful to people who have film negatives, but no easy way to scan them. It was developed as a Kickstarter project.

I decided to purchase one, and here are my results.

The Pixl-Latr is a negative holder that can accommodate 35mm, medium format, and 4″x5″ size films. It has a diffused backing to prevent the formation of Newton Rings on your scans. It pairs well with this LED light box. I practiced using it with a cellphone camera. The Pixl-Latr is not a substitute for a flatbed scanner, but is certainly more portable, and may come in handy in certain situations where a scanner is not available.

My cellphone picture, before working on it with an image editor.

I reversed out the negative into a positive image.

After cropping and adjusting both density and contrast. But the image is still technically a color image, and could be improved further by eliminating those subtle color casts.

The finished product, as a black-and-white image. Not bad! Compare with the scanned image elsewhere in this post.

The only downside of my usual method of scanning negatives is the formation of Newton Rings, caused by the negative coming into direct contact with the bottom glass of the scanner. I do use ANR (anti-Newton Ring) glass on top of the negative, which diffuses the light and prevents their formation. Fortunately, these are only noticeable at high magnification.

You can read more about Newton’s Rings here. They are an interference pattern, caused when one of the two items pressed together acts as a lens.

Recent Correspondence

LeRoy Blommaert writes:

How I met (and rode) the North Shore Line

I remember quite vividly the first time I saw the North Shore Line as well as the first time I rode it. It was the same time.

I was a sophomore in high school and I was on the debate team. We were to participate in a round robin tournament at St Mary’s in Evanston. We were given the address and told to take the L and change at Howard—but nothing beyond that.

While I had taken the L many times from Bryn Mawr to Wilson Ave, and downtown and to my grandmother’s on the west side, it was, with one exception, with my mother. I had never taken the L north. Neither apparently had my three companions.

We get to Howard; we get off; and we wait—but not too long. Soon something pulls in unlike anything I had ever seen before on the L. It was beautiful; it was powerful. I was entranced and I wanted to ride it. And not just sometime in the future. But now! Immediately! And I did. I persuaded my colleagues that this was the train we needed to take. They were somewhat skeptical but in the end they agreed.

I was generally a good boy (a very good boy in fact) who always followed the rules and rarely did anything I thought was wrong. But this time? This time was different! I wasn’t sure that it was not the train to take, but I had doubts that it was the right train. These doubts I dismissed.

We got on. It was one of the older cars. I remember it had a stove inside. I also remember how fast it went once we left the station and entered the cut. The conductor dutifully asked for our tickets. Obviously, we did not have them. I explained where we wanted to go; he said we got the wrong train, and we were left off at the first station—Skokie.

There we waited for the first train south. It was getting dark and no one was around. In those days, unlike today, there was very little around. We waited about an hour. Needless to say, we did not make it to the debate tournament.

The next time I rode the North Shore, the trip was much longer: to Milwaukee and back. It was a fan trip. I believe it was a Klebolt trip. I went with my father. How I found out about it, I don’t remember, as I did not know any railfans then. It was on this trip that I met Roy Benedict. I remember he wore a football helmet, not the kind we know today, but a leather one, the kind they wore in the 1920s. He had made some track maps that he either gave away or sold.

As fate would have it, in my freshman or sophomore year of college, we moved to Skokie—within walking distance of that same station. One summer I got a job in the Loop—in the Insurance Exchange Building. The best part of the job was riding the North Shore each week day. I got off at Quincy and Wells and for the trip back home, I walked to the station at Adams and Wabash. It was there I met Jeff Wien, who was a ticket agent for the summer. From there it was onto CERA meetings, to and from which I was able again to ride my favorite railroad in those early days. It is still my favorite railroad, except that sadly I can no longer ride it, except at the Illinois Railway Museum, but that is not the same. The speed is absent as is the distance and the varying landscapes.

FYI, a slightly edited version of this was published in the Edgewater Historical Society newsletter.

This prompted Jon Habermaas to write:

I first became aware of the North Shore from seeing the trains stored on the L south of Roosevelt Rd. Taking the Englewood L into the loop and as our train descended into the subway our tracks were straddled by the tracks holding the stored North Shore cars. My first trip on the North Shore was when I was in HS and needed to cut short my time with family on vacation and return to Chicago. I caught the first southbound train from Racine. I became a regular weekend rider when I was getting technical training as a new swabbie at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Getting off at LaSalle Street Station to catch a Rock Island commuter train I now realized that the large crowd of sailors we had often encountered coming down from the L platform had come from a North Shore train from Great Lakes.

LaSalle Street Station was the only one of the Chicago downtown railroad stations with direct access to the L. As a kid when we were downtown on shopping trips we often took the L to the department stores. Because the L trains were circling the loop in one direction it wasn’t possible to return that way and we would catch the Division/Van Buren streetcar on State for the return to LaSalle Street Station.

This prompted a discussion on the Trolley Dodger Facebook group about two other not-so-direct connections between the “L” and downtown train stations. Between 1970 and 1989, the Northwest Passage connected the C&NW terminal to the Clinton “L” station. It displaced Track 1 during those years.

The Canal Street station on the Met main line had a passageway leading to Union Station until the Garfield Park “L” was replaced by the new Congress median line in 1958. Here is a description from Graham Garfield’s excellent web site:

A new Union Station, serving several main line intercity railroads, was formally opened July 23, 1925, replacing an earlier railroad station on a similar site. The Chicago Daily Tribune on same day contained a paid advertisement stating, “A short enclosed passageway connects the station directly with the Canal Street Station of the Elevated Railroad.” Within the Canal “L” station a stairway went down to Union Station’s underground track level, then a walkway ran for half a block, separated from Union Station’s track area by an iron fence, and finally into the lobby of Union Station. The article “Chicago’s Stations: Gates to Everywhere” from the August 1948 issues of Trains magazine also discussed the “L”-Union Station tunnel:

“It’s kind of tough, also, that we can’t get out on the platform and look at the prow-pointed T1 at the head end of many Pennsy trains. But Union is all business, and frowns at folk who try to sneak by the gatemen ‘just to see the trains.’ Here’s a tip, though: if you go along ‘frustration walk’ — which is the entrance leading from the Canal Street ‘L’ station — you can get a squint of a train or two at the southwestern end of the terminal. Like as not, there will be some Burlington open-platform cars used on suburban runs out Aurora way.

“‘Frustration walk’ is so dubbed because commuters must walk along an iron-railed thoroughfare beside the tracks to enter the terminal. Then to go out to the train they are obliged to hike back from whence the came on the other side of the formidable railing. Short-cutting is verboten at Union. Many a commuter has seen his train pull out as he dashed madly down ‘frustration walk’ in an attempt to catch the train.”

There are some conflicting descriptions of how the tunnel actually connected to the “L” station. According to some accounts, the passage was accessed from within the Canal Street station building, suggesting the connection was to the station house. Others recall that the passage from Union Station deposited them on the Canal station platform, not in the station house, with fare collection in between.2 It is believed that there were, in fact, two access routes between the elevated platforms and the tunnel. Passengers en route from the elevated platform walked through the headhouse of the rapid transit station. While passengers from the tunnel went directly to the platforms after passing through a fare collection point.

Stuart B. Slaymaker adds:

The walkway was along Track 2. This would have been Track Zero. I seem to recall, it dumped you at or near the original outbound cab court. It was still there in 1979, when I worked at Station Services for Amtrak. Dark. Gate was locked with a big switch lock and an iron chain. In the dim light, I could see check-in desks from long-discontinued streamliners, like The Olympian Hiawatha and the Trail Blazer. All stored along the walkway, that formerly went to the Canal Street L Station. It must have been a LONG walk. The signs and ephemera behind the locked gate were covered with inches of black sooty dirt. I left CUS in September of 1979, and never saw this, again. I always wondered if any of the displays ever got saved.

Daniel Joseph found another one– Parnell on the Englewood branch. From www-chicago-l.org:

The Parnell station was adjacent to the Chicago & Western Indiana Railroad’s 63rd Street station, sometimes also called the “Little Englewood” station. Although the C&WI’s station fronted onto 63rd Street, there was also an enclosed pedestrian connection from the Parnell “L” station to the steam railroad’s facility.

Mike Jacob writes:

Hello. I came across your website while trying to find information on a print I have. Please see the attached. Have you seen it before or have any idea on the artist? Thank you in advance.

Thanks for writing. I can’t quite make out the signature, although the first name seems to be Jerome.

The artist is not familiar to me, but I would imagine they were copying an old photograph. There were two North Shore Line stations in Wilmette, and it’s not that easy to identify which one this is. This was part of the Shore Line Route, which was abandoned in 1955.

Perhaps our readers might know something more.

John G. Gaul writes:

Dempster Street- January 20, 1963. Nine years old at the time and living in Evanston, my Dad took my brother and I to Dempster St one last time. They’re not very good, but I’m glad I brought my little old box camera with me. It was a very cold day I recall.

Photos by John G. Gaul:

We thank all our contributors. Keep those cards and letters coming in, folks!

-David Sadowski

New Steam Audio CD:

FYI, we have digitally remastered another classic steam railroad audio LP to Compact Disc. Many additional titles, including the complete output of the Railroad Record Club, in our Online Store.

STEAM CDs:

RGTS
Rio Grande to Silverton:
A Sound Portrait of Mountain Railroading
Price: $14.99

These are vintage 1960 narrow gauge steam train recordings, in true stereo, and originally released on LP in 1961. It is long out of print.
Includes:
01. Riding The Train To Silverton
02. Photo Run At Elk Park
03. Arriving At Silverton
04. Train Time At La Jara
05. Illini Special At Cumbres Pass
06. Doubleheader Starting At Monero
07. Eastbound Freight
08. Arriving At Chama
09. Whistles At Coxo
10. Freight With Pusher At Coxo

Gone are the nostalgic sounds of steam echoes and thundering exhausts, but the memory is immortal. May they live on in the locomotive lexicon, as a monument to the era when trains were pulled by STEAM POWER.

As with all of our recordings, this CD comes with the complete, original liner notes.

Total time – 45:49

Chicago, Illinois, December 17, 1938– Secretary Harold Ickes, left, and Mayor Edward J. Kelly turn the first spadeful of earth to start the new $40,000,000 subway project. Many thousands gathered to celebrate the starting of work on the subway.
Order Our New Book Building Chicago’s Subways

There were three subway anniversaries in 2018 in Chicago:
60 years since the West Side Subway opened (June 22, 1958)
75 years since the State Street Subway opened (October 17, 1943)
80 years since subway construction started (December 17, 1938)
To commemorate these anniversaries, we have written a new book, Building Chicago’s Subways. While the elevated Chicago Loop is justly famous as a symbol of the city, the fascinating history of its subways is less well known. The City of Chicago broke ground on what would become the “Initial System of Subways” during the Great Depression and finished 20 years later. This gigantic construction project, a part of the New Deal, would overcome many obstacles while tunneling through Chicago’s soft blue clay, under congested downtown streets, and even beneath the mighty Chicago River. Chicago’s first rapid transit subway opened in 1943 after decades of wrangling over routes, financing, and logistics. It grew to encompass the State Street, Dearborn-Milwaukee, and West Side Subways, with the latter modernizing the old Garfield Park “L” into the median of Chicago’s first expressway. Take a trip underground and see how Chicago’s “I Will” spirit overcame challenges and persevered to help with the successful building of the subways that move millions. Building Chicago’s subways was national news and a matter of considerable civic pride–making it a “Second City” no more!

Redone tile at the Monroe and Dearborn CTA Blue Line subway station, showing how an original sign was incorporated into a newer design, May 25, 2018. (David Sadowski Photo)
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A Tribute to Jeffrey L. Wien

January 10, 2021September 1, 2025David Sadowski 3 Comments

In 2016, Jeff Wien hired Rick Foss to add realistic color to what had been a black-and-white image, a rare shot of a PCC streetcar passing the entrance of Riverview Amusement Park on Western just north of Belmont in 1956. The results were spectacular. (Wien-Criss Archive)

Our Annual Fundraiser

We thank our readers for making 2020 our most successful yet, with 133,246 page views, surpassing our previous record of 2016, and a 30% increase over the previous year. Each January, we ask our readers to help defray the expenses involved with file storage, web hosting, domain registration and other overhead, the “nuts and bolts” things that make this blog possible. As of this writing, we have only raised $55 of this year’s $500 goal. If you enjoy what you see here, and would like it to continue, please consider making a donation by clicking on this link, or the one at the top or bottom of this post.

We thank you in advance for your time, consideration, and your generous support.

A Tribute to Jeffrey L. Wien

Like many, I was recently shocked and saddened to hear that longtime Chicago railfan Jeffrey L. Wien had died at the age of 79. I had known Jeff for more than 40 years. While I mourn his passing, this post celebrates his lifelong interest in electric railways, which was so important to him.

Some time ago, he had asked me to compose his obituary, and this is what I came up with:

Jeffrey Lawrence Wien of Chicago died from a heart attack at Rush University Medical Center on January 6, 2021 at the age of 79. He had been hospitalized for about ten days suffering from pneumonia. Jeff was born in Chicago on April 3, 1941, the son of Jerome Lester Wien and Helen Louise Kraus. He grew up on the south side of Chicago near 47th Street until 1950, when the family moved to Evanston. He was a graduate of Evanston Township High School (class of 1959) and Northwestern University (class of 1963). He served his country as a Lieutenant in Naval Intelligence from 1963 to 1967. By profession, he was an accountant, and worked for Blue Cross-Blue Shield and at Provident Hospital. He was smart, funny (with an acerbic wit), opinionated, and loyal to his friends. Although he was talented in many areas, he was very modest and never boastful. He did not suffer fools gladly, but if you knew him, he was your friend for life. He loved to travel and was an avid and accomplished photographer and filmmaker, whose work appeared in many publications. His interest in historic preservation, architecture, and nostalgia drew him to street railways, interurbans and railroads. He was a passenger on the last Chicago streetcar in 1958 and was one of the last living employees of the Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee interurban. He was the author of Chicago Streetcar Memories, a DVD produced by Chicago Transport Memories LLC in 2009. Jeff was a co-author of the very comprehensive book Chicago Streetcar Pictorial: The PCC Car Era, 1936-1958, issued as Bulletin 146 of the Central Electric Railfans’ Association in 2015. Jeff was a voting member of the Illinois Railway Museum and a generous contributor to its activities. He was also a director and officer of Central Electric Railfans’ Association for 37 years. CERA is a not-for-profit technical and educational association founded in 1938. Along with Bradley Criss, he established the Wien-Criss Archive, an important photographic collection and resource that will continue to aid historical research in the future. Jeff will be very much missed and long remembered by everyone who knew him. He believed that life is the single most important thing, so you must protect it. He was predeceased by his spouse Bradley Scott Criss, and is survived by his sister Helen Jo Wien (Lotsoff), a niece and nephew. Interment is at the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Illinois. Donations can be made in Jeff’s memory to the Illinois Railway Museum CTA 4391 Restricted Fund.

Jeff became interested in streetcars at an early age. Ray DeGroote recalls answering a letter requesting more information from Jeff in 1955 while volunteering at CERA (Central Electric Railfans’ Association). They became lifelong friends, and brought Jeff in touch with what Ray has called the “intelligence network” of railfans, in those pre-Internet days. Jeff participated in his first fantrip in December 1956, one of several that were held in the declining years of Chicago streetcars, as the last lines were replaced by buses one by one.

His family lived at 48th and Woodlawn on Chicago’s south side until 1950, when they moved to the north end of Evanston. The closest “L” station was Isabella, a lightly patronized ground-level station that closed in 1973. It was made somewhat famous by being featured in the opening credits of the original Bob Newhart Show in the early 1970s.

Jeff’s initial interest was in taking 8mm color motion pictures. One roll would yield about three minutes of silent movie film. He taught himself photography by trial and error. Sometimes, people watching him would ask, incredulously, why he would want to take pictures of a streetcar?

Once Jeff discovered that the Western Avenue line would soon be replaced by buses, he did everything possible to document it, and the other remaining Chicago streetcar lines. Late in life, he could still recall how disappointed he was to discover that Western Avenue streetcars had been replaced by buses in June 1956.

This was followed by the loss of the final two north side lines in 1957 (Broadway and Clark), and finally Wentworth on the south side in 1958. In each case, Jeff rode the last car. By then, he had met other friends his own age who shared the same interest. Together, they decorated the last Chicago streetcar with crepe paper and a sign bidding farewell to Windy City trolleys. (This was no doubt inspired by “last cars” from other cities, some of which commemorated those events by decorating the cars, which the Chicago Transit Authority did not do.)

Until Jeff was 14, interurban trains of the Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee (aka the North Shore Line) passed near to his house in Evanston on the Shore Line Route. The North Shore Line became another of Jeff’s great interests, and he rode the last southbound car on a very cold January 21, 1963 along with his sister, although not to the end of the line at Roosevelt Road. (As the hour was so late, Jeff and Helen Jo got off at Howard Street to take the Evanston shuttle back to Isabella.)

During the summer of 1961, Jeff had a summer job as a ticket-taker for the North Shore Line at the Adams and Wabash station downtown, making him one of the interurban’s last living employees. Several years ago, he purchased a rare North Shore Line ticket cabinet from the Dempster Street station on that line. It was one of his prized possessions, and I persuaded him to write an article about it, which you can read here.)

Jeff started shooting color 35mm slides in 1958. His favorite film was Kodachrome, which then had a film speed of 10, meaning it was largely restricted to sunny days. Jeff would say, “I worship the sun,” and his favorite type of photo was the “three quarter” view, taken on a sunny day. He became a master at this type of photo. He favored all-mechanical Pentax cameras, as he did not trust batteries. He learned how to expose film by using the tried and true “Sunny f/16” rule.

Many other “last rides” in different cities followed. From 1963 to 1967, Jeff served in the Navy, and was stationed in Washington, DC. He was in Baltimore when their last streetcars ran in 1963, and Los Angeles when they ended both streetcar and trolley bus service the same year. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia were also among Jeff’s favorite cities, as they both had extensive streetcar systems that were gradually reduced in size and scope over the years.

It was, for many years, a hobby with many “lasts,” but after reaching a low point in the mid-1970s, things began to turn around, with the start of the new San Diego Trolley in 1981. Soon this was joined by a host of other new “firsts,” light rail and streetcar lines across the country, and Jeff traveled to many of these places, to ride, photograph, and film them.

Jeff was an avid collector of other people’s photos in addition to his own. Ray DeGroote gave him the William C. Hoffman collection, after the latter’s death in 1988. Hoffman had extensively documented Chicago’s streetcar, interurban, and “L” lines in photographs and in movies during the 1950s, which are now invaluable historical artifacts. These, he freely shared with others.

Jeff was very active in the Central Electric Railfans’ Association, a not-for-profit technical and educational group, and served as a director for 37 years. This culminated in the 2015 publication of CERA Bulletin 146, Chicago Streetcar Pictorial: The PCC Car Era, 1936-1958, which I co-authored. For Jeff, this was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, and the book was well received.

In the book, I wrote a tribute to Jeff, since I really thought of it as being his life’s work. I compared him to the late Richard Nickel, one of the pioneers of architectural preservation here in Chicago. Jeff was a pioneer as a transit preservationist. His influence was profound and extensive in his field. It’s fine that people will pay tribute to him now that he is gone, but I felt it was just as important to do this while he was still alive and able to read it himself.

Fantrips were one of Jeff’s major interests, and the last one he was involved with was on February 19, 2017, when CERA sponsored a trip on the CTA “L” system with four cars wrapped temporarily to celebrate the Cubs winning the 2016 World Series. This was made possible in large part by Jeff’s $2000 contribution.

He was also quite active at the Illinois Railway Museum, as one of only 100 voting members, and through his preservation activities. He helped bring Chicago Surface Lines motor coach 3407 to the museum, and in 2019, made a substantial contribution to bring Chicago Aurora & Elgin car 453 to IRM.

Along with his late partner Bradley Criss, Jeff produced two feature-length videos, Chicago Streetcar Memories, and A Tribute to the North Shore Line.

Jeff’s final activities were to add slides and negatives to his collection that either interested him, or filled gaps in his collection. Some of these were pictures that he was unable to take himself, and gave him immense pleasure. This included his purchase of a large portion of the late Bob Selle’s black-and-white negatives in 2018 and numerous rare Kodachrome slides taken by others, including the late Charles L. Tauscher.

Jeff’s was a life well lived, and a blessing to those who knew him. What follows are some highlights from Jeff’s life in our hobby. He will be sorely missed.

-David Sadowski

Here is Jeff at 15, taking part in a fantrip on a red Chicago streetcar on February 10, 1957.

On February 16, 1957, CTA 7201 was the last streetcar to run on Route 36. Here it is seen at Clark and Devon. (Charles H. Thorpe Photo, Wien-Criss Archive)

On February 16, 1957, CTA 7201 was the last streetcar to run on Route 36. Here it is seen at State and Madison. (Charles H. Thorpe Photo, Wien-Criss Archive)

CTA PCC 7201 is heading northbound at Clark and Wells on February 16, 1957, in this photo by Charles H. Thorpe, from the Wien-Criss Archive. It was the last streetcar to operate on the State-Broadway portion of Route 36.

I believe this iconic picture of CTA 7213, leaving Clark and Kinzie on the last Chicago streetcar run in the early morning hours of June 21, 1958, is a CTA photo.

Jeff was amazed a few years ago, when he found out that the late Charles Keevil had shot 16mm film of the last Chicago streetcar in 1958. This was transferred to digital and released by the CTA:

Jeff and his young friends decorated car 7213, no doubt inspired by what other cities had previously done for their last runs:

LVT 912, dressed in bunting at Fairview car barn for the last run of an Allentown streetcar, on June 7 1953.

A mother and her two kids have just gotten off a northbound Evanston train of 4000s at Isabella in January 1972. This station closed on July 16, 1973 and within a short period of time, all traces of it were removed, as it was a short distance from the Linden terminal and had low ridership. That same year, the Evanston branch was converted to third rail operation, and overhead wire was removed.

CTA 9361 is westbound on Irving Park Road, passing under the north-south “L”. The tracks it is about to cross belonged to the Milwaukee Road, and were used to interchange freight with the “L” until 1973. (Jeff Wien Photo, Wien-Criss Archive)

CTA 9378 is heading south on Broadway, about to turn west on Montrose (Route 78). (Jeff Wien Photo, Wien-Criss Archive)

CTA 9375 at the east end of the Montrose trolley bus line, near the Wilson Avenue “L” station… about to turn south on Broadway. (Jeff Wien Photo, Wien-Criss Archive)

I believe we may have run a similar picture before. This shows the North Shore Line station adjacent to the CTA “L” station at Adams and Wabash. (William Shapotkin Collection)

Jeff and his sister Helen rode the last southbound North Shore Line train as far as Howard Street. His friend Charles Tauscher continued with it to the end of the line, and snapped this historic picture:

A truly historic photo that probably hasn’t seen the light in 57 years. The late Charles L. Tauscher rode the last North Shore Line train ever, which ended its run at Roosevelt Road in the early morning hours of a very cold January 21, 1963. Motorman Bill Livings has just taken off the headlight and poses for a few pictures. This must be a long exposure (this was Ektachrome, and the film speed was 32) and you can see some motion blur on other parts of the platform. Truly the end of an era. (Wien-Criss Archive)

The North Shore Line’s Milwaukee Terminal on a wintry night in January 1963. This is a remarkable photo for the time, as it surely involved a long exposure time of at least a few seconds, with the camera held perfectly still on a tripod. Film speeds for color slide film were very slow and those films were designed for use in bright sunlight. (Wien-Criss Archive)

A northbound North Shore Line train stops at Dempster in January 1963, the final month. Just over a year later, after the abandonment, the CTA resumed service between here and Howard as the Skokie Swift. Note the sign at left for a yarn store in the terminal building. (Wien-Criss Archive)

This, and the next three images are from "superslides," meaning film larger than 35mm, but still able to fit in a regular 2x2 slide mount. This was possible with both 127 and 828 film, but it's the latter here, in this shot by W. H. Higginbotham showing an Electroliner at Grange Avenue in Milwaukee County. (Wien-Criss Archive)

This, and the next three images are from “superslides,” meaning film larger than 35mm, but still able to fit in a regular 2×2 slide mount. This was possible with both 127 and 828 film, but it’s the latter here, in this shot by W. H. Higginbotham showing an Electroliner at Grange Avenue in Milwaukee County. (Wien-Criss Archive)

NSL 741 creeps south along the old 6th Street viaduct in Milwaukee, next to a 1958 Chevy. (Wien-Criss Archive)

An Electroliner at 6th and Oklahoma in Milwaukee in 1962. (W. N. Higginbotham Photo, Wien-Criss Archive)

An Electroliner at Edison Court in Waukegan on May 26, 1959. (Wien-Criss Archive)

This picture of the CTA Stockyards line was taken in September 1957, shortly before the line was abandoned. There is little in this picture that still exists today, except for the shuttered Stock Yards National Bank Building, at 4146 S. Halsted Street. (Wien-Criss Archive)

A gate car (345) and a Met car are in the process of being scrapped at Skokie Shops in September 1957. (Wien-Criss Archive)

Riverview Park at Western and Roscoe on June 10, 1956. (Wien-Criss Archive)

PCC meets PCC in this famous Bill Hoffman photo, showing CTA PCC streetcar 4373 on Western Avenue, while a Garfield Park “L” train crosses on Van Buren temporary trackage. The date is June 16, 1954. (Wien-Criss Archive)

The “Streetcar Waiting Room” at Archer and Western on November 15, 1954. (Wien-Criss Archive)

CTA 153 is northbound at Halsted and Congress on October 5, 1953. (Wien-Criss Archive)

CTA 4227 is on the turnback loop at Clark and Howard, the north end of Route 22. This is now the outdoor seating area for a restaurant. Buses terminate at the nearby Howard “L” station. (Wien-Criss Archive)

Bill Hoffman and his sister Dorothy at their home at 6622 S. Maplewood Avenue in Chicago on December 26, 1981. Two nicer people, you will never meet. Both are sadly long gone. (Wien-Criss Archive)

On May 24, 1958 the Central Electric Railfans’ Association operated a fantrip on the South Shore Line, using Illinois Central equipment. Normally, South Shore cars ran on the IC, but not the other way around. Here, they are having a photo stop at the “new” East Chicago station, parallel to the Indiana Toll Road, which opened in 1956. It replaced street running in East Chicago. The view looks east. (Robert Selle Photo, Wien-Criss Archive)

On November 9, 1952, a two-car CTA “L” train, headed by car 1019, is on the trestle at Central on the Evanston branch. (Robert Selle Photo, Wien-Criss Archive)

Chicago & North Western steam loco 555, a 4-6-2, heads up a northwest line commuter train at Kinzie and 400 West on August 20, 1953. (Robert Selle Photo, Wien-Criss Archive)

This and the following picture show DC Transit pre-PCC 1053 in June 1961. n This historic car survived for many years before being destroyed in a museum fire. (Charles L. Tauscher Photo)

On June 26, 1960 a pair of CTA single-car units went out on a portion of the Lake Street “L”, but apparently did not go on the ground-level portion of the route. Here, we see the train heading westbound at Clinton and Lake. (Charles L. Tauscher Photo)

This photo of CTA 4391 in Chinatown appears on CERA’s 2014 membership card. The only surviving Chicago postwar PCC car is now at the Illinois Railway Museum. (Photo by Charles L. Tauscher, Wien-Criss Archive)

Jeff purchased this slide in 2018. It was processed in September 1965, and shows Pittsburgh streetcars near the Edgar Thomson Steel Works in Braddock, east of Pittsburgh, along the Monongahela River. The location was a mystery until it was identified by some of our readers.

Jeff bought his first Pentax MX camera at Helix in 1979, and continued using this model for the rest of his career.

Bradley Criss on March 3, 2012 at the end of the St. Charles Car Line at Carrollton and Claiborne Avenues in New Orleans. (Jeff Wien Photo, Wien-Criss Archive)

Jeff Wien was, in large part, responsible for a fantrip on February 19, 2017, where four CTA rapid transit cars were posed at various places on the system for photo stops, wrapped to celebrate the first Cubs World Series championship since 1908. I purchased this original slide on the very day he died, with the intention of giving it to him on his upcoming 80th birthday. It is also an excellent example of the type of shot he excelled at himself– a 3/4 view in sunlight. (Bruce C. Nelson Photo)

On September 5, 2020, Jeff made his last trip to the Illinois Railway Museum to participate in their annual meeting. Here he is with his beloved CTA 4391, the only surviving postwar Chicago streetcar. (Jose Martinez Photo)

Recent Finds

Here are some of our own recent photo finds:

We are looking west along South Boulevard in Oak park on June 8, 1962, just west of Ridgeland Avenue. The CTA Lake Street “L” ran at ground level here, using overhead wire, until October of that year, when it was relocated to the nearby Chicago & North Western embankment. I assume the commuter station you see here closed in 1958 along with several other close-in stations, in part to make way for this relocation project.

The same location today.

I thought this was interesting as it is an unusual view, one that you could only get by taking a picture on a moving train. This is near the Cermak station on the CTA Dan Ryan Line on May 14, 1979. A northbound train of 2000s approaches, and old Comiskey Park is visible to the south.

Mitch Markovitz: “Westbound (South Shore Line) train at Hammond. Has to be about 1949 as 108 has only been lengthened but not streamlined and air conditioned, and the gates are white and black but not yellow and black. The car behind it has been lengthened and streamlined.”

CA&E 2001 and 2002 at Wayne on June 29, 1957.

CA&E 2001 and 2002 in Lombard in October 1955.

CA&E freight locos 2001 and 2002 in Glen Ellyn in March 1959.

A CA&E freight train in Maywood. If that is correct, I would guess this is westbound crossing First Avenue, where the Illinois Prairie Path starts today. The tracks at left belong to the Chicago Great Western. The date is April 8, 1951.

CA&E freight locos 2001 and 2002 at an unknown location in the summer of 1957.

CA&E freight locos 2001, 2002, and a caboose in Elgin on March 30, 1957. A passenger car is also visible.

CA&E freight in Oak Park on November 18, 1951, with locos 2001 and 2002. In the background, you can see apartment buildings at around 600 Harrison Street. The Eisenhower Expressway runs here now, but the buildings seen still remain.

The same buildings today.

CA&E freight in Lombard on November 23, 1957. John Nicholson points out that with a passenger train in the distance, most likely the date is wrong. Perhaps it was really 1956.

CA&E freight in Maywood, with locos 2001 and 2002, on November 18, 1951.

The back end of the same train.

A CTA train from the 5001-5004 series (not to be confused with the current 5000s) heads southbound approaching Central Street in Evanston on January 7, 1951, having just crossed the North Shore Channel, not far from where the Wien family was living.

I recently purchased this original medium format negative of the Travel and Transport Building, one of the most distinctive structures at A Century of Progress, the 1933-34 Chicago World’s Fair.

This brochure was issued by the Chicago Surface Lines a short time before the October 1, 1947 Takeover by the Chicago Transit Authority, and spells out the locations where “walking transfers” were available between various CSL routes that were not directly adjacent to each other, and included some Chicago Rapid Transit Company stations on the “L”/Subway. But notice they did not include any such transfers to the Chicago Motor Coach lines, which continued to be privately owned for another five years after this.

The former Asbury station on the Niles Center “L” branch (unused by transit since 1948), as it looked in July 1970. The picture was taken along the right of way of the CTA Skokie Swift (today’s Yellow Line). The building has long since been demolished. A train in the 5001-5004 series is visible in the distance.

This picture was taken around the time the CTA Dearborn-Milwaukee-Congress Subway opened in 1951, and shows where trains crossed over and turned back near LaSalle Street, which was the end of the line until 1958, when the Congress median line opened.

We previously ran another version of this same image on a post in 2016, but I thought it was worth getting a second copy. This one has somewhat less contrast, so you get a better view of the platform. The original caption was: The CRT Westchester branch at Roosevelt Road, circa 1929-1930. Service along this line opened in 1926, and when the line was extended, local officials insisted that tracks not cross Roosevelt at grade, thereby necessitating this grade separation project. The platform at left was later moved into the open cut, although the original station house was retained. Service to Mannheim began in 1930. The line was abandoned in 1951. We are looking north.

I find this photo by Edward Frank, Jr. interesting for a number of reasons. It most likely is from before 1943, as a CRT steel car (4312) is coupled to a wood car (2157). This is along the Garfield Park line and the notation “XO” on the side probably means this train is turning back just west of the DesPlaines Avenue station in Forest Park (which would also explain why there is a cemetery visible behind the train). The platform that’s visible may have been only for the use of train crews. The Eisenhower Expressway is located here now. It is unusual that Ed Frank put his name directly on the negative– he generally rubber stamped it on the back. He was taking pictures as early as 1934.

The North Shore Line began running into Chicago via the “L” in 1919, and had phased out use of wood cars by 1936. This shows car 130 at Roosevelt Road in that time frame, signed for the Shore Line Route. During WWII, NSL leased this and some other wood cars to the Chicago Aurora & Elgin. A train of woods ran a fantrip on the North Shore Line in 1946, and then these cars were sold to the CA&E, which continued to operate them until service was cut back to Forest Park in 1954. The glare may indicate this picture was taken looking through the window of another train.

A two-car CA&E train at the Wells Street Terminal. This might be car 412, built in 1923 by Pullman.

New Steam Audio CD:

FYI, we have digitally remastered another classic steam railroad audio LP to Compact Disc. Many additional titles, including the complete output of the Railroad Record Club, in our Online Store.

STEAM CDs:

RGTS
Rio Grande to Silverton:
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As with all of our recordings, this CD comes with the complete, original liner notes.

Total time – 45:49

Redone tile at the Monroe and Dearborn CTA Blue Line subway station, showing how an original sign was incorporated into a newer design, May 25, 2018. (David Sadowski Photo)
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The Photography of Roger Puta

December 16, 2020May 27, 2024David Sadowski 11 Comments

A Christmas Present
While I was scanning some slides of Roger Puta’s the other evening, I came upon this one. I fell in love with it immediately. It sure isn’t one of your run-of-the-mill train pictures. Roger took it in November 1978 at the Lackawanna RR station in Newark, NJ.
In thinking about it, I feel my high school buddy and railfan friend has sent me a Christmas present across the miles and the 25 years he has been gone. So I’m sharing his present with you.
Enjoy,
Marty Bernard (2015)

We have lots of gifts for you under the Trolley Dodger tree this season. Most feature the exceptional photography of the late, but very prolific Roger Puta (1944-1990). His friend Marty Bernard has scanned many of these and has generously uploaded them to a Flickr album that has, at last count, 929 public domain images.

Here is what Marty Bernard has written about Roger Puta:

Who Was Roger Puta? (2016)

I am asked that question often. Here is a short bio.

Roger and I went to High School together. He was a good friend and railfan buddy. We grew up in nearby towns along the CB&Q in the Chicago western suburbs. We railfanned together through college, often with our railfan friends from the Chicago area. He worked for the Santa Fe and Western Pacific and lived in the Washington DC area and San Francisco in the 1970s and 80s. He was a rare mileage freak, a prolific and darn good train photographer, and focused considerable attention on passenger trains. He traveled widely in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico to meet those interests. If it ran on rails, or was related to something that ran on rails, he photographed it. Thus his collection of thousands of slides includes many of streetcars, depots, and railroad graphics. He was known for his slides shows, some of which were at Winter Rail. In 1990 he caught a train to the Pearly Gates.

I am now scanning and posting his slides. I continue to be surprised how many railfans knew him and respond to my posts of his slides. He did many railfan trips of multiple days with one or more of his fellow foamers.

We have selected over 100 of these images for today’s post, following our usual Recent Finds. I believe it is important to pay tribute to those fans who have gone before us, for we are truly “standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Happy Holidays!

-David Sadowski

PS- The Trolley Dodger is now on Facebook too.

Recent Finds

July 30, 1953: “North Shore Line northbound train leaving Randolph St. station on Wabash, from Marshall Field’s window.” (Glenn S. Moe Photo)

A close-up view of the previous picture.

CTA 1024 and work car S-340 were used on a fantrip for the Illinois Electric Railway Museum on April 20, 1958. The location is the old Church Street freight yard near Northwestern University. After the fantrip, car 1024 went to the museum’s location in North Chicago under its own power. It has since been restored to its as-delivered appearance as car 24. Don’s Rail Photos: “1024 was built by Pullman in 1899 as NWERy 24. It was renumbered 1024 in 1913 and became CRT 1024 in 1923. It was rebuilt as 1st S-111 on March 19, 1955, and sold to Illinois Railway Museum as 1024 in 1958. S-340 was rebuilt from a 1700 series car.” In this case, the “rebuilding” appears limited to a new coat of yellow paint. Information from Andre Kristopans shows that S-340 was originally car 1815, retired on January 9, 1958. It lasted into the mid-1960s.

CTA work car S-340, taken at the same location, and on the same IERM fantrip, as the previous picture. The date is April 20, 1958.

CTA gate car 390 is part of a two-car Central Electric Railfans’ Association fantrip train at the Ravenswood terminal at Kimball and Lawrence in April 1957. Note the original station entrance, then nearly 50 years old, which had a green roof at this time. Sean Hunnicutt: “That is 6062 on the left.”

This is the same fantrip train as in the picture taken at Kimball and Lawrence. Two wooden “L” CTA cars, including 390, are posed for a photo stop at Sedgwick in April 1957. The occasion was a Central Electric Railfans’ Association fantrip. Many of these trips took place on Sundays, when Ravenswood trains did not run on this part of the “L”, so there could be leisurely photo stops. At night and on Sundays, the Rave operated as a shuttle, starting in 1949, going only as far as Armitage. In 1963, after the North Shore Line quit, the Ravenswood shuttle ended at Belmont. The shuttle operation ended in 2000, as ridership on the renamed Brown Line had greatly increased. Now all Brown Line trains go to the Loop.

A six-car North Shore Line special train. This picture may date to the 1930s. I am not sure of the location, but this may also be where many of the cars were lined up for scrapping after the interurban was abandoned in 1963.

Chicago Aurora & Elgin 459 is westbound at Lakewood station on August 8, 1954, during a fantrip for the Central Electric Railfans’ Association. (Bob Selle Photo)

This photo was taken by Steve Carter sometime during the last year of operation of the CA&E (1957), at the intersection of York Road and Vallette Street (Elmhurst), looking north.

CTA PCC 4113, a product of the Pullman company, heads west on a shoo-fly at Madison and Wacker Drive on March 30, 1950. This was during construction of Lower Wacker Drive, which began in 1949 and moved south at the rate of about one block per year.

CTA PCC 4169 (a Pullman) is eastbound at 119th Street, near the south end of Route 36 – Broadway-State, as it crosses over the Pennsylvania Railroad’s “Panhandle” route.

Chicago Rapid Transit car 4293 at University on the Jackson Park “L”. If not for the sign on the platform, I would’ve hard a difficult time identifying this location. The car is flying American flags, which may mean this picture was taken on July 4th or some other holiday.

The City of Chicago hired professional photographers to shoot various scenes of the new State Street Subway around the time it opened in 1943. Some of these were issued in a series of postcards. Here, we see the new north portal, just south of Armitage.

A close-up view of the previous picture.

There must be a story behind this picture, showing an observation car on a mainline railroad. There were a number of lines that had a Chicago Limited.

The observation car pictured above does bear some resemblance to ones used on the North Shore Line:

North Shore Line observation parlor car 420.

CTA PCC 7180 is at South Shops on February 12, 1956, near work cars E-208 and F-29. Don’s Rail Photos: “E208, sweeper, was built by McGuire in 1895 as CCRys E8. It was renumbered E208 in 1913 and became CSL E208 in 1914. It was retired on September 27, 1956. F29, plow, was built by McGuire-Cummings in 1924. It was retired on December 14, 1956.”

A four-car Evanston Shopper’s Special. The front car is 1269. Don’s Rail Photos: “1269 was a trailer built by American Car & Foundry in 1907, #5098, as NWERy 269. It was renumbered 269 in 1913 and became CRT 1269 in 1923.” This picture was taken on August 6, 1937 by Otto C. Perry. A version with less cropping is on Don’s Rail Photos.

Aurora, Elgin & Fox River Electric car 49 in South Elgin, IL on August 6, 1944.

The Photography of Roger Puta

The earliest photos here date to about 1962, when Roger Puta was 18 years old. By then, the CA&E had stopped running, but the rolling stock was still awaiting final disposition in Wheaton. That was also the last full year of service for the North Shore Line.

There are many pictures of the Chicago Transit Authority, including the western end of the Lake Street “L”, still running at ground level until the end of October 1962. The Evanston branch still used overhead wire until 1973, operating 4000-series “L” cars as well as 6000s and the 1-50 single car units. The new high-speed Skokie Swift began running in April 1964, just over a year after the demise of the North Shore Line.

The South Shore Line continued operating 1920s-era cars until the early 1980s, as the last surviving Chicago interurban. Those venerable orange interurban cars ran on South Bend streets until 1970. We have also included some pictures from the Erie Lackawanna’s Gladstone branch, which also used equipment of the same vintage, and seems very interurban-ish even though for some reason, it is not usually classified as one.

Midwest traction is well represented by photos from the Southern Iowa Railway and Iowa Terminal, including former Waterloo, Cedar Falls & Northern car 100, newly repainted just prior to being tragically destroyed in a 1967 fire.

To round out our feature of classic railcars, there are some pictures of Bullet cars on the former Red Arrow line between Philadelphia and Norristown, aka the Philadelphia & Western, now operated by SEPTA.

The captions are by Marty Bernard. I corrected a few minor typos.

1 of 2 Photos. On the slide mount Roger wrote, “CTA Lake St. B-train racing C&NW freight near Laramie Ave., Chicago, IL in May 1967.”
Before October 28, 1962 the Lake St. “L” ran at street level next to the C&NW’s elevated embankment through far western Chicago and Oak Park after it dismounted its “L” structure above Lake Street. It was slow running with lots of grade crossings. On that date the trains shifted to new tracks up on the embankment. Roger’s photo shows the results. At the right you can see the structure over Lake Street and see the tracks shift to the left (north) on to the C&NW embankment. And I really like this photo. Why? It’s the pigeons. Four of them.

2 of 2 Photos. Roger wrote on the slide mount, “CTA eastbound Lake St. “L” taking down trolley pole at the station near N. Parkside Ave. and W. Lake St. in Chicago on August 14, 1962.”
At street level the trains drew their power from the trolley wire overhead — on the “L” structure from a third rail. This is the last station before this eastbound train mounts the “L” structure. Above the old station, up on the embankment, is the nearly completed new station.
The elimination of trolley pole running on the western end of the Lake Street “L” allowed the CTA to modernize its fleet without the cost of trolley poles.

CTA Eastbound Lake St. “L” going past the pedestrian-only grade crossing at Elmwood Ave in Oak Park, IL on August 14, 1962

CTA Lake Street “L” trains meeting near N. Long Ave and W. Lake Street in Chicago, Il. on August 14, 1962

CTA Westbound Lake Street L approaching the Oak Park Ave. station while crossing the Euclid Ave. grade crossing in Oak Park, IL on August 14, 1962

CTA Westbound Lake Street L in Oak Park, IL on August 14, 1962

CTA Lake Street L coming down to street level off elevated track at N. Long Ave and W. Lake St. in Chicago, IL on August 14, 1962

CTA Ravenswood B train on outer loop at Randolph and Wells station, Chicago, IL on June 13, 1968

CTA L cars in storage at Logan Square terminal, Chicago, IL on April 5, 1969. Sean Hunnicutt adds, “6629-30 on the outside corner. Funny note about this: my ex-girlfriend was born in Manila on this day.”

CTA interlocking tower at Logan Square Terminal, Chicago, IL on April 9, 1966
Roger Puta photograph
Roger wrote, “The last mechanical interlocking on the CTA and will be replaced with a new tower.”

CTA Logan Square Terminal and Yards Before the Kennedy Extension, 5 Photos
The Logan Square station served the CTA as the terminal of the Milwaukee (Ave.) “L” until February 1, 1970 when the Kennedy Extension to Jefferson Park (and later to O’Hare) opened. But on May 30, 1966, a new all-electric interlocking was placed in service at Logan Square tower. Roger Puta and Rick Burn had just visited Logan Square the month before and took these photos. These are Roger Puta’s photos except for Photo 2.
5. Yard at Logan Square from the unfinished tower. Sean Hunnicutt notes, “2153-54 (resting up for a long career) and 6615.”

CTA Logan Square Terminal and Yards Before the Kennedy Extension, 5 Photos
The Logan Square station served the CTA as the terminal of the Milwaukee (Ave.) “L” until February 1, 1970 when the Kennedy Extension to Jefferson Park (and later to O’Hare) opened. But on May 30, 1966, a new all-electric interlocking was placed in service at Logan Square tower. Roger Puta and Rick Burn had just visited Logan Square the month before and took these photos. These are Roger Puta’s photos except for Photo 2.
3. A Congress-Milwaukee A Train going through Logan Square Yard taken from Douglas-Milwaukee B train.

CTA Logan Square Terminal and Yards Before the Kennedy Extension, 5 Photos
The Logan Square station served the CTA as the terminal of the Milwaukee (Ave.) “L” until February 1, 1970 when the Kennedy Extension to Jefferson Park (and later to O’Hare) opened. But on May 30, 1966, a new all-electric interlocking was placed in service at Logan Square tower. Roger Puta and Rick Burn had just visited Logan Square the month before and took these photos. These are Roger Puta’s photos except for Photo 2.
1. Control panel in the unfinished tower at Logan Square on April 9. 1966.

CTA Logan Square Terminal and Yards Before the Kennedy Extension, 5 Photos
The Logan Square station served the CTA as the terminal of the Milwaukee (Ave.) “L” until February 1, 1970 when the Kennedy Extension to Jefferson Park (and later to O’Hare) opened. But on May 30, 1966, a new all-electric interlocking was placed in service at Logan Square tower. Roger Puta and Rick Burn had just visited Logan Square the month before and took these photos. These are Roger Puta’s photos except for Photo 2.
4. A Douglas Park bound B train crossing over just outside Logan Square terminal while Congress-Milwaukee A train waits. Taken from unfinished tower. Sean Hunnicutt adds, “2153-54 still on break at the right.”

CTA Logan Square Terminal and Yards Before the Kennedy Extension, 5 Photos
The Logan Square station served the CTA as the terminal of the Milwaukee (Ave.) “L” until February 1, 1970 when the Kennedy Extension to Jefferson Park (and later to O’Hare) opened. But on May 30, 1966, a new all-electric interlocking was placed in service at Logan Square tower. Roger Puta and Rick Burn had just visited Logan Square the month before and took these photos. These are Roger Puta’s photos except for Photo 2.
2. The old and new tower (correct me if I’m wrong). Rick’s photo. Sean Hunnicutt: “6587-88.”

CTA 6000s, Ravenswood Train, July 1965
These were early 6000 series cars with double headlights and a top center rollsign. The 6000s were rebuilt PCC streetcars. Roger’s photo show them holding down a Ravenswood run in July, 1965. For more on these cars see: http://www.chicago-l.org/trains/roster/6000.html

Chicago Transit Authority’s Evanston Shuttle at Isabella station in Evanston, IL on May 26, 1962

CTA Skokie Swift, Skokie, IL May 1964

Chicago Transit Authority “jitterbug” Skokie Swift car northbound on curve south of Oakton St., Skokie, IL on April 12, 1966

Chicago Transit Authority 4000s as an Evanston Express (signed Evanston-Wilmette) leaving Isabella Station in Evanston, IL, April 12, 1966. Sean Hunnicutt adds, “4447.”

Chicago Transit Authority southbound Skokie Swift car south of Oakton St. in Skokie, IL on ex-CNS&M track on April 12, 1966

CTA 2240 at Laramie on the Douglas Line in April 1985

CTA O’Hare Station, April 1985

CTA Laramie stop on the Douglas (Pink) Line in April 1985

CTA 2292 at Laramie on the Douglas (Pink) Line in April 1985

CTA 6-car 4000 series Ravenswood A train near Grand Ave. Station, Chicago, IL om February 2, 1968

CTA 2-car train approaching Belmont Ave. Station on April 9, 1966
Roger Puta photograph
Roger wrote, “Note doors and windows signify early L car.” Sean Hunnicutt: “6057-58.”

Chicago Transit Authority Evanston Express with 4000 series cars at Clark Junction near the Belmont Station, Chicago, IL on February 2, 1968.

CTA Evanston Express near Wellington station, Chicago, IL in February, 1968

CTA B Douglas-Milwaukee and A Congress-Milwaukee trains at end of track, Logan Square Terminal on April 9, 1966

These articulated cars were called “jitterbugs”.
There were only 4. Roger’s photo is of CTA 54 as southbound Skokie Swift train south of Oakton St. in Skokie, IL on ex-CNS&M trackage on April 12, 1966. For more on these cars see: http://www.chicago-l.org/trains/roster/5000.html

CTA (left to right) at Belmont Ave. Station, Ravenswood 2-car SB, B Jackson Park – Howard 6 car NB, A Englewood – Howard 6 car NB, in distance 2-car NB Ravenswood on April 9, 1966

CTA 4-car Evanston Express approaching Isabella Ave. station with 4 trolley poles up, Evanston, IL, North Shore Channel bridge in background on April 12, 1966
These are single man cars used individually as shuttles on the Evanston Line during off hours.

CTA Howard – Englewood A Train southbound at Addison, Chicago, IL on August 25, 1962

CTA A train Englewood – Howard L approaching Belmont Ave. station on Saturday evening rush hour, Chicago, IL on April 9, 1966. Sean Hunnicutt: “6286.”

CTA 4-car Evanston Express approaching Isabella Ave. station, Evanston, IL, April 12, 1966

CTA Skokie Swift, Skokie, IL in May 1964 Crawford looking east

CTA 8127 Evanston Express on Outer Loop at Randolph and Wells
Note only one pair of poles — permanently coupled cars. June 13, 1968

CTA 4-car Evanston Express leaving Isabella Ave. station, Wilmette, IL on April 12, 1966

CTA Evanston Express train approaching the Merchandise Mart station, Chicago, IL on June 13, 1968

The Skokie Swift Over the North Shore Cannel
Roger Puta took this photo in May of 1964 in Skokie. (This appears to be the uncropped version of this photo.)

The Skokie Swift Over the North Shore Cannel
Roger Puta took this photo in May of 1964 in Skokie. He didn’t have a telephoto lens at that time. So I cropped the photo much tighter just to see what it would look like. This allowed me to eliminate much of the uninteresting sky and get the photo closer to obeying the Rule of Thirds. It also shows that the car is slightly burred which does not show in the original size photo.

CA&E 427 stored at Wheaton, IL Shops, April 25, 1962

CA&E 429 stored at Wheaton, IL shops, April 25, 1962

3 More About Electroliners from Roger Puta’s Camera
CNS&M herald on the Electroliner at station in Milwaukee, WI on October 21, 1962.

North Shore Facilities in Milwaukee — 4 Photos
These are scans of Roger Puta’s slides taken October 12, 1962 in Milwaukee, WI.
CNS&M Passenger Terminal at 6th St. and W. Clybourn Ave.

North Shore Facilities in Milwaukee — 4 Photos
These are scans of Roger Puta’s slides taken October 12, 1962 in Milwaukee, WI.
Lower yard east of the Terminal on W. Clybourn St. down toward the Milwaukee Road Passenger Station. (I once knew what that second car in was. Please remind me.) Sean Hunnicutt: “The first car is 170.”

An Electroliner on the Milwaukee Streets — 4 Photos
I don’t know how Roger Puta did it, but he photographed the same northbound Electroliner both on 5th and 6th Streets on October 21, 1962 only a couple blocks apart. Here are his captions.
1. CNS&M Train 805, The Electroliner on S. 5th St. approaching W. Orchard St.
2. CNS&M Train 805, The Electroliner on S. 5th St. near W. Orchard St.
3. CNS&M Train 805, The Electroliner coming out of private right-of-way onto S. 6th St. at W. Scott Ave. [Look who has the railfan seats. I don’t remember. Are they looking at a blank wall?]

An Electroliner on the Milwaukee Streets — 4 Photos
I don’t know how Roger Puta did it, but he photographed the same northbound Electroliner both on 5th and 6th Streets on October 21, 1962 only a couple blocks apart. Here are his captions.
CNS&M Train 805, The Electroliner coming out of private right-of-way onto S. 6th St. at W. Scott Ave. [Look who has the railfan seats. I don’t remember. Are they looking at a blank wall?]

3 More About Electroliners from Roger Puta’s Camera
The last CNS&M Tavern – Lounge car on the substitute Electroliner that day. See previous photo.

North Shore Facilities in Milwaukee — 4 Photos
These are scans of Roger Puta’s slides taken October 12, 1962 in Milwaukee, WI.
CNS&M Yards and Shops at Harrison Street.

CNS&M Train 415 starting to move on W. National Ave. on S. 6th St. in Milwaukee, WI on October 12, 1962

CNS&M Train 422 on S. 5th St. at W. Rogers Ave. in Milwaukee, WI on October 21, 1962

3 More About Electroliners from Roger Puta’s Camera
Each of the two Electroliner had a day off each week for maintenance and repair. So on every Tuesday and Thursday the substitute Electroliner would run. Roger caught the substitute in this photo. Here is his caption: CNS&M NB Train 803, The Electriliner, consisting of Silverliner 769, Tavern – Lounge 415 (upper window sash and trailer trucks), and Silverliner 76? stopped at the Racine, WI depot on October 21, 1962.

North Shore Facilities in Milwaukee — 4 Photos
These are scans of Roger Puta’s slides taken October 12, 1962 in Milwaukee, WI.
I blew up the sign on the roof of the canopy.

A Surprise South Shore Shot
Roger Puta and I railfanned the South Shore a lot during College (Christmas, semester, and Easter break). As I was scanning his South Shore slides yesterday I was surprised by this one. I have near duplicates of most of his South Shore slides because I was standing next to him. Not this one. It looks like it may have been a grab shot.
Here is his caption: CSS&SB going down grade from Pennsylvania – Wabash Bridge in Gary, Indiana on February 10, 1963.

CNS&M Glenayre passenger station in Glenview, Illinois. This slide was taken on January 24, 1963 three days after the North Shore abandoned service. It is one of nine Mediterranean Revival Style built by Samuel Insull. Only two still exist: Beverly Shores on the South Shore Line and Briergate on the North Shore Line.

CNS&M Train 409 northbound south of the Northbrook, Illinois station on the Skokie Valley Route on May 26, 1962.

CNS&M southbound Train 216 from Waukeegan, IL approaching the former Asbury Ave. station in Skokie, Ill. CERA Railfan Special in Car 720 was first train to stop at Asbury Ave since 1941, August 25, 1962.

CNS&M way freight on the team track between Northfield and Northbrook, Illinois on May 26, 1962.

Just an Electroliner
I don’t remember ever seeing a photo of an Electroliner from the Ridge Ave. (called Ridge Blvd. in Chicago) Bridge in Evanston, IL. But my friend Roger Puta took one on November 3, 1962, a little over 2 1/2 months before they ceased to run because the North Shore ended operations. Here is his caption on the slide mount, “CNS&M Train 802, the Electroliner taken from Ridge Blvd. bridge in Evanston, IL. Ridge Blvd. had been a stop on the old Skokie “L” and the station is still standing.”
The 3rd rails are have a slight layer of rust.
Both Electroliners were saved. The one at the Illinois Ry Museum at Union, IL is being fully renovated. The one at Rockhill Trolley Museum, Rockhill Furnace, PA is in SEPTA (Red Arrow) colors.

CSS&SD 105 at Gary, IN on January 27, 1964
Chicago South Shore and South Bend

CSS&SB 801 in Hegewisch (Burnham Yard) in Chicago on January 27, 1964.

CSS&SB 106 at the Kensington stop in Chicago, IL in September 1963. This is where the South Shore diverts on to its own track and heads east.

I posted the second photo a while back. Thought it was neat. Today I found the one Roger Puta took a few seconds earlier while the train was on the bridge. And he managed to avoid getting the headight hidden behind a structure member! This is a CSS&SB eastbound (to Chicago) going over Pennsylvania – Wabash RR bridge in Gary, Ind. on February 10, 1963.

CSS&SB 11 at Gary, Ind. in July, 1979. That hand railing at the left is 802’s.

CSS&SB 802 in the double track pocket at Gary, Ind. in July, 1979.

CSS&SB 109 going up grade to Pennsylvania – Wabash bridge in Gary, Ind. on February 10, 1963.

CSS&SB 107 eastbound at the Hegewisch stop in Chicago, IL on December 31, 1965. (That’s my wonderful Plymouth. Roger and I were in our senior year of college.)

CSS&SB 801 in January 1964, location not recorded.

Two CSS&SB 700s (ex-NYC) on a caboose hop approaching the Gary, Ind. depot in January 1964.

Chicago South Shore & South Bend 707 in Burnham Yard, January 1972

Chicago South Shore & South Bend 705 coming westbound into Hammond. The Indiana Toll Road is in the background in February 1972.

Chicago South Shore & south Bend 702 Burnham Yard, January 1972

CSS&SB 32 in Hammond, IN on January 27, 1964

CSS&SB 106 in South Bend, Ind. on January 27, 1964 02

CSS&SB Train 320 boarding passengers in street at South Bend, Indiana station on April 9, 1966. Rick Burn and Steve Sumner at right

CSS&SB 104 in Michigan City, IN on January 27, 1964

Roger Puta found CSS&SB 106 being loaded in South Bend, Ind. on January 27, 1964

Erie-Lackawanna EMUs in Orange, NJ on November 1978

Erie-Lackawanna EMUs at Hoboken Terminal, December 1978

EL EMU Train on the Gladstone Branch from Pill Hill Road in November 1978

EL Montclair Station Depot in November 1978 R24
Building exists. Tracks gone.

From the end of a platform in the Erie-Lackwanna Terminal at Hoboken, NJ in November 1978

Erie Lackwanna Montclair Depot in November 1978 — 3 Photos
Building exists. Tracks gone.

Lackawanna Railroad Freight House at Morristown NJ on Morristown Line former M&E Division of Lackawanna RR in November 1978 R26

ex-DL&W Tower located eastbound side at Orange NJ station on Morristown Line in November 1978

EL Signal P389 on Gladstone Branch. P is for Passaic & Delaware, former name of Gladstone Branch. Signal is west of Far Hills, NJ in November 1978

EL Chatham NJ station on former DL&W Morris & Essex, later EL Morristown Line in November 1978 B22

EL EMU Train on the Gladstone Branch from Pill Hill Road in November 1978

EL EMU interior in November 1978

EL EMUs at Hoboken in November 1978

EL EMU westbound to Gladstone, NJ MU train on Gladstone branch… note parlor car in consist. Eastbound train # was 412 Gladstone to Hoboken weekdays only in November 1978

Iowa Terminal Railroad Car 101 at Charles City
Photograph taken by Roger Puta the weekend of August 12th and 13th, 1967 in Iowa.

Iowa Terminal Railroad Car 100 on MILW interchange tracks Mason City
Photograph taken by Roger Puta the weekend of August 12th and 13th, 1967 in Iowa.

Iowa Terminal Railroad Car 100 at Emery Shops
Photograph taken by Roger Puta the weekend of August 12th and 13th, 1967 in Iowa.

Iowa Terminal Railroad Car 100 at West Mason City
Photograph taken by Roger Puta the weekend of August 12th and 13th, 1967 in Iowa.

Roger Puta took these August 12 and 13 of 1967.
Freight Motors 80 and 81 at the shops, Emery, IA

Iowa Terminal Railroad Car 101 near Oakwood
Photograph taken by Roger Puta the weekend of August 12th and 13th, 1967 in Iowa.

Iowa Terminal Railroad shops and substation at Emery
Photograph taken by Roger Puta the weekend of August 12th and 13th, 1967 in Iowa.

Iowa Terminal Railroad Car 100 at shops at Emery
Photograph taken by Roger Puta the weekend of August 12th and 13th, 1967 in Iowa.

Southern Iowa Railway Freight Motor 101 — 3 Photos
Roger Puta took these during a railfan weekend in June 1963.
Near Maine, IA

Roger Puta took these August 12 and 13 of 1967.
Box Motor 31 (ex-Chicago, North Shore & Milwaukee) and Passenger Car 100 (ex-Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Northern Railway) near Mason City.

Southern Iowa Railway Freight Motor 101 — 3 Photos
Roger Puta took these during a railfan weekend in June 1963.
At the Moravia, IA depot.

Iowa Terminal Railroad Car 101 near Roseville Siding
Photograph taken by Roger Puta the weekend of August 12th and 13th, 1967 in Iowa.

Iowa Terminal Railroad right of way just east of Emery taken from Box Motor with Passenger Car 100 ahead
Photograph taken by Roger Puta the weekend of August 12th and 13th, 1967 in Iowa.

Iowa Terminal Railroad Car 100 near Clear Lake
Photograph taken by Roger Puta the weekend of August 12th and 13th, 1967 in Iowa.

Southern Iowa Railway Freight Motor 101 — 3 Photos
Roger Puta took these during a railfan weekend in June 1963.
South of the Moravia Iowa depot. Iowa Southern Utilities (former owner of the railroad) substation at left.

Some Iowa Terminal Railroad Freight Motors — 4 Photos
Roger Puta took these August 12 and 13 of 1967.
Steeple Cab 30 in yards at Charles City, IA

Some Iowa Terminal Railroad Freight Motors — 4 Photos
Roger Puta took these August 12 and 13 of 1967.
Freight Motor 61 at the shops, Emery, IA

6 Brill Bullet Photos
Roger Puta took these six photos of SEPTA Brill Bullet 200 at 69th Street Terminal in Upper Darby, PA in May 1983. I rode these cars and stupidly never took interior shots. Thanks Roger for helping me remember.
Note: Brill made transit cars.

Roger Puta took these six photos of SEPTA Brill Bullet 200 at 69th Street Terminal in Upper Darby, PA in May 1983. I rode these cars and stupidly never took interior shots. Thanks Roger for helping me remember.
Note: Brill made transit cars.
And yes, that’s Roger Puta.

FYI, a Google search brought up additional info on the life of Roger Puta here.

Keep those cards and letters coming in, folks!

-David Sadowski

New Steam Audio CD:

FYI, we have digitally remastered another classic steam railroad audio LP to Compact Disc. Many additional titles, including the complete output of the Railroad Record Club, in our Online Store.

STEAM CDs:

RGTS
Rio Grande to Silverton:
A Sound Portrait of Mountain Railroading
Price: $14.99

As with all of our recordings, this CD comes with the complete, original liner notes.

Total time – 45:49

Redone tile at the Monroe and Dearborn CTA Blue Line subway station, showing how an original sign was incorporated into a newer design, May 25, 2018. (David Sadowski Photo)
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The Photography of Mel Bernero

December 2, 2020February 14, 2021David Sadowski 20 Comments

CTA 4000 series fan trip Chicago Avenue Station (this probably took place on a Sunday, at a time when the Ravenswood wasn’t running any further south than Belmont).

In our last post, we noted the recent death of Mel Bernero, who was active in several organizations, most notably the Omnibus Society of America. He leaves a rich photographic legacy, and one he freely shared– 34,343 pictures uploaded to Flickr in the last 13 years.

Reflecting his interests, the great majority of these are bus pictures, but he took lots of CTA “L” pictures as well, beginning in 1969. Mel was a talented photographer, and in the late 1960s and early 70s there was quite a lot to take pictures of.

As a tribute to Mel Bernero, we present a generous selection of his work. The great majority of images here are his, nearly all the color images in fact. The black-and-white pictures are things he collected, taken by others. We hope you will enjoy them.

-David Sadowski

PS- We have tweaked a few of these images when it was possible to make them look better, and added a bit of missing caption information here and there as well.

The Photography of Mel Bernero

CTA fan trip Lake Street crossing Lake Street 8-1972

CTA Logan Square yard

CTA 1101 OSA fan trip Logan Square 10-10-1961 Richard Kaplan Photo

CTA 413 Logan Square 6-1966 Ronald Sullivan-John LeBeau Collection

CTA 8479 is on Grand Avenue, near the old “L” station, which closed in 1970.

CTA 5167 by the Logan Square “L” terminal, which closed in 1970.

Chicago Motor Coach 810 63rd & Loomis. Our resident South Side expert M.E. adds, “This photo, looking south, shows the 63rd and Loomis L terminal before one track was extended out over the street. The auto on the street seems to have huge horns on each side of the hood. I think it is a late 1940s Cadillac. Also interesting is that the bus sign reads “Marquette Rd. Limited, (to) Washington and Canal.” How did it get there? I found a decent map:
https://www.cmap.illinois.gov/documents/10180/213749/ChicagoBoulevardSystem_20120312_version1-0.pdf
This route used Loomis Blvd. (1400 W.) between Marquette Rd. (6700 S.) and Garfield Blvd. (5500 S.), where it turned east on Garfield. Beyond that, the route probably turned north on Michigan Ave. (which never had streetcars anywhere north of 95th St.), then all the way into downtown.

CTA 3339 Jeffery & 71st St. in 1968, running parallel to the Illinois Central Electric’s South Chicago branch (now the Metra Electric).

CTA 9368 (aka CSL 368) unloading from flat car at South Shops

CTA 9368 (aka CSL 368) after unloading from flat car at South Shops

CTA 9375 at the east end of the Montrose trolley bus line, near the Wilson Avenue “L” station… about to turn south on Broadway. (Jeff Wien Photo, Wien-Criss Archive)

CTA 9378 is heading south on Broadway, about to turn west on Montrose (Route 78). (Jeff Wien Photo, Wien-Criss Archive)

CTA 9193, on a March 2, 1958 fantrip for the Ominbus Society of America. This looks like the Roosevelt Road viaduct to me.

CTA 1726, 9565 at Grand and Nordica

CTA 7616 63rd-Stony Island (east terminal of the Jackson Park “L”) in 1974.

CTA 4271-4272 Washington-Wabash (celebrating the CTA’s 70th anniversary, presumably on October 1, 2017)

CTA 1608-4000 Series L cars (this is where the Lake Street “L” descended to ground level, just west of Laramie, which it did until October 1962).

CTA fan trip Hamlin Yard Lake Street 8-1972

CTA Jefferson Park 11-1973

CTA 5000 series Skokie Swift Ridge Avenue 1972

CTA 4000 series work equipment Lake-Wells 6-1969 (this is probably when the original Tower 18 was being replaced, and new track added, in conjunction with the opening of the Lake-Dan Ryan service a few months later).

CTA 4000 series Evanston Express service s-b

CTA 4271-4272 fan trip Main Street Evanston 7-1975

CTA 4455 Evanston Express Lake-Wells 9-1971

CTA 4000 series fan trip Kedzie Station 4-1973

CTA 4271-4272 fan trip Harlem-Lake Terminal 11-9-1974

CTA 4000 series Evanston Express Randolph-Wabash 5-1971

CTA 4000 series Lake-Wells 9-1971

CTA 4271-4272 fan trip Harlem-Lake Terminal 11-9-1974

CTA 4271-4272 fan trip Randolph-Wells 11-9-1974

CTA 4437 Evanston North of Main Street Station 9-1969

CTA 4000 series fan trip 3-1975

CTA 4000 series Evanston Express Main Street Evanston 2-1970

CTA 4271-4272 fan trip Skokie Swift Dempster Terminal 11-9-81

CTA 4 Skokie Swift Dempster Terminal 11-1971

CTA 29 Skokie Swift Dempster Terminal 11-1969

CTA 53 Yellow Line Dempster Terminal 2-1979

CTA 23 Skokie Swift Dempster Terminal 6-1971

CTA 52 Skokie Swift Dempster Terminal 1-1970

CTA 54 Yellow Line Howard Terminal 7-1981

CTA 2000 series Logan Square Station showing construction for the Kimball subway extension in 1969.

CTA 1-50 series Evanston Central Street Station 7-1981.

CTA 1-50 series Evanston Express Isabella 4-1971

CTA 1-50 series Evanston Howard Terminal 3-1974

CTA 1-50 series Evanston service n-b at Foster 7-1981

CTA 1-50 series Skokie Swift Oakton Street 1-1970

CTA 1-50 series Skokie Swift Kostner Ave 11-1971

CTA 1-50 series Evanston Howard Terminal 9-1969

CTA 1-50 series Purple Line Isabella Station 1-1970

CTA 1-50 series Skokie Swift Crawford Ave 1-1975

CTA 42 Evanston North of Main Street Station 9-1969

CTA 1-50 series Evanston Central Street station 7-1981

CTA 24 Skokie Swift Oakton Street 3-1974

CTA 25 Skokie Swift 7-1981

CTA 29 Skokie Swift Dempster Terminal 12-1971

CTA 1-50 series Evanston Howard Terminal 11-1971

CTA 1-50 series Skokie Swift Prairie Avenue 4-1970

CTA 6000 series 14th-State 6-1982

CTA 5000 series Skokie Swift 7-1969

CTA 5000 series Skokie Swift Kostner Avenue

CTA 4000 series Evanston Express 11-1969

CTA 4000 series fan trip Desplaines Terminal Forest Park 3-71

CTA 4409 fan trip Main Street Evanston 3-1975

CTA 4000 series Evanston Express North Shore Channel

CTA 4000 series Evanston Express Southbound 5-1970

CTA 4000 series Evanston Express Wabash-Lake 5-1971

CTA 4000 series Evanston Express Main Street 9-1969

CTA 4271-4272 fan trip Sedgwick Station 4-1973

CTA 4271-4272 fan trip Randolph-Wells 11-9-1974

CTA 4000 series Evanston Linden Terminal 9-1969

CTA 4410 fan trip 10-21-1973.

CTA 4000 series work equipment Lower 63rd Material Yard

CTA 4271-4272 fan trip 63rd-Ashland Terminal 11-9-1974a

CTA 4000 series North Branch Chicago River 9-1969

CTA 4271-4272 fan trip Howard Terminal 7-1975.

CTA 29 Skokie Swift Dempster Terminal 11-1969

CTA 24 Skokie Swift Dempster Terminal 4-1974

CTA 42 Evanston service n-b at Foster 7-1981

CTA 52 Skokie Swift Dempster Terminal 7-1981

CTA 52 Skokie Swift Howard Terminal looking south 7-1981

CTA 54 Ridge Avenue 7-1969

CTA 29 Skokie Swift Howard Terminal 7-1981

CTA 2000 series Wabash-Lake 5-1971

CTA 1-50 series Skokie Swift Dempster Terminal 1-1970.

CTA 1-50 series Evanston Express Isabella 5-1970

CTA 1-50 series Evanston Isabella 1-1970

CTA 1-50 series Evanston service Maple Avenue

CTA 1-50 series Purple Line Isabella Station.

CTA 1-50 series Evanston Linden Yard 7-1981

CTA 1-50 series Skokie Swift Dempster Terminal 1-1975

CSL 1412 26th-Stewart EB (Mike Charnota Collection)

CSL 2909 Racine-16th SB (Mike Charnota Collection)

CSL 3093 Grand-Racine (Mike Charnota Collection)

CSL 3098 Throop-26th SB 8-25-1946 (Mike Charnota Collection) Correction: Robert Tuggle writes, “the streetcar is actually heading south on Racine at Grand Avenue.”

The same location in 2019.

CSL 1401 87th-Vincennes RI station in background (Mike Charnota Collection)

CSL 3108 Sangamon-Adams (Mike Charnota Collection)

CSL 1400 Canalport-18th (Mike Charnota Collection)

CSL 3295 Montrose-Wells Park (Mike Charnota Collection)

CSL 3304 Montrose-Chicago River (Mike Charnota Collection)

CSL 3098 Sangamon-Adams (Mike Charnota Collection)

CSL 3294 Montrose-Ravenswood RT (Mike Charnota Collection)

CSL 3307 Montrose-Ravenswood (Mike Charnota Collection)

CSL 123 working on wire April 1944

New Steam Audio CD:

FYI, we have digitally remastered another classic steam railroad audio LP to Compact Disc. Many additional titles, including the complete output of the Railroad Record Club, in our Online Store.

STEAM CDs:

RGTS
Rio Grande to Silverton:
A Sound Portrait of Mountain Railroading
Price: $14.99

As with all of our recordings, this CD comes with the complete, original liner notes.

Total time – 45:49

Bibliographic information:
Title Building Chicago’s Subways
Images of America
Author David Sadowski
Edition illustrated
Publisher Arcadia Publishing (SC), 2018
ISBN 1467129380, 9781467129381
Length 128 pages
Chapter Titles:
01. The River Tunnels
02. The Freight Tunnels
03. Make No Little Plans
04. The State Street Subway
05. The Dearborn-Milwaukee Subway
06. Displaced
07. Death of an Interurban
08. The Last Street Railway
09. Subways and Superhighways
10. Subways Since 1960
Building Chicago’s Subways is in stock and now available for immediate shipment. Order your copy today! All copies purchased through The Trolley Dodger will be signed by the author.
The price of $23.99 includes shipping within the United States.
For Shipping to US Addresses:

For Shipping to Canada:

For Shipping Elsewhere:

Redone tile at the Monroe and Dearborn CTA Blue Line subway station, showing how an original sign was incorporated into a newer design, May 25, 2018. (David Sadowski Photo)
Help Support The Trolley Dodger

This is our 259th post, and we are gradually creating a body of work and an online resource for the benefit of all railfans, everywhere. To date, we have received over 698,000 page views, for which we are very grateful.
You can help us continue our original transit research by checking out the fine products in our Online Store.
As we have said before, “If you buy here, we will be here.”
We thank you for your support.
DONATIONS
In order to continue giving you the kinds of historic railroad images that you have come to expect from The Trolley Dodger, we need your help and support. It costs money to maintain this website, and to do the sort of historic research that is our specialty.
Your financial contributions help make this web site better, and are greatly appreciated.

Thankful

November 24, 2020February 14, 2021David Sadowski 24 Comments

This is a beautiful shot, showing a six-car CTA train of 6000s heading northwest on the Logan Square “L” at Damen Avenue on August 21, 1970. The photographer identified the first four cars as 6629-30 and 6657-58. Sometimes the angles work out just right.

It’s the time of year when we all take stock of all the good things in our lives, the things we are thankful for, and share our abundance of good fortune with our loved ones. The Trolley Dodger is no exception to this, and we have a plateful of classic traction photos for you, a feast for the eyes. We are very thankful for our readers, and hope you all have a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday.

This is our first post in a while, but we have been very busy the whole time. First, I worked 25 straight days as an election judge during the recent presidential contest, 16 days at polling places, and an additional 9 days processing mail ballots.

Second, proofs were ready to go over for our next book, Chicago’s Lost “L”s. This is our third traction book as sole author, and a tremendous amount of work goes into making each one as factual, informative, and entertaining as possible. When I post pictures here, and get something wrong, the error can be corrected later, but once a book is published, it’s done. We strive for 100% accuracy.

Furthermore, in our books we always strive to include pictures that our readers have not seen before. During the course of working on this book, we made numerous photo substitutions. Even after we had chosen what we thought were the right pictures, we ended up swapping out about one-third of these later, for even better ones.

A great deal of time and resources are involved. For example, during the proofing stage, we changed out seven photos. These, combined, cost us nearly $500. Naturally we have drawn largely from our own collections, and from those kindly shared with the permission of our contributors. But even so, we often have to seek our those missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that is a book such as this, and have to compete for those images in the marketplace, along with everyone else.

At any rate, we are very pleased with how Chicago’s Lost “L”s is turning out, and we look forward to seeing it in print sometime next year. Now we are on to the stage where our changes and corrections are incorporated into the layout, and we expect to soon have the final proofs to look over.

Thirdly, since we find there is often much more to talk about than can be shared in these occasional blog posts, we have started a Facebook auxiliary for The Trolley Dodger. This is an add-on, and takes nothing away from what you see here. It’s a private group, meaning the posts are not public and can only be seen by those who join the group. But if Facebook is not your thing, it can be safely ignored.

Some of the discussions we have had on Facebook have actually been beneficial to this post, and to my new book.

For this post, we have lots of recent photo finds, plus some more pictures that escaped our grasp.

Keep those cards and letters coming in, folks!

-David Sadowski

Melvin Bernero

Posted on Facebook:

It is with great sadness that I pass along information about the death of our friend, Melvin Bernero.

Melvin had been a director of Omnibus Society of America for decades, and has played a key role in keeping the organization going as the editor and publisher of the newsletter and the annual calendar… there will not be a funeral. Maybe there will be a memorial service in a few months.

Apparently this was Covid-related. He thought that he had the flu, and had picked something up while waiting in line for early voting. His neighbors brought him coffee, and discovered that he had passed away at home. That is all the information I have.

Mel was an excellent photographer, and posted over 34,000 pictures to Flickr. He leaves a rich and remarkable legacy and will be truly missed.

Recent Finds

North Shore Line combine car 256 in Milwaukee in November 1962. Don’s Rail Photos: “256 was built by Jewett in 1917. It seems to be the only one which retained its original configuration.” There is a very similar photo on Don Ross’s web site attributed to Joe Testagrose, but it doesn’t seem quite identical to this one. If not taken by him, it was probably someone standing next to him, which happens more often than you might think.

This is an improved version of an image we previously posted with the following caption: CSL 1786 under the Lake Street “L” on November 23, 1952. Note the Chicago Motor Coach yard at right. CMC’s assets had been purchased by CTA a few months earlier, and were gradually being integrated into regular CTA operations. Bill Shapotkin adds, “This pic is actually at Lake/Kenton (not Cicero). The car is E/B. This is the only such photo I have ever seen at this location.”

The former Ridge station on what had been the Niles Center “L” branch, as it appeared in July 1970. The station entrances to both Ridge and Asbury looked nearly identical, but as J. J. Sedelmaier points out, Asbury was being used as a convenience store during this time. This is along the current path (in Evanston) of the CTA Yellow Line, which began life as part of the North Shore Line’s Skokie Valley Route in the mid-1920s. Both stations have long since been removed, except for a few traces at track level.

We have featured the work of photographer Richard H. Young before, going back to some of our earliest posts in 2015. Here, on June 2, 1960, we see a four-car North Shore Line train, headed up by car 175, at the Mundelein station. He notes, “Train just arrived and standing on departure track but poles not reversed yet.”

North Shore Line Electroliner set 801-802 has just pulled out from the Milwaukee terminal at 6th and Clybourn on October 31, 1948. (Richard H. Young Photo)

Chicago, Aurora & Elgin express motor 7 at the Wheaton shops. I was going to speculate that this might have been after abandonment, but apparently not, as the car was later repainted with stripes. So this could be circa 1950. Don’s Rail Photos; “7 was built by Jewett Car in 1906. In 1941 it was rebuilt as a tool car.”

Illinois Terminal electric loco 1596, a Class “C”, at Granite City on September 12, 1955. Note car 101 is next to it, now at the Illinois Railway Museum. Don’s Rail Photos: “1596, Class C, was built at Decatur in December 1929. It was sold for scrap to Hyman Michaels on March 25, 1956.” (Bob Selle Photo)

From left to right, at the Illinois Electric Railway Museum on October 25, 1958, we see Illinois Terminal line car 1702, CRT/CTA “L” car 1024, and Milwaukee streetcar 972. This is when the museum was at North Chicago. Don’s Rail Photos: “1702 was built by Danville Ry & Light Co in 1903 as 1507, a pull car. It was rebuilt as a line car in 1922 and renumbered 1702 in August 1925. It was purchased by Illinois Electric Ry Museum on October 11, 1958. 1024 was built by Pullman in 1899 as NWERy 24. It was renumbered 1024 in 1913 and became CRT 1024 in 1923. It was rebuilt as 1st S-111 on March 19, 1955, and sold to Illinois Railway Museum as 1024 in 1958. 972 was built by St Louis Car Co in 1927, #1466. It was purchased by IRM in 1958 and was operated frequently.” (Bob Selle Photo)

Another view at IERM on October 25, 1958. Illinois Terminal line car 1702 is in front of TM 1129, with CRT/CTA gate car 1024 at right. (Bob Selle Photo)

CTA red Pullman 440 is southbound at Kedzie and Van Buren on July 1, 1953, passing by Kedzie Station. (Bob Selle Photo)

This appears to be an Omnibus Society of America trolley bus fantrip, using CTA 9193, on March 2, 1958. I think part of the idea was to use this bus on parts of the system where this type of bus had not previously been in use. I have posted three other pictures from this same trip in the past on my blog. One shows the TB at the back of Kedzie garage, another at Kedzie and the Congress Expressway, and the third at Kedzie and 33rd. This being a fantrip would help explain why the TB is on Homer, a short-turn path for the Armitage route. It was billed as the first-ever trackless fantrip in Chicago. Looks like the photographer got lucky, and there just happened to be a work train overhead on the Logan Square “L”. That could be S-337. If so, Don’s Rail Photos notes, “S-337 was a trailer built by American Car & Foundry in 1907 as NWERy 273. It was renumbered 1273 in 1913 and because CRT 1273. It was rebuilt as 1812 and rebuilt as S-337. It was scrapped in November 1968.” The street in the background is Milwaukee Avenue.

The same location today. Homer is located a block south of Armitage.

CTA gate car 1024 and an unidentified work car are heading south at Isabella in Evanston, on an April 1958 fantrip sponsored by the Illinois Electric Railway Museum. By then, wood cars were no longer being used in regular passenger service. The museum purchased the 1024 and it headed up to North Chicago once this fantrip was over. The lightly-used station at Isabella closed in 1973, and all traces of it were removed shortly after.

This is a view I recall seeing many times growing up. A two-car train of CTA 2000s prepares to depart the Lake Street “L” terminal at Harlem Avenue on November 11, 1966. We are looking mainly to the east. The street at right is South Boulevard in Oak Park. These “L” cars were but two years old at this point, having replaced 4000s.

CTA work car S-200 at Homan Avenue (Lake Street “L”) in March 1962. Don’s Rail Photos: “S-200 was built by Barney & Smith in 1901 at M-WSER 783. It was renumbered in 1913 as 2783. In 1916 it was rebuilt as a work motor and numbered S-200. It became CRT S-200 in 1923.”

A rare view looking north along the Wilson Avenue Lower Yard in August 1956. Perhaps the final use for these tracks, which were apparently removed in the late 1950s, was to store some old wood cars prior to scrapping. Note some of the cars have broken windows. The back of the McJunkin Building is visible at right. The tracks ended at Wilson Avenue.

North Shore Line 253 at the Milwaukee Terminal. Don’s Rail Photos: “253 was built by Jewett in 1917. It dropped seating to 28 on June 17, 1924, and was acquired by IRM in 1963.”

Red Arrow (Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company) Bullet car 207 at 69th Street on June 7, 1964.

CTA 2332 and train at Laramie on the Douglas Park "L" (now the CTA Pink Line) on February 8, 1991. (Peter Ehrlich Photo, © 2020 Peter Ehrlich)

A two-car train of North Shore Line Silverliners at 6th and Walker in Milwaukee (probably in the late 1950s). We are apparently looking south.

The same location today, looking south. The direction was partly determined by where the manhole cover is in the older picture. An expressway is now just to the right, truncating the cross street.

CA&E 433 and 426 at DesPlaines Avenue in Forest Park, sometime between 1953 and 1957.

More That Got Away

We can’t buy all the nice pictures, but we can still share some of them with you.

A nice view of CTA Historic cars 4271-4272 by the old Wilson Shops.

The Loop “L” in 1900, looking north from Adams and Wabash. In the distance, you can see Madison and Wabash in the distance, and what appears to be a direct entrance into a building. Graham Garfield adds, “Yup—it’s the Louis Sullivan-designed bridge to the Schlesinger and Mayer (later Carson Pirie Scott) department store!”

According to this 1924 ad, the platform canopies on all 207 Chicago “L” stations were being re-roofed with Armco Ingot Iron.

A westbound CTA trolley bus passes the Luna theatre, which was located at 4743 W. Belmont, circa 1968.

Recently, there were nine rare postcard photos up for auction, all relating to the Metropolitan West Side “L”. We were fortunate to win four of these, which will appear in our upcoming book Chicago’s Lost “L”s. Here are the others we did not win:

This shows where the Met crossed over the Lake Street “L”. This picture was taken prior to the construction of the Lake Street Transfer station in 1913, made possible once the four competing “L” companies came under joint operation.

A close-up view of part of the last picture, with somewhat better resolution.

It’s been suggested this view may look west from the Kedzie station on the Humboldt Park branch.

A two-car CTA train of 6000s at Kedzie on the new Congress median line in 1958.

Along the Douglas Park “L” in July 1963.

Looking north from Granville in 1966.

CSL 5041, signed for Archer Downtown.

Chicago & North Western EMD E7A #5012B with passenger train at the Oak Park station in September 1965. The view looks west, and a two-car CTA Lake Street “L” train is visible.

Andre Kristopans says this is the north end of the Western station on the CTA Logan Square “L”, looking north.

CTA single-car unit 26 is southbound at Niles Center Road on March 6, 1965.

A CA&E train order from March 13, 1945. Freight locomotive 3003 was directed to run extra to Aurora.

CTA trolley bus 9698 is westbound on Roosevelt Road in 1972, just west of the South Side “L”.

Capital Transit (aka DC Transit) 1055 in the 1940s. This was a pre-PCC car built in 1935, and represented an important step in the development of PCCs, introduced the following year. Car 1053 was the last survivor of this car type, but was unfortunately later destroyed in a museum fire.

The Third Avenue El in 1955.

New York’s Third Avenue El at 34th Street in 1955, shortly before abandonment.

New Steam Audio CD:

FYI, we have digitally remastered another classic steam railroad audio LP to Compact Disc. Many additional titles, including the complete output of the Railroad Record Club, in our Online Store.

STEAM CDs:

RGTS
Rio Grande to Silverton:
A Sound Portrait of Mountain Railroading
Price: $14.99

As with all of our recordings, this CD comes with the complete, original liner notes.

Total time – 45:49

The Trolley Dodger On the Air
We appeared on WGN radio in Chicago in November 2018, discussing our book Building Chicago’s Subways on the Dave Plier Show. You can hear our 19-minute conversation here.
Chicago, Illinois, December 17, 1938– Secretary Harold Ickes, left, and Mayor Edward J. Kelly turn the first spadeful of earth to start the new $40,000,000 subway project. Many thousands gathered to celebrate the starting of work on the subway.
Order Our New Book Building Chicago’s Subways

There were three subway anniversaries in 2018 in Chicago:
60 years since the West Side Subway opened (June 22, 1958)
75 years since the State Street Subway opened (October 17, 1943)
80 years since subway construction started (December 17, 1938)
To commemorate these anniversaries, we have written a new book, Building Chicago’s Subways.

While the elevated Chicago Loop is justly famous as a symbol of the city, the fascinating history of its subways is less well known. The City of Chicago broke ground on what would become the “Initial System of Subways” during the Great Depression and finished 20 years later. This gigantic construction project, a part of the New Deal, would overcome many obstacles while tunneling through Chicago’s soft blue clay, under congested downtown streets, and even beneath the mighty Chicago River. Chicago’s first rapid transit subway opened in 1943 after decades of wrangling over routes, financing, and logistics. It grew to encompass the State Street, Dearborn-Milwaukee, and West Side Subways, with the latter modernizing the old Garfield Park “L” into the median of Chicago’s first expressway. Take a trip underground and see how Chicago’s “I Will” spirit overcame challenges and persevered to help with the successful building of the subways that move millions. Building Chicago’s subways was national news and a matter of considerable civic pride–making it a “Second City” no more!

Help Support The Trolley Dodger

This is our 258th post, and we are gradually creating a body of work and an online resource for the benefit of all railfans, everywhere. To date, we have received over 694,000 page views, for which we are very grateful.

You can help us continue our original transit research by checking out the fine products in our Online Store.

As we have said before, “If you buy here, we will be here.”

We thank you for your support.

DONATIONS

In order to continue giving you the kinds of historic railroad images that you have come to expect from The Trolley Dodger, we need your help and support. It costs money to maintain this website, and to do the sort of historic research that is our specialty.

Your financial contributions help make this web site better, and are greatly appreciated.

October Surprises

October 12, 2020February 14, 2021David Sadowski 33 Comments

Chicago Railways Pullman 513. This picture dates to between 1909 and 1920. I was fortunate to purchase this photo postcard recently, and cleaned up many of the imperfections in Photoshop. The caption on back reads, “Uncle Herbert Phipps, Chicago. This was taken during the summer. Your humble is stood with his hand(s) crossed. I look older in the picture than what I do in person. This picture reminds me of my grandfather. He looked a good deal like I do here.” This may be the same person: “Born in New Whittington, Derbyshire, England on 7 May 1876 to George Phipps. Herbert Phipps married Frances Jane Fox and had 5 children. He passed away on 18 Oct 1928 in Chicago, Cook, Illinois, USA.” See the Recent Correspondence section for more discussion about this picture.

October is often full of surprises, especially during an election year. Here are some surprisingly good traction photos for your enjoyment. Some, we were fortunate enough to purchase. We missed out on others, but they are still worth including. We also have some excellent Chicago streetcar pictures from the collections of William Shapotkin, plus some interesting correspondence from our readers. We thank all our contributors.

As always, if you have questions or comments about anything you see here, we are glad to hear from you. It helps to refer to individual photos by their file name, which you can find by hovering your mouse over the image.

-David Sadowski

PS- We have received more than 100,000 page views this year. This is the sixth straight year we have done this. We are very grateful for our readers. Thank you for stopping by.

Facebook Auxiliary Group

It seems we always have things left over after each new post. So, we thought it would be a good idea to create a Facebook auxiliary group for The Trolley Dodger. You can find it here. People can post pictures, links, have discussions, etc. etc., thanks.

Recent Finds

The Merchandise Mart station, looking south, on September 26, 1944. Those tracks at left went to the old North Water Terminal. This version of the image is a composite made up by combining the scans from two different prints, and shows slightly more of the overall scene than either would individually.

Chicago Aurora & Elgin 317 at Wheaton Yards on June 28, 1957. Passenger service ended on July 3rd. (Paul Stringham Photo)

CA&E 430 and 315 at Wheaton Yards on August 7, 1954.

North Shore Line four-truck loco 459 at Pettibone Yards in North Chicago, IL on October 23, 1954. (Robert Selle Photo) Sderailway notes, “North Shore Line freight motor 459, one of two large four truck motors purchased from Oregon Electric, 459 was built in 1941 and sold to the North Shore Line in 1946. The large motors supplemented NSL’s smaller, slower, lower horse powered fleet of steeple cabs. With 459 being only 5 years old when purchased from OE it seems with only 17 years more years in NSL service, it still had a lot of “life” left in it.”

CTA subway wash car S-108 is in front of trailer 1199 at the “L” supply yards at 63rd and South Park on January 9, 1954. (Robert Selle Photo)

Robert Selle captured this picture of Milwaukee Road steam locomotive 163 (4-6-2) pulling a commuter train just north of Lake Street in downtown Chicago on August 18, 1953. My family moved to the Mont Clare neighborhood in 1954, and we lived a block from the Milwaukee Road. My mother would hang her wash out to dry behind where we lived, and she told me her clothes were dirtied by the smoke from the steam engines (which were fast disappearing from the scene).

Erie Lackawanna 3357 on the Gladstone branch in New Jersey on October 4, 1970. These cars somewhat resembled the Illinois Central Electric commuter trains built in 1936. The 3357 was built by Pullman in 1920 as a trailer and was retired in 1984. The inly information I could find is that it may be stored inoperable at Steamtown in Scranton, PA. The Gladstone Branch, currently operated by NJ Transit, had many of the attributes of an old-fashioned interurban, and our good friend Kenneth Gear has written about it on this site. (James C. Herold Photo)

The North Shore Line interurban operated city streetcars in Milwaukee and Waukegan. Here’s what Don’s Rail Photos tells us about this car: “313 and 315 were built by St. Louis Car in 1915 as 313 and 315 of the Empire State Ry for service in Oswego, NY. After only two years, they were sold to the North Shore in June 1918. 313 was rebuilt to one man service on March 12, 1919, and retired in 1941. 315 was rebuilt on February 24, 1919, and retired in 1940. Both were scrapped in 1945.” Don Ross adds, “North Shore 313 was taken at Waukegan. I don’t think it never ran in Milwaukee. We had the 2 door Birneys and 2 350s in Milwaukee until Waukegan quit. We got the 250s and the Birneys were dumped. The 500s were for Milwaukee but switched to Waukegan when the Birneys came.”

Chicago Rapid Transit 3048 at Marion Street in Oak Park, part of a Lake Street “L” train in the 1940s. Don’s Rail Photos: “3001 thru 3100 were built by Gilbert in 1893 as Lake Street Elevated RR 1 thru 100. In 1913 they were renumbered 3001 thru 3100 and became Chicago Rapid Transit 3001 thru 3100 in 1923.”

Brill built experimental pre-PCC 7001 in 1934, signed for Broadway-State. The picture can be dated because it ran direct service to A Century of Progress during the second season of this Chicago World’s Fair.

Likewise, this picture of CSL 7001 can be dated to 1936, since it is signed as part of the opening ceremonies for the new Ashland Avenue bridge, which connected both parts of the Ashland car line. As the new PCCs weren’t delivered until later in the year, 7001 was CSL’s newest car and thus was featured along with a parade of historical equipment. As we have shown in other posts, the interior was similar to the pre-PCC cars built in 1935 for Washington, DC. It was retired in 1944 and unfortunately, scrapped in 1959.

More That Got Away

The Trolley Dodger competes with many other people to buy images for this site. Here are some that we noticed recently that slipped through our fingers. As they say, you can’t win ’em all.

North Shore Line observation parlor car 420.

The CRT Laramie Shops, adjacent to the ground-level “L” station. We are looking east.

CRT 4322, signed for Garfield Park and Maywood, is at Mannheim and 22nd Street in Westchester, according to the eagle-eyed Mitch Markovitz.

A Chicago Rapid Transit Company one-car train on the Niles Center (Skokie) line.

The north portal of the State Street Subway, probably in the 1940s.

A train of wooden “L” cars rounds the curve at Sedgwick.

An eastbound two-car train of CTA 4000s on the Lake Street “L” in 1964.

Chicago Surface Lines 563 on Madison Street in 1928, in front of the old Northwestern Station.

Old and new control towers at Logan Square in 1966.

The CTA Canal Street station on the Met main line, probably in the early 1950s. “L” cars and CA&E interurbans are present.

A CA&E maintenance of way vehicle at the Wheaton Shops.

MTA 3323 is a double-ended PCC built by Pullman for the Dallas system in 1945. It was sold to Boston in 1959, as more cars were needed once the new Riverside line opened.

Chicago Surface Lines 5377 was built by Brill-Kuhlman in 1907. This photo postcard was purchased by Jeff Marinoff.

Red Arrow car 19 has just departed the end of the line of the Ardmore line on June 11, 1966, about six months before buses replaced rail here.

This is where the trolley line ended in Ardmore. It has been turned into a pocket park and parking lot.

MBTA 3271 running as part of a multiple unit train on Tremont Street in Newton, MA on May 30, 1982. This may be a fantrip, as regular streetcar service on these tracks ended in 1969. Seeing a car signed for Route A – Watertown is quite rare, as the lettered routes were just being introduced around the time Watertown was bussed. The tracks and overhead remained in place for many years, for access to the Watertown car house, but have since been removed. The Watertown line fell victim to a car shortage in the late 1960s. It also had to cross an expressway and run against one-way traffic, another factor.

The same location today.

Red Arrow car 24 is at Darby and Brookline Roads in Havertown, PA on May 29, 1958, on the Ardmore line.

The same location today.

The interior of New Orleans Public Service 924 on April 19, 1958, as photographed by Bob Selle. Note the ugly signs, evidence of the racial segregation of the time.

On July 15, 1955 C&NW 4-6-2 #511 pulls a commuter train in Chicago. Bi-levels were pulled by steam, but here we see steam right next to some bi-levels.

CTA 45 and 46 are part of a work train in Evanston on May 30, 1994.

CTA 22 and 32 are part of a work train in Evanston on May 30, 1994.

CA&E 34 and many others at the Wheaton yard in 1962, after abandonment of the railroad, but before the equipment was disposed of.

Logan Square yard in 1966.

A North Shore Line train stops at Zion, illinois for a photo stop in June 1961. The religious community here made the interurban put in a much larger station than ridership required, because they believed their community would grow rapidly.

Two “L” trains pass at the Merchandise Mart station circa 1955.

Kodak did not stamp the processing date on slides until around 1958, but this appears to be around 1955 from the autos. The Garfield Park “L” crossing over the Chicago River near Union Station. We are looking to the northwest.

Chicago Aurora & Elgin 309 appears to be on a fantrip. Not sure of the location.

Red Arrow car 22 is at Sheldon and Spring Avenue in September 1965 on the Ardmore line. At the end of 1966, it was converted to buses.

The same location today.

A CTA Garfield Park train heads west on Van Buren at Western. Streetcars crossed here until June 1956. Tracks are still evident, but I don’t see any wire, so this could be after that.

Don’s Rail Photos” “S-347 was built by Cincinnati Car in 1922, #2660, as 4323. It was rebuilt on February 26, 1965, as S-347 and sold to Indiana Transportation in June 1979.” Perhaps this picture was taken in Indiana. The museum has since lost this location.

CTA 7180 is about to depart the terminal loop just south of Howard Street on Clark. Where the PCCs are is now a restaurant patio area.

A westbound Garfield Park train at Sacramento. You can see the beginnings of the temporary ramp at this location, which connected to the ground-level right-of-way used in Van Buren Street from 1953 to 1958. That was north of the old right-of-way. Sacramento was one of two points where the old “L” crossed the right-of-way of the Congress Expressway, then under construction.

CTA 7169 is southbound on Route 22 Clark-Wentworth. Perhaps this is somewhere on the south side, as I don’t recall such a hill on the north side. Andre Kristopans: “PCC on hill is a pullout heading east on 69th at Parnell.” On the other hand, our resident south side expert M.E. writes, “No scenes along Wentworth or Vincennes looked like this. So right away I thought this photo had to be along 81st St. Sure enough — read the street sign at the left: 81st and Parnell.” Robert Lalich: “M.E. is correct on the location of CTA 7169. The street sign plainly shows 81st and Parnell. The WB car is about to duck under the C&WI tracks. Two of the three buildings on the left are still there.”

This is the Isabella station on the Evanston branch (today’s CTA Purple Line) in 1970. That’s a two-car train of 4000s. Note the lack of third rail.

Some fans are shooting a South Shore Line freight in Gary, Indiana. The car looks like about a 1936 Lincoln Zephyr.

Don’s Rail Photos: “South Shore Line 1126 was a work motor built by Niles in 1908 as CLS&SB 73. In 1927 it was rebuilt into work motor 1126. In 1941 it was sold and converted to a house. In 1994 it was purchased for restoration from a buyer who had picked it up the month before for back taxes. He really did not want the car, just the land. Bob Harris began restoration in 2005.” The sign says South Bend Limited.

Fort Dodge, Des Moines & Southern (Iowa) car 82 in 1947. That car at left is probably from the late 1920s, though.

This Kodachrome slide is from 1943 and shows the Five Mile Beach Electric Railway in Wildwood, NJ, which converted to buses the following year. This is a resort town and business was hurt during the war, as there were nighttime blackouts.

North Shore Line 178 at Harrison Street in Milwaukee in 1955. Don’s Rail Photos: “178 was built by Cincinnati Car in September 1920, #2455.”

A Des Moines, Iowa streetcar in the 1940s.

A westbound Lake Street “A” train, when the outer portion of that line ran at ground level west of Laramie. This is somewhere in Oak Park, perhaps between Home Avenue and Kenilworth.

From the Collections of William Shapotkin:

All the pictures in this section have been graciously shared by our good friend Bill Shapotkin.

CSL 106 in May 1947.

CTA 123 at Kedzie and Van Buren in December 1948.

CSL 135.

CSL 204 in December 1946.

CTA 5512 at 79th and Wentworth in January 1948. Correction- Robert Lalich writes, “Photo rbk612 shows car 5512 crossing the B&O Brookdale Branch at 79th and Oglesby.”

CSL 6013 at Kedzie and Bryn Mawr in 1946.

CSL 5087 at State and 13th in June 1939, during construction of the State Street Subway.

CSL 1994 at Division and Lavergne in May 1943.

CTA 6148.

CSL 1825 at West Shops.

CTA 3315.

CSL 1398 at 21st and Marshall Boulevard on July 6, 1946.

CTA 225 on Route 9 – Ashland. This car went to the Seashore Trolley Museum in 1957, where it remains today.

CSL 401 at Cicero and Belden in May 1946.

CTA 117 on North Avenue by the Chicago River in April 1949.

CTA 6209 on Route 93 by the Belt Railway, between Kenwood and Harper on August 13, 1948. M.E. notes, “The destination sign begins with “89 Avenue”, so this car is running east. Lind’s book confirms the eastern terminus was at 89th and Avenue O.”

CTA 6050 on Route 55 just south of Lake Street.

CTA 7217 on Route 36 – Broadway-State. (Robert W. Gibson Photo)

CTA 4401 at Skokie Shops in 1972, after retirement.

CSL 2919 at 26th and Halsted in 1946.

CSL 1423 on 26th Street on September 27, 1946. (Gordon E. Lloyd Photo)

CTA 214 on Belmont at Western Avenue, with Riverview amusement park in the background. The tall structure is the parachute jump. I rode that once (the park closed after the 1967 season). This picture was taken on December 31, 1948.

CSL 1007 at Wabash and 8th Street. The 8th Street Theater at right is where the WLS National Barn Dance did their weekly broadcast for several years. (Heier Industrial Photo)

CTA 177 on Halsted on February 22, 1954, running northbound at the intersection of Halsted, Grand, and Milwaukee.

CTA 4405 on Clark Street at Chicago Avenue. Bill Barber writes, “I believe this photo in your Oct 12th email is misdated. The blue station wagon in front of the PCC is a 1956 Plymouth and the yellow and white car immediately behind the PCC is a 1955 Chevy. Considering that new automobile models were introduced, at that time, in September of the year before the actual model year, the earliest that this photo could be is late 1955.”

CTA 1752 at Cottage Grove and Cermak on September 8, 1951.

The South Shore Line in East Chicago, Indiana, when it ran on the street. In 1956, this trackage was relocated to run parallel to the new Indiana Toll Road. Robert Lalich: “Photo 683 was taken at White Oak and Chicago Ave in East Chicago. The train is WB and is about to curve to the north onto private right of way before crossing the B&OCT near Columbia Ave. Notice the unusual placement of flashers on the left to warn westbound motorists.”

Since we posted this picture, two people have identified it as Kedzie and Van Buren.

CTA sprinkler D-203.

CTA Peter Witt 3375 at Wabash and 18th, running on Route 4 in 1948.

Recent Correspondence

The unrestored version of the postcard shown at the top of this post.

This postcard of Pullman streetcar 513 generated some discussion with our friend Jeff Marinoff, and additional comments from some others.

Jeff Marinoff writes:

Here is the info I received from Walter Keevil on Chicago Railway Company car # 513:

It is car 513 at a very early date. The number is readable on the side of the car as well as the front, though the middle digit is washed out on the front. There were three digit car numbers from 101 to 999. 513 was a Large or Old Pullman delivered in 1908-09 to Chicago Railway Co. before CSL took over management. The cars were originally painted a ‘medium’ green with red sash and doors so the photo shows everything black. The numbers were gold which also appears very dark. The well known red and cream didn’t come until 1920. I don’t know when the car numbers on the sides were moved to the center instead of the ends. The car in the photo looks a bit beat up, not the way CSL kept its cars until WW II.

Andre Kristopans adds:

Noticed that too, rather shabby condition. Maybe during WW1? Suppose maintenance went down on account of war and Spanish Flu at the same time.

Sandy Terman adds:

Regarding photo 513. Appears the big Pullmans were manufactured w/o the eight roof ventilators (4 on each side of the top hat) and w/o boarding air doors which were installed on the 500 series in later years. Question is why were the vents not manufactured on the baby Pullmans that were very similar?

We recently received an interesting comment on our previous post The Green Hornet Streetcar Disaster (May 19, 2015). It was directed at Craig Allen Cleve, who authored a book by that title, so we forwarded it to him and he in turn replied.

Bren Sheriff writes:

Mr. Cleve,
The NAACP has owned 11 contiguous lots on the east side of State Street between 62nd and 63rd for over 30 years; the lot addresses are 6209-6251 S State. I bet there is a story behind how the donor acquired the lots and why they made the decision to donate them to the NAACP. Unfortunately, no one in the unit knows. In your research did you come across any land ownership info. The public records online only go back to 1988. Perhaps I’ll get down to look at the original entry books.

We are contemplating developing the lots and putting up a memorial plaque. Not that it matters, but how many victims, both the 34 dead and 50 injured, were Black?

I am one of the few folks that I know that can remember this tragic accident. The reason I remember it so well is because my family went through several hours of anguish waiting to hear from my mother; she often rode the State Street Green Hornet home from work.

My mom worked at Spiegel’s on 35th near Morgan, we lived on 69th and Michigan; she often rode home on the State Street line. On the day of the accident she decided to go shopping for a graduation gift for my cousin, she had not told my aunt. When she was not home by 6pm, as usual, it concerned my aunt. However, all of us were put into a panic when the thick dark plumes of smoke rose from the enflamed accident site and filled the sky. One of our neighbors told us that there had been an accident on State between a street car and gasoline truck.

My cousin and a friend got on their bikes and rode over to State Street to try to see the site, unsuccessfully – it had been cordoned off. On their way home they saw my mom walking from Wentworth to Michigan on 69th Street. Seeing her enter the back gate was one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen, even to this day.

She is now 95 and aphasic. Over the years, we never discussed that day nor the horrific accident.

Craig Allen Cleve replies:

Hello, Ben. Thanks for your question. I’ll do my best to answer your questions.

1. Regarding the properties along the east side of the 6200 block of S. State St., I never looked into records regarding ownership. In hindsight, it might have been worthwhile, considering reports that about 120 people were left homeless after the fire. There were only five structures that were completely destroyed, including the large tenement adjacent to the entrance to the turnaround loop. I’m guessing absentee landlords and severe overcrowding. I never researched ownership of the land post fire;

2. Thirty-three people died in the blaze, although several papers reported thirty-four. This was most likely due to the frightful condition of the bodies, particularly those who died at the rear of the trolley. Subsequent examinations put the number at thirty-three;

3. Of the 33, to my best recollection, the following victims were African-American:
Marietta Catlin
Minnnie Banks Dade
Clara Dobson
Bertha Dowdell
George Dowdell
Alean Fisher
Floreine Foster
Marie A. Franklin
Tishie Mae Johnson
Daisy Palmer
Luella Phillips
Julia Piercefield
Annie Richardson
Mamie Robinson
Rosa Saunders
Earl Sue Sharp
Ollie Smith
Dorothy Townsend
Douglas Turner

That’s about 60%. A good portion of those folks were on their way to Princeton Park, located at about 91st. St. and Wentworth Ave. Princeton Park was a housing development which targeted middle-class blacks in its ad campaigns.

4. I happy to hear that if the land is developed, that the idea of a memorial of some kind is at least being considered. Please let me know if I can help in any way. I hope this info was helpful.

Cordially,

Craig Cleve

Jon Roma writes:

David, in a recent post to The Trolley Dodger (The End of Summer – September 1, 2020), you have two news photographs of a derailment on the Rapid Transit at Wabash and Van Buren in May 1942. Attached is the article and pictures from the Chicago Daily Tribune from the following day’s newspaper (May 14, 1942).

I’m not certain how a fire a block away from Tower 12 caused this derailment, but my educated guess is that the disruption threw the towerman off his game, leading him to inadvertently throw a switch under a train, jackknifing it into the tower. One CRT employee was killed in this.

Thanks for sharing! The caption on one of the two press photos we posted also mentions that some trains were being rerouted because of the fire. That could also have been a factor in the interlocking switches not getting set correctly.

Wally Weart writes:

As I grew up in Chicago post WW II, many of these pictures bring back lots of memories, I grew up on the North Side but had family on the South Side so I was able to see a lot of Chicago streetcars and “L”s. I rode all the interurbans in the Midwest that were still operating. Please keep up your work, I really enjoy it.

We will do our best, thanks. Keep those cards and letters coming in, folks!

-David Sadowski

New Steam Audio CD:

FYI, we have digitally remastered another classic steam railroad audio LP to Compact Disc. Many additional titles, including the complete output of the Railroad Record Club, in our Online Store.

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Rio Grande to Silverton:
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As with all of our recordings, this CD comes with the complete, original liner notes.

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While the elevated Chicago Loop is justly famous as a symbol of the city, the fascinating history of its subways is less well known. The City of Chicago broke ground on what would become the “Initial System of Subways” during the Great Depression and finished 20 years later. This gigantic construction project, a part of the New Deal, would overcome many obstacles while tunneling through Chicago’s soft blue clay, under congested downtown streets, and even beneath the mighty Chicago River. Chicago’s first rapid transit subway opened in 1943 after decades of wrangling over routes, financing, and logistics. It grew to encompass the State Street, Dearborn-Milwaukee, and West Side Subways, with the latter modernizing the old Garfield Park “L” into the median of Chicago’s first expressway. Take a trip underground and see how Chicago’s “I Will” spirit overcame challenges and persevered to help with the successful building of the subways that move millions. Building Chicago’s subways was national news and a matter of considerable civic pride–making it a “Second City” no more!

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New Directions

October 1, 2020February 14, 2021David Sadowski 12 Comments

Bruce C. Nelson took this photo of CTA 5174, wrapped with the Chicago flag, on April 24, 2018 at Clinton just west of the Loop.

Here at the Trolley Dodger, we are always in search of new directions to take this blog to. While the great majority of photos we share are definitely “old,” they are new to us, and we hope, you as well.

There doesn’t have to be an overriding theme to these posts, but often one suggests itself. Often we simply collect pictures that interest us for various reasons, and once we have a sufficiency, they all go into a post.

But what is old now was once new, and at least some of today’s images did represent new directions at one time.

Two cases in point – Harper’s Weekly, from April 20, 1895, ran an in-depth report on the new Metropolitan West Side Elevated, which opened on May 6. That was 125 year ago now, but all this was brand new and very innovative. The Met was the very first of the “L”s to forgo steam power in favor of electricity, direct current carried by a third rail.

As the article makes clear, Chicago’s third “L” (after the South Side and Lake Street lines) drew inspiration from the Columbian Intramural Railway at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. And while in retrospect, it would have made a lot of sense to have the Logan Square and Humboldt Park branches continue downtown on a straight line along Milwaukee Avenue, there was no Loop in 1895 for it to connect with.

The Met started life as a very ambitious self-contained entity. There was no Loop elevated until 1897.

The other new direction we offer today is from 1913. Once established, the Loop “L” was a tremendous success, but success brought with it a host of new problems to solve. Not all trains ran on the Loop– some started and ended at the stub end terminals each of the four “L” companies had. But most of them did, and at first, all circled the Loop. The result was congestion and slower service.

Gradually, it became apparent that Chicago’s “L”s would be better off as a unified system. It was a gradual process.

By 1913, the four “L” companies were still separate entities, but came under unified management, controlled by Samuel Insull. Important changes and improvements were afoot.

Now, you could transfer between the various “L”s without paying another fare. Transfer bridges were added at Loop stations, and where the Met crossed over the Lake Street “L”.

Traffic on the Loop was changed to counter-clockwise, a system that lasted 56 years, until the Dan Ryan line opened in 1969. Prior to this, trains used left-hand running there, and operated bi-directionally. For over half a century now, the Loop has been bi-directional, with right-hand running.

We acquired a very nice 1913 brochure detailing the new changes.

In addition, we have many recent photo finds to share with you.

Enjoy.

-David Sadowski

PS- We have shared literally thousands of images with you over the last five plus years. Not surprisingly, many of these photos end up on Facebook. There are lots of railfan groups on Facebook, and we belong to many of them ourselves. We are fine with you sharing our pictures there, but we do have a couple requests.

First, please do not crop out the Trolley Dodger watermark. It’s there for a purpose– to show everyone the source of the picture. Give credit where credit is due.

Second, please include the caption information. I have seen some pictures shared without the captions, leading to much guesswork and wondering about things that were actually answered in the original caption itself.

Thanks.

From Harper’s Weekly, April 20, 1895:

1913 “L” Brochure:

Chicago “L” operations were consolidated under one management by 1913, when this brochure was issued to explain service changes to the public.

In 1913, free transfers were instituted between the four “L” lines. To combat overcrowding, some north and south side trains were through-routed, meaning they only ran on half the Loop. Other trains continued to circle the Loop. The direction of trains in the Loop was changed to counter-clockwise, and the Northwestern and Lake Street “L”s changed to right-hand running outside of the Loop.

We spent some time cleaning up this 1913 map in Photoshop. Under the new scheme of things, the Loop ran counter-clockwise. Met trains continued to use the inner Loop tracks, and Northwestern trains the outer tracks, as before. Lake trains were rerouted onto the inner tracks, and South Side trains to the outer tracks. Now many trains could be through-routed between the north and south sides, although there were still trains that went around the Loop and served all the stations. It would also have been possible to through-route Lake and Met “L” trains, but this was not done. There was some equipment sharing between Northwestern and Lake, as both “L”s used overhead wire in places, but none of the Met cars were equipped with trolley poles until the 1926 Eucharistic Congress. M.E. writes, “I must compliment your excellent Photoshop work on the 1913 Rapid Transit System map. Did you notice that it mentions “electric” connections at 63rd and Stony Island and at 63rd Place and Halsted? The latter was the interurban to Kankakee, which quit sometime in the 1920s, although its trackage under the L lasted into at least the 1940s.”

Recent Finds

This must have been a popular postcard, as it turns up a lot. This example was never mailed and is in excellent condition. It does show the bi-directional, left-hand running Loop, though, so it must date to before 1913. The Met car at left is heading north, away from us. The train at right is heading towards us. I suspect it is a Northwestern “L” car, about to head west on Van Buren. There were no transfer bridges at Loop stations until 1913. The view looks north at Wabash and Van Buren from Tower 12.

Postcards like this were based on black-and-white photos, although the finished product, since it is traced, ends up looking more like a drawing. Once the four “L” lines were put under consolidated management in 1913, free transfers between lines were permitted. Here, the Met “L” along Paulina crossed the Lake Street “L”, the only place on the entire system where two competing lines crossed, so Lake Street Transfer station was built. Met trains went downtown anyway, but it’s possible some riders might have been able to save a few minutes by switching to a Lake Street train. The view looks east.

We are looking west along the Van Buren leg of the Loop circa 1905. The train has a large “S” on it and is therefore a South Side “L” train, coming towards us as the Loop was left-hand running at the time, and is about to cross over to head south on the right-hand running Alley “L”.

An early 1900s postcard view of the Met “L” Logan Square Terminal.

Tower 12 at Wabash and Van Buren, looking north, in the early 900s. This is during the era when trains ran bi-directionally, left handed, prior to 1913. A Northwestern “L” train is turning behind Tower 12 and will head west. The train at left is heading north.

The date is not known, but this must be a photo stop along the North Shore Line’s Skokie Valley Route. We can only imagine how old the young boy at left is today, shown holding a pair of binoculars. This must be a siding of some sort. The original image was shot on size 127 Ektachrome film, a larger format that 35mm, but one that could still be mounted in a 2×2 mount– what people used to call a “superslide.” This term is also used to describe slides shot with size 828 film, which was slightly larger than 35mm.

A “superslide.” Since we are looking at the back of the slide, the image is reversed.

Red Arrow car 78 on the West Chester line on May 29, 1954, about a week before buses replaced trolleys. Much of the line was single track, side-of-the-road, with passing sidings. It fell victim to a road widening project along West Chester Pike. (James P. Shuman Photo)

Center door Red Arrow car 63 is at 69th Street Terminal on December 29, 1962.

Red Arrow car 63 at West Garrett Road on December 29, 1962. This car was built by Brill in the mid-1920s.

Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company (aka Red Arrow) car 15 at the end of the Ardmore line in the early 1950s. Buses replaced trolleys in 1966.

Kansas City had an elevated railway line that started out as a cable car line and eventually became part of their streetcar system. It lasted into the 1950s. The last Kansas City PCC ran in 1957, but a new 2.2 mile long modern streetcar line opened in 2016. Kansas City Public Service car 776 was built by St. Louis Car Company in 1946.

A CTA Loop Shuttle train on the Wabash leg in 1974.

An eastbound two-car train of single car units, including car 8, are about to enter the Lotus Tunnel in March 1960. Construction of the Congress Expressway was well underway just to the north. The new highway opened in this area later that year.

Around 1940, the Chicago Surface Lines temporarily installed this door arrangement on prewar PCC 4051. It was later used on the 600 postwar PCCs.

CRT 3137 is part of a Lake Street Local train on the ground-level portion of that line. Don’s Rail Photos: “3136 and 3137 were built by Gilbert in 1893 as LSERR 84 and 85. They were rebuilt and renumbered 136 and 137 and later renumbered 3136 and 3137 in 1913. They became CRT 3136 and 3137 in 1923.”

A “Plushie” 4000-series “L” train on a late 1930s fantrip.

A Ravenswood Express with 4000s, including “Baldy” 4073, at the Merchandise Mart station circa 1940. From 1943-49, Ravenswood trains went downtown via the State Street Subway.

CRT 1101 heads up a southbound Evanston Shopper’s Special at the Merchandise Mart station circa 1940. Don’s Rail Photos: “1100 thru 1158 were built as trailers by Pullman in 1899 as NWERy 100 thru 158. They were renumbered 1100 thru 1158 in 1913 and became CRT 1100 thru 1158 in 1923.”

A Chicago & North Western RDC (Budd Rail Diesel Car) commuter train in Evanston on August 5, 1950.

CTA postwar PCC 4399 in the loop at 80th and Vincennes.

My “Spidey sense” tells me this picture of CA&E 412 was probably taken at Laramie Avenue. But it could not be any later than 1937, since that is when rail service to St. Charles ended. The view looks northwest and the train is headed west.

This is an unusual place to see an Electroliner, as we are on the South Side “L”. While the North Shore Line did run trains to the south side up to 1938, the Electrolners entered service in 1941. So, this must be a fantrip. Our resident south side expert M.E. writes, “This photo is an enigma. I cannot imagine the CNS&M would spare one of its two Electroliners for a fan trip. Maybe this was an introductory tour before service began in 1941. Also, your caption says the CNS&M ran to the south side until 1938. Then why do I remember seeing CNS&M cars on the Jackson Park L, rounding the curve at 63rd and Prairie, in the late 1940s? That CNS&M service ran to 63rd and Dorchester (1400 E.) to connect with Illinois Central passenger trains.” Miles Beitler: “I’m not sure, but RBK792 could be the 61st street station, photographed from a building in the adjacent yard. It’s hard to tell, but there appears to be a junction (the turnoff to the Englewood branch) just before the train in the far distance, which does appear to be a 6000.” Comparison with the following two photos proves (IMHO) that this is actually 61st Street, and that the picture was taken from the transfer bridge.

61st Street on the South side “L”. (George Trapp Collection)

61st Street on the South Side “L”. (George Trapp Collection)

The CA&E owned everything west of Laramie Avenue, including Lockwood Yard, shown here circa 1930 or so (by the looks of the auto at left). We are looking west and that’s Loretto Hospital in the distance, opened in 1923. Cars 418 and 431 are visible. Interestingly, the yard used overhead wire instead of third rail at this time. You can see a fence at the west end of the yard, and what appear to be a couple small bumper posts at track’s end. After the Garfield Park “L” was replaced by the CTA Congress median line, an alleyway was put in here, approximately where the two trains are. The house is still there, as you will see in the pictures that follow, and, it seems, one of the posts that supported trolley wire. However, the homes at left, on Flournoy Street (700 S.) are gone, replaced by expressway. This portion of yard and right-of-way is now occupied by light industry.

The same view today.

The fence to the right of this Chicago style brick bungalow shows just where Lockwood Yard ended. The yard was just north of the CA&E main line, which curved south just east of here and ran parallel to the B&OCT from here to Forest Park.

That certainly looks like one of the same poles in the earlier picture.

Chicago Aurora & Elgin wood car 16 at the end of the Batavia branch. Don’s Rail Photos: “16 was built by Niles Car in 1902. It was modernized in December 1939 and retired in 1959.”

An 1883 omnibus was part of the CTA Historical Collection at 77th and Vincennes on May 25, 1958. This and other historic vehicles were paraded out that day, during one of the final Chicago streetcar fantrips. PCCs, including 4409, are at left.

The view looking west from Racine on the Englewood “L” branch on November 3, 1955. The Loomis Terminal is in the distance.

Looking northeast from the Halsted station on the Met “L” main line on June 27, 1954, we see a two-car westbound Garfield Park train of flat-door 6000s.

A six-car train of wooden “L” cars heads west at California Avenue on the Lake Street line. We are looking west on March 17, 1954.

The CTA installed an escalator (called a “speed ramp”) at the Loomis Terminal on the Englewood branch. This photo was taken on February 19, 1957. This branch was extended two blocks west to Ashland in 1969, providing a more convenient transfer to buses. M.E. adds, “The L platform at Loomis Blvd. did not originally extend over the street. It was added to accommodate longer trains. The bus heading north on Loomis was probably serving route 110 Marquette Blvd., which ended at the L station. Until the early 1950s, bus service along Marquette and Loomis Blvds. was part of the Chicago Motor Coach system, and had double-decker buses that might not have fit under the L track (if it had been there).” Alan Follett adds, “As I recall, the “speed ramp” at Loomis wasn’t an escalator. It was a sort of gently-inclined conveyor belt.”

On February 19, 1957, we are looking west from the transfer bridge at Clark and Lake. A five-car Evanston Express train is at right, made up of wood cars in their final year of service.

The view looking west at 40th and Indiana Avenue on the South Side “L”. An 8-car Jackson Park train of 4000s is going to head north to Howard, and a train of southbound 6000s is off in the distance. The extra wide platform at right was extended in 1949, when the CTA turned the Kenwood branch into a shuttle operation. Riders could change here for that line and the Stock Yards branch. The date is April 13, 1954.

“L” car 1016 is part of an Evanston train at Madison and Wells.

CTA streetcar 1069 is running westbound on Route 16 – Lake Street. Some passengers have just stepped off and are waiting for the gates to go up as a Lake Street “L” train passes. There was a stretch of a few blocks where the ground-level “L” and streetcars ran side-by-side. Here, the trolley is going to go under the nearby embankment to run for a few blocks on the north side of the Chicago & North Western. Streetcars were replaced by buses in 1954, and the “L” was elevated onto the embankment in 1962. The picture can’t have been taken before 1948, as the Lake train is a “B.” A/B skip-stop service began on the line that year.

The front car here is 3139 on this Lake Street “L” train at Quincy and Wells.

One of the two cars in this Lake Street “L” train is 1708. At Madison and Wells.

CRT 3121 is a Lake Street gate car at Madison and Wells.

CRT 1772 at the front of a train at Lake and Homan.

CTA 1745 is the lead car on a westbound Lake Street “L” train, going down the ramp at Lake and Laramie.

A westbound Douglas Park train at Halsted on the Lake Street “L”. Douglas trains were rerouted downtown via Lake from 1954 to 1958.

CTA 2963 is a Douglas Park train at Madison and Wells.

CTA 2772 heads up a westbound Douglas Park train rounding the Halsted curve on the Met “L” main line.

The caption on the back of this picture says this is 54th Avenue on the Douglas Park “L”, however, I’m not so sure. It looks as though this is a westbound train that has just crossed over at the end of the line, but it is signed as a local and not an A or B train. M.E. writes: “Your caption is 99.44% correct, this picture has to be a westbound Douglas Park L at 54th St. in Cicero, crossing over to enter the terminal. The 0.56% in error is that it could indeed have been an all-stop train; A & B service on all lines that had A & B service was not A & B service at all times of day. As I recall, south side A & B service ran til maybe 8:30 p.m., and never on Sunday. So I contend this picture was taken on a Sunday.” Kenneth Smith: “I saw this pic in your recent October Surprise post and immediately suspected that the correct location is the El Strip, north of Cermak Road, between Euclid and Wesley Avenues in Berwyn, Il. The Westbound train is approaching the end-of-line station at Oak Park Ave. Were the Westbound train really approaching 54th Avenue in Cicero, the Danly Machine Tool Company plant – not residences – would have been along the Northside of the El tracks. After a little sleuthing via Google maps found that the classic two-flats which appear on the Northside of the tracks are still there and intact. And the West facing building still features a straight roof line as shown in your photo.”

An eastbound Garfield Park train at the Marshfield station in the early 1950s. Construction is already underway for the Congress Expressway that caused the “L” to be replaced by an expressway median route.

A train of CTA 2800s at Van Buren and Paulina. This was the temporary route for part of the Garfield Park “L” from 1953 to 1958.

A train of CTA 6000s is westbound at Laramie Avenue on the Garfield Park line in the 1950s.

CTA 3131, a one-man car operating on Route 16 – Lake Street, stops in front of the Woods Theater, located at 54 W. Randolph Street. The film 12 O’Clock High dates the picture to 1949. The Woods closed in 1989.

CRT 1013 at Skokie Shops. Don’s Rail Photos: “1013 was built by Pullman in 1899 as NWERy 13. It was renumbered 1013 in 1913 and became CRT 1013 in 1923. It was retired on December 20, 1954.”

CRT 2704 at Skokie Shops.

CTA 3148 heads up a Lake Street train at Quincy and Wells.

CSL 6211 near the Eastside Theater, located at 10555 S. Ewing Avenue. It opened in 1922 and closed in 1951.

Recent Correspondence

Bill Myers writes:

Here is (North Shore Line) 411 in Brooklyn on the South Brooklyn Railway in March 1963.

Thanks… could it really have been that soon after the abandonment? Or is a 1964 date more likely? (The second picture shows the same car being moved years later, 1970s at least.)

Miles Beitler writes:

Great photos as usual!

Regarding RBK792, it’s really hard to tell but could there be a 6000 in the distance? If so, it would date the photo to 1950 or later. As for North Shore trains running to the south side, as far as I know that practice ended in 1938 as you said. However, perhaps NSL ran occasional trains for special events such as the 1948-1949 Chicago Railroad Fair and the 1952 Republican and Democratic national conventions (which were both held at the International Amphitheatre).

Photo RBK817 is interesting as the side curtain of car 1013 shows “LOGAN SQ EXPRESS”. Were there really express runs on that route? The Logan Square line wasn’t very long compared to the other west side lines and it didn’t have as many stations. If there was an express, which stations were skipped?

Thanks for writing. That may be 6000s in the distance. There were some very creative fantrips on the North Shore Line prior to abandonment, and some these did indeed use one of the Electroliners. I am not aware of any special runs relating to the Railroad Fair or political conventions, however.

Regarding where a Logan Square Express train would have stopped, and what stations would have been skipped, I do not know. Perhaps one of our readers can help.

Keep those cards and letters coming in, folks!

-David Sadowski

New Steam Audio CD:

FYI, we have digitally remastered another classic steam railroad audio LP to Compact Disc. Many additional titles, including the complete output of the Railroad Record Club, in our Online Store.

STEAM CDs:

RGTS
Rio Grande to Silverton:
A Sound Portrait of Mountain Railroading
Price: $14.99

As with all of our recordings, this CD comes with the complete, original liner notes.

Total time – 45:49

While the elevated Chicago Loop is justly famous as a symbol of the city, the fascinating history of its subways is less well known. The City of Chicago broke ground on what would become the “Initial System of Subways” during the Great Depression and finished 20 years later. This gigantic construction project, a part of the New Deal, would overcome many obstacles while tunneling through Chicago’s soft blue clay, under congested downtown streets, and even beneath the mighty Chicago River. Chicago’s first rapid transit subway opened in 1943 after decades of wrangling over routes, financing, and logistics. It grew to encompass the State Street, Dearborn-Milwaukee, and West Side Subways, with the latter modernizing the old Garfield Park “L” into the median of Chicago’s first expressway. Take a trip underground and see how Chicago’s “I Will” spirit overcame challenges and persevered to help with the successful building of the subways that move millions. Building Chicago’s subways was national news and a matter of considerable civic pride–making it a “Second City” no more!

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The End of Summer

September 1, 2020September 30, 2020David Sadowski 17 Comments

City Scene with Nuns (1947) by Robert W. Addison, in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

A long, hot summer is beginning to come to and end here in Chicago, and we have lots of great new images to share with you today. We thank all the original photographers, and our contributors.

We have many recent photo finds of our own, some great new ones thanks to Bill Shapotkin, and another batch that, for one reason or another, we were unable to purchase (but are still worth looking at).

We have been hard at work on our next book, Chicago’s Lost “L”s, and recently turned in all the text and images to our publisher. I am sure there will be additional changes (there always are), but I thought it would be useful to talk a bit about the process of making a book (see below).

We all have our ways of coping with situations. Working on a book has helped me keep focused during this pandemic.

Have a safe Labor Day weekend, everyone.

-David Sadowski

How a Book is Made

Technology may have changed since the 1950s, but you still have to go through your images one at a time.

My new book Chicago’s Lost “L”s is the third part of a trilogy, along with Chicago Trolleys and Building Chicago’s Subways. I got the idea for all three books some years ago, and have been collecting images with this in mind for nearly six years.

Without an idea, there is no book. While there have been plenty of books about Chicago’s famed “L”, each one is different. The subject is so large, an author has to put their own unique “spin” on it. I decided my brief would be to showcase those aspects of the “L” that don’t exist any longer.

This, I believe, many people are interested in. Whenever the subject of various “L” lines that no longer exist comes up, I get the feeling people want to know more about this. So there is a need.

You make a proposal to your publisher, and if they like what they here, you enter into a contract that has specifics of what they need, and deadlines for when you give it to them. Books to be don’t come with instruction manuals of how to put them together, though.

There, you’re on your own, and I am sure the creative process is different for every author, and for every book.

I realized the project was doable when I had collected most of the images I would need. The first thing I did was to go through my entire image collection and look at everything. I started setting aside any images that I thought could be relevant, using an image editor. I went through 20,000 images, and I did this three times– at the beginning, middle, and near the end of the project. That was necessary, because each time I was looking for something different.

One of the most important things and author needs to determine is, how will things be organized? Chronologically, geographically, or thematically? Each approach has advantages and disadvantages, and the subject usually needs a combination of all these.

Once I decided on what the chapters in the book would be, I started a folder in my image editor for each one. Then, I started sorting the images in each folder in order, shuffling and reshuffling them until I was happy with the results.

Even after I had selected the proper number of images, I eventually ended up replacing about one-third of them. As time went on, my book’s narrative began to develop. As it did, some images fit, and others did not.

After I was satisfied with my image choices, I began writing the captions to go with them. If I couldn’t figure out a good caption for something, it had to go. Everything that stays in the book needs a good reason for being there. Writing means rewriting, over and over, as many times as necessary to say what you want to say in the most economic and efficient way possible.

Along the way, you find that no matter how much research you have done, the book needs more. You figure out what’s missing, and you do everything you can to find those things that can complete the story you are trying to tell. In general, it’s the oldest things that are hardest to find.

As you learn more while putting things together, the book tells you what it needs to be, and this is always going to be somewhat different than what you thought it was at the start. You always need to dig deeper.

The last thing I wrote was the introduction. That’s the opposite of how I approached my previous two books, but this time I wanted to see what would be included in the book first.

I also spent many, many long hours working over images in Photoshop. This includes the various maps I am using. I want everything to look its best when you open up your copy of Chicago’s Lost “L”s and start reading it.

One thing I noticed, when sorting through my images, is how sometimes, when I had duplicates of an image, they weren’t always identical. It occurs to me that when black-and-white prints were made from medium-format negatives, they were probably made in batches, and the same neg could have been printed multiple times over the years. Each time, the neg would be positioned a bit differently.

Now it is possible to combine those images using a program called Microsoft Image Composite Editor. The result is an image that is closer to the full size of the negative. I was able to do this for five or six images in the book.

More information about Chicago’s Lost “L”s will follow, as available. Once a book is published, it belongs to the readers, and you can decide whether or not it is worthwhile, but whatever the result, I have given this project 110%.

When you challenge yourself to reach a goal, it forces you to do better. I learn so much every time I work on a new book– new skills, new methods, more efficiency, more organization, more knowledge. And when someone reads one of my books, and appreciates it (if they do), that’s the icing on the cake.

Howard Terminal looking west in 1959. Ultimately, this picture did not make it into the book.

The same location on June 6, 2020.

I spent a lot of time cleaning up this image, but decided not to use it. The steam engines Chicago used on the “L” were similar to those in New York, but they weren’t identical– they were more robust. They didn’t have the same specs.

I took this picture of the former Linen Avenue station in Wilmette on June 6, 2020, but it didn’t make the cut.

I spent considerable time cleaning up this track map of the Kenwood “L” before I found something else I chose to use.

The same goes for this map of the Stock Yards branch.

In this case, after putting the two versions of this image together, only a small amount was missing at the top, not difficult to replace.

You can see how the same negative was lined up slightly differently both times it was printed. It was not difficult to fill in the missing parts on the two corners and bottom.

Recent Finds

El Tracks (1949) by Robert W. Addison. The El looks like New York, but the streetcar seems more like Chicago.

The Chicago Aurora & Elgin owned everything west of Laramie Avenue, and in June 1953, were storing cars mid-day at Lockwood Yard (5300 W.). Wood cars 28 and 207 are seen, among others. (Ray Mueller Photo)

Mark Jesperson, who now lives in France, has written a Wilmette history article and is using one of our images. In turn, he sent us this nice picture, taken in the early 1950s at Linden Avenue, showing a gate car. Evanston became a shuttle to Howard starting in August 1949 (except for the Evanston Express).

An early Loop photo looking north from Tower 12 at Wabash and Van Buren. I think this is pre-1913, meaning it’s the left-hand-running bi-directional Loop. The Met car at left is going away from us on the Inner Loop, while that is probably a South Side car coming towards us, heading south.

Another early view of the Loop, again at Wabash and Van Buren, this time looking west.

When the Indiana Railroad interurban shut down in 1941, Lehigh Valley Transit bought high-speed car 55. Here, it’s on a Pennsylvania Railroad flatcar. LVT turned it into car 1030, showcase of their fleet on the Liberty Bell Route between Allentown and Philadelphia. It is now at the Seashore Trolley Museum. (H. P. Sell Photo)

CTA PCC 7363 at Devon Station (car barn), possibly in 1957. Part of the building here was destroyed by fire years earlier.

LVT high-speed 1022. Except for 1030, all the modern lightweight high-speed cars on the Liberty Bell Limited were ex-Cincinnati & Lake Erie.

LVT 1008 in Allentown.

Cook County #1 was used to transport mental health patients between facilities such as Dunning on Chicago’s northwest side. Don’s Rail Photos: “1, hospital car, was built by CSL in 1918. It was retired on September 21, 1939.”

June 21, 1958 was the day before the new Congress-Douglas-Milwaukee line went into regular service. It was also the last day the Douglas Park trains ran downtown over the Lake Street “L” . Photographer Bob Selle was riding a northbound Douglas train when he took this picture, showing the station at Madison and Paulina, which had not been used in over seven years.

CTA wood car 1712 is a Kenwood shuttle train at the Indiana Avenue stub terminal, probably circa 1953. It was built by St. Louis Car Company in 1903 for the Northwestern Elevated Railroad. (Robert Selle Photo)

A night shot of CTA 4219 at Laramie Avenue on the Garfield Park “L” on January 4, 1957. (Robert Selle Photo)

A night shot of CTA 4434 at Laramie Avenue on the Garfield Park “L” on January 4,1957. (Robert Selle Photo)

CTA 2840, a Met car, at Laramie Yard on January 4, 1957. (Robert Selle Photo)

A night shot of CTA 2810 and 2818 in the Laramie Yards on February 1, 1957. By then, the Congress Expressway was open as far as Laramie and was adjacent to the Garfield Park “L”. It was still under construction west of here, and the “L” ran on temporary trackage. (Robert Selle Photo)

CTA 2802 at Laramie Yard (Garfield Park “L”) on February 1, 1957. (Robert Selle Photo)

The CTA temporarily stored many wood cars at Laramie Yard after they were retired and awaiting scrapping. Here, we see 1752, among others, on November 24, 1957. I assume these cars were last used on Evanston and Ravenswood. (Robert Selle Photo)

CTA 1782 and 1785 at Laramie Yard on November 24, 1957. As far as I know, scrapping took place at Skokie Shops. (Robert Selle Photo)

CTA 3119, signed as a Lake Street local, is being stored on the third track at Hamlin in August 1948. By then, A/B “skip stop” service had been in effect for some months. It’s possible this car was no longer being used on the line. Don’s Rail Photos: “3119 was built by St. Louis Car in 1902 as LSERR 119. In 1913 it was renumbered 3119 and became CRT 3119 in 1923.”

CTA Met car 2113 at Laramie Yard in August 1948. Don’s Rail Photos: “2104 thru 2154 were built by Pullman in 1894 as M-WSER 104 thru 154. In 1913 they were renumbered 2104 thru 2154, and in 1923 they became CRT 2104 thru 2154.” This would have been one of the original cars used on the Metropolitan West Side Elevated when it opened in 1895.

Chicago Rapid Transit Company medical car 2756 at Laramie Yards on September 19, 1934. It was built by Barney & Smith in 1895 and had been used as a funeral car. It could carry baggage as well as passengers.

Chicago & West Towns 158 at Brookfield Zoo in the summer of 1939. This is the south entrance. The Zoo opened in 1934 and was just north of the C&WT line to LaGrange, which cut through the Forest Preserves on private right of way.

The back end of the West Towns car barn in Oak Park. The street sign identifies this as North Boulvard and Cuyler. This is undated but could be 1939. The Chicago & North Western embankment is just to the right out of view. After being used for buses into the 1980s, this building was demolished and replaced by a Dominick’s Finer Foods store. After that chain went out of business, that building was remodeled into Pete’s Fresh Market. We are looking to the northeast.

C&WT line car 15, probably at the car barn at Harlem and 22nd Street (Cermak), in North Riverside. On pictures, this was often mistakenly identified as Berwyn, but that’s across Harlem Avenue just to the east.

Chicago Aurora & Elgin 406 makes a photo stop at State Road on the Batavia branch on August 8, 1954. The occasion was a Central Electric Railfans’ Association fantrip. (Robert Selle Photo)

A two-car Garfield Park “L” train, just west of Laramie Avenue in August 1948.

Caption: “Chicago El showing curve at Harrison and Wabash, taken from Congress Street station, April 2, 1939.” This curve has since been straightened out. The view looks south. (Duncan L. Bryant Photo)

A westbound Evanston Express train is on the Lake Street leg of the Loop near Clark. The view looks east. I assume this picture is from the 1940s, as the sign mentions Skokie instead of Niles Center. Miles Beitler: “There appears to be a propane bus in RBK275, visible just below the motorman’s cab on the Evanston Train. If so, it dates the photo to 1950 or later.” If so, why does the sign say Skokie, as the Niles Center route was converted to bus in 1948?

A Douglas Park “B” train heads west at (I think) Halsted on the Met main line, prior to the removal of two tracks for expressway construction.

The two CTA freight locos, S-104 and S-105, at Howard Street.

DesPlaines Avenue Yard in the 1960s, with a 2000, 6000s, and a couple of wood cars. The Met car looks like it has been converted to a snow plow, while the car on the right may have been used as an office or for storage.

Chicago Aurora and Elgin 405, circa 1950, scanned from the original negative. (Railway Negative Exchange) “Railway Negative Exchange (REX), also referred to as RNE was run by Warren Miller who lived in Moraga, CA. Born in Oakland, CA–(1923) Warren was this nation’s foremost authority on Western railroads and devoted virtually his entire life to assembling more than a quarter of a million negatives, most in glass plates, as well as over 200,000 photographs. Upon Warren’s death (1989), his collection was left to his nephew, Bob Hall. Bob has continued his uncle’s devotion to the railroad photographic hobby.” (2008)

CA&E 411 at the Wheaton Shops. (Railway Negative Exchange)

“CA&E Special #310 on the Mt. Carmel line, at the point where it switches off the main line from Chicago to Wheaton, IL (photo stop).” This was a Central Electric Railfans’ Association fantrip on August 8, 1954. (Robert Selle Photo)

CTA 398, D5, and 6148 at 70th and Ashland on June 28, 1952. (Robert Selle Photo)

“CTA car 649 on curve leading into south end of Limits barn (Clark and Schubert streets). 6148 at right (October 10, 1953).” (Robert Selle Photo)

CA&E 18 at Wheaton on August 15, 1952. Don’s Rail Photos: “18 was built by Niles Car in 1902. It was modernized in March 1941 and retired in 1955.”

“CTA “L” car lineup at DesPlaines Avenue yards, July 6, 1958.” (Robert Selle Photo)

“CTA “L” cars view at DesPlaines Avenue yards, July 6, 1958.” (Robert Selle Photo)

“CTA– one of the entrances to the Racine Avenue station on August 13, 1958.” (Robert Selle Photo)

CTA 4000s at Clark and Lake in January 1970.

Morning commuters on the Evanston Express in April 1970.

Wood cars at Randolph and Wabash in July 1957. At right, the Kodak Store (133 N. Wabash Avenue) and Blackhawk Restaurant (home of the spinning salad bowl) are visible.

Altman Camera, at 129 N. Wabash, was the Noah’s Ark of camera stores from 1964 to 1975. Owner Ralph Altman kept two of everything in stock– one to show, and one to go. This was literally the finest camera store in the United States. This was close to the location of the old Eastman Kodak Store, which I believe had to close in the mid-1950s due to anti-trust concerns. Here is Altman’s in 1967.

CTA 2519, among others, form a three-car train at Van Buren and Ogden. This must be in the early days of the temporary Garfield Park “L” operation, since the old “L” is still standing at left. The portion to Paulina (1700 W.) had to be kept until April 1954, as the Douglas Park “L” was still using it then. We are looking west at about 1800 W. Van Buren, and the “L” west of here was taken down pretty fast to facilitate expressway construction.

The same location today. The Eisenhower Expressway (formerly Congress) is behind those shrubs to the left.

The Congress median right-of-way on November 9, 1959. I believe we are looking east.

An Evanston Express train at Clark and Lake, possibly in the early 1970s.

CTA 1706 is signed for Stock Yards, but is obviously a Kenwood train at Indiana Avenue. Not sure if this is before or after Kenwood became a shuttle in 1949. I assume it simply has the wrong sign on it. It’s been suggested that in latter years, CTA may have through-routed Stock Yards and Kenwood trains. In actual practice, this wouldn’t have been easy, as it would have involved a lot of switching across the main line here.

Miles Beitler writes:

Great photos on your newest post!

Regarding photo RBK 511, on which I left a comment, I have attached information from my 1944 Rand McNally guidebook which describes CRT operations and indicates that, during non-rush periods, Kenwood trains did run from 42nd Place all the way to the Stock Yards. Apparently the CRT had a way to run the trains straight through the Indiana station. (I long ago sent scans of my guidebook to Graham Garfield, who posted them to his website.)

Your “Lost L’s” book sounds interesting and I intend to purchase it when it’s released.

Thanks. This was in the pre-CTA era. Once the Authority took over, there was a real push to reduce the amount of such switching maneuvers, adding and cutting cars in stations, etc. as these things are quite labor intensive.

CRT 2322 on February 12, 1939. It was built for the Met in 1901 by American Car and Foundry. (La Mar M. Kelley Photo)

CSL “Matchbox” 1352 signed for Taylor-Sedgwick-Sheffield. I wonder where this could be? Paul Wallace identifies this as 1044 N. Orleans Street.

The same location today.

CTA 1674 on Division by the north side “L” on June 25, 1950. This station had been closed on August 1, 1949 as part of the CTA’s major revision of north-south service. On the back of the print, it notes that these cars were “replaced by big Pullmans a few weeks later.”

Elevated train tracks on Van Buren Street, looking west from Franklin Street, 1914. That’s the Franklin and Van Buren station, used exclusively by the Metropolitan “L”.

An early track arrangement, showing the four-track Metropolitan main line on the east side of the Chicago River.

Figuring out which Loop tower this is took a bit of doing, but the Sterling Cycle Works was located on Wabash Avenue in 1897, making this Tower 12 at Wabash and Van Buren, looking east.

This circa 1897 ad shows Sterling Cycle Works on Wabash. However, this pre-dates the renumbering of Chicago streets, where the city shifted to a grid system, with numbers starting at State and Madison.

From the Collections of William Shapotkin

CTA 194 at Halsted and 64th in 1952.

The Lake Street “L” in 1962, looking east at Ridgeland. This must be just before the “L” was relocated to the Chicago & North Western embankment. M&C Motors, at right, was located at 315 South Boulevard.

Ridgeland and South Boulevard today.

The Lake Street “L” ramp between Central Avenue and Laramie circa 1961-62. This was after the changeover point between third rail and overhead wire was moved west of here. I think this picture was taken looking north on Latrobe.

The same location today.

CTA 4227 in the shop (Skokie?) in 1956.

CTA 3073 on route 52 (Kedzie).

South Side Rapid Transit car #1 in 1962. It is now at the Chicago History Museum.

CTA 279.

CTA 990 at 47th and Lake Park in March 1949. The Kenwood Hotel was located at 47th and Kenwood nearby.

CTA 940.

CTA 5315.

CTA 460 at 77th and Vincennes in March 1956, when it was part of the CTA Historical Collection. Looks like PCC 4021 is behind it. Both cars are now at the Illinois Railway Museum.

CTA 3093.

CTA 3095.

CTA 4244 on State Street in 1954.

CTA 129. M.E.: “This scene has to be at the western end of the main 63rd St. line, at Narragansett and 63rd Place. The tight loop shown in the picture was built when one-ended PCC cars started running on 63rd. This picture had to be taken in 1952 or 1953 after the pre-war PCC cars were removed from 63rd and assigned to Cottage Grove. The last cars to run on 63rd were the old red Pullmans like this one.”

A CTA 4000, most likely at a railway museum.

CTA 7213. (Robert W. Gibson Photo) M.E.: “You might add to the caption that this car was the last one to run in Chicago. Refer to all the pictures taken at 81st and Halsted and then on the final trip to the 77th and Vincennes barn in June 1958.”

CTA 7263 at Harrison and State in 1954.

Experimental forced-air ventilation on a CTA 6000. Not sure if you could open the windows on this car or not.

CTA 7023 at Clark and Van Buren on June 6, 1954.

Scrapped streetcars, including work car AA57, at South Shops. Don’s Rail Photos: “AA57, salt car, was built by St Louis Car Co in 1903 as CUTCo 4835. It was renumbered 1306 in 1913 and became CSL 1306 in 1914. It was rebuilt as salt car in January 1934 and renumbered AA57 on April 15, 1948. It was retired on December 14, 1956.”

CTA 6669 with experimental roof-mounted air conditioning, in storage on the middle track at Western Avenue on the Ravenswood. Just about every new feature CTA introduced on the 2000s was first tried out on 6000s.

CTA 6151, 3196, and 554 at 69th and Ashland. M.E.: “Route 45 was the Ashland-Archer-Clark route, similar to route 42, Halsted-Archer-Clark, but different in that route 45 always used old Pullmans whereas (at this time) route 42 used postwar PCCs.”

CTA 3179 at Grand and Navy Pier in March 1950.

CTA 7217 awaiting scrapping on June 30, 1959, at South Shops.

CTA 3231, 369, 988, and AA103 at 69th and Ashland in May 1949. M.E.: “The Green Hornet PCC in this picture would have been assigned to Western Ave. When the 69th/Ashland barn closed, but Western still operated PCC streetcars, those cars were moved to the 77th and Vincennes barn. To get there, they traveled east on 69th St. to Wentworth, south to 73rd, then southwest on Vincennes to 77th St.”

CTA 7113 at State and 62nd Place on November 9, 1955. This was where a PCC derailed and collided with a gasoline truck in 1950, a horrific crash that killed 34 people. M.E. “As I recall, the 1950 accident was not due to derailing, instead due to a misaligned switch on the southbound track which the motorman didn’t see but put his streetcar in the path of the northbound gas truck.” While that was the cause of the accident, since the PCC was going perhaps 35 mph at the time, it must have left the rails during the crash.

CTA 6413 at Skokie Shops on January 26, 1975. (Ronald J. Sullivan Photo)

CSL 5177 at Archer and Cicero in March 1935. M.E.: “The building behind the streetcar has a sign for United Airlines. So this scene is at Midway Airport, most likely north of 62nd St., which is where the Cicero car line ended in front of the original Midway terminal building. The sign on the streetcar reads Archer-Cicero, which was likely its northern destination.”

CSL 5519 at Archer and Rockwell in May 1943.

CSL 5130.

CSL 5083. M.E.: “The sign on the car appears to read Pitney-Archer. I went to Google maps, entered Pitney St. Chicago, and up came a map showing that Pitney starts at Archer and heads southeast from there. (All of this is about a block east of Ashland.) So maybe there was a carbarn at Pitney and Archer, or a stub on Pitney.”

CTA 914 in March 1950. The location is given as Archer and 38th Place.

CSL 775 at 47th and Indiana in May 1945.

CTA 7218, 4378, and 4399 at South Shops in August 1959, more than a year after the last Chicago streetcar ran.

More Ones That Got Away

Both Jeff Marinoff and I regret not winning this auction, which sold for $131.32. That’s a lot of money, but pictures of the Kinzie Street “L” station are rare indeed, It was located approximately where the Merchandise Mart station is now, and was open from 1900 to 1921, when it was replaced by a new station at Grand Avenue a few blocks north. Behind the “L”. to the left, is the Chicago and North Western station, which closed in 1910, so the view looks west.

Chicago & North Western station in 1881.

This, and the photos that follow, were offered as a batch of 11 original slides. I did bid on this but was not the top bidder, and they sold for about $100. That may seem like a lot, until you work out that it’s only about $9 per slide, and some of these are definitely keepers. All were taken between 1959 and 1963. Here are a pair of 6000s on the Congress line in Oak Park.

The old Lake Street Transfer station, closed since 1951. We are looking west. It was removed in 1964, along with that portion of the Paulina “L” north of here (excepting the bridge). I had originally said this was looking east. Graham Garfield: “We are looking west…” I believe we are actually looking east, from Wood St west of the station. The Met platforms began at Lake Street and projected northward (as seen in the attached Sanborn map), and in the photo they go to the left (which would be north, if we were facing east). Also, the building in the left foreground is still there today, located on the north side of Lake St near Wood St — here is a Google Street View of it from 2009 (I chose an older one because more recently it has been repainted and had its windows changed; you can still tell it’s the same building, but the older view makes it more obvious): https://goo.gl/maps/jb27nadEmRdf7BM16 “

CTA single-car unit 35 at Forest Park.

A two-car train of 4000s heads west on the Lake Street “L” when the outer portion still ran on the ground. I think the top of the building we see above the C&NW embankment is the Austin Town Hall, meaning we are between Laramie and Central circa 1961-62. The newspaper box at left is selling Chicago’s American, an afternoon newspaper. Tracks here may be using third rail as the conversion point to overhead wire was moved to Central Avenue while work was being done to put the line onto the embankment.

a westbound Lake Street “L” train in Oak Park. That stairway may be where one of the other pictures in this series was taken from. I assume this was located at the east end of the C&NW’s Oak Park station.

Looking east from Harlem Avenue in 1963. The Lake “L” is now on the embankment, but the old tracks and the Marion Street station are still in place. A train of CTA’s high-speed cars is in the station. The fans called them “circus wagons.”

The ground-level Lake Street “L’ in a somewhat underexposed shot. A “B” train heads east from the Marion Street station.

A westbound Lake “A” train at Home Avenue in Oak Park.

Looking north towards the Howard “L” station.

A two-car train of CTA 6000s on the turnaround loop in Forest Park, west end of the Congress-Milwaukee line. That loop-shaped thing on the front of the train was used for route selection, since these trains shared tracks with Douglas-Milwaukee trains further east of here.

An eastbound Lake Street “B” train heads east between Central and Laramie, and is about to head up the ramp to the “L” structure. This is just east of another picture in this series.

This is Waterloo, Cedar Falls & Northern car 100, shortly before it was destroyed by fire in 1967. I was surprised when this original slide sold for very little. Don’s Rail Photos: “100 was built by McGuire-Cummings in 1914. It was built as a second motor to operate behind the 140s as a two car train. The baggage compartment was a kitchen, and the rear end was an open platform observation. The buffet section was replaced with coach seats in 1918. The car was then rebuilt with a control station and baggage compartment in 1928 and the rear platform was enclosed at that time. It was the last interurban left on the WCF&N when it became diesel freight, and it was donated to the Iowa Chapter of the NRHS in 1956. It was moved to Centerville and operated on the Southern Iowa Ry. When the SI cut back its operation and dieselized, the Iowa Chapter transferred the car to the Iowa Terminal RR in 1966. Shortly after it was repainted and put into charter service, it was destroyed in the carbarn fire early November 24, 1967. It had been the only car saved from the WCF&N roundhouse fire on October 31, 1954, when the other two cars of its class burned.”

The Liberty Bell Limited in 1951 at Sellersville.

4000s at Linden Avenue in 1967.

Looks like a photo stop on the Illinois Terminal in 1956. Perhaps the final day for these lines?

2000s on the Lake Street “L” in 1965, looking west-southwest from the Chicago & North Western platform in Oak Park.

6000s cross the Chicago River in 1968. We are looking east.

The New York elevated, probably in the 1890s when steam was in use. Not sure which line this is.

The interior of Lehigh Valley Transit car 704 in 1951, used on the Liberty Bell interurban line in Philadelphia. The motorman would most likely punch a couple things in on that cash register and it would issue a ticket.

Somewhere in Evanston. Graham Garfield: “This is at Madison Street, a block or so south of Main station. Here is a view of the same location today, in a video of the line posted by CTA: https://youtu.be/tag-0WOzn7o?t=6303 (pretty soon after the video starts you’ll need to pause it to study the location) — the building on the right is the back of old Evanston Fire Station #2 (now the Firehouse Grill restaurant), and although the windows have been bricked over, the brickwork along the top of the wall facing the the track and the clay tiled parapet perpendicular to the tracks are identifiable. “

This is the State Street Subway in August 1965. I would have bid on this one if it had been sharper.

The Chicago, Lake Shore and South Bend, predecessor of the South Shore Line, in East Chicago, Indiana prior to 1926.

North Shore Line line car 604, photo by Gordon E. Lloyd at Highwood on June 13, 1959. Another original slide.

I couldn’t believe it when I saw that this original North Shore Line slide had sold for only $17.50. I expected it to go for a lot more and hence didn’t bid on it. It was taken by Gordon E. Lloyd on October 17, 1958 at Highwood.

A photo stop on the Hagerstown & Frederick interurban in Maryland.

Bill Shapotkin writes, “Both Andre Kristopans and I believe this is Main St. That said, he believes we are looking north (citing a curve in the distance). I am thinking we are looking south (lights to left are along Chicago Ave).” John McElroy: “I have lived in Evanston 60 years and rode the Evanston line all during this time. I believe the photo in question is taken at Davis Street, looking south, before the newer station was built here. The street visible is Benson Avenue, and the water tower is, I think, on the old building once occupied by Wieboldt’s. As you know, there is a curve south of Davis Street.” Graham Garfield adds, “this isn’t Main looking north, it’s Davis looking south. Both stations have curves to the left right after them in the directions cited, but here are some clues as to why this is Davis:
– The wooden “telephone” poles along both sides of the ROW have poles with no crossarms on the left and the ones with crossarms on the right. Photos of this part of the Evanston branch show that the crossarm poles were along the west side of the ROW, and the plain ones were along the east side of the ROW.
– The water tank visible in the left background shows up in lots of shots of Davis station looking south.
– They say the lights on the left under the platform are Chicago Ave, but if this was Main looking north Chicago Ave would be on the right, not the left. Also, Chicago Ave isn’t that close to the ROW at Main St; it’s about 60 feet from the ROW there. That’s Benson Ave on the left under the platform, which does run right alongside the ROW at Davis station.
– In this era, the station name signs varied in length, and were however long (or short) they needed to be to fit the station name on them. There is one visible on the left, right before the canopy, and while it is illegible we can see it is very long. While “Main” and “Davis” are short names, the ones at Main St just said the street name, but the ones at Davis were very long, reading, “Davis St – Downtown Evanston”.”

State and Van Buren in cable car days, between 1897 and 1906.

Congress looking west from Racine in 1967.

I think this one was undated, but I would guess maybe 1967 as 2000s are running on Douglas Park.

Looking south from Wilson Avenue in 1960.

Listed as Howard, this looks like Chinatown on the Dan Ryan line, circa 1970.

Could this be Isabella looking north?

Jeff Marinoff: “It shows car #122 of the Chicago Consolidated Traction Company. The roof destination sign reads Halstead & Irving Park Blvd.” CCT eventually became part of Chicago Railways Company. The photo dates to between 1900 and 1910.

This and the next picture show the aftermath of an “L” derailment at Wabash and Van Buren, which I assume took place on May 12, 1942. That’s Tower 12.

1939 Chicago Surface Lines Training Program

In 2016, we were fortunate to acquire a rare 16″ transcription disc, made in 1939 for the Chicago Surface Lines. This included an audio presentation called “Keeping Pace,” about 20 minutes long, that CSL used for employee training.

We were recently able to find someone who could play such a large disc, and now this program has been digitized and can be heard for the first time in more than 80 years. We have added it as a bonus feature to our Red Arrow Lines 1967 CD, available below and through our Online Store.

RAL
Red Arrow Lines 1967: Straffords and Bullets
# of Discs – 1
Price: $14.99

This disc features rare, long out-of-print audio recordings of two 1967 round trips on the Philadelphia & Western (aka “Red Arrow Lines”) interurban between Philadelphia and Norristown, the famous third rail High-Speed Line. One trip is by a Strafford car and the other by one of the beloved streamlined Bullets. The line, about 13 miles long and still in operation today under SEPTA, bears many similarities to another former interurban line, the Chicago Transit Authority‘s Yellow Line (aka the “Skokie Swift”). We have included two bonus features, audio of an entire ride along that five mile route, which was once part of the North Shore Line, and a 20-minute 1939 Chicago Surface Lines training program (“Keeping Pace”). This was digitized from a rare original 16″ transcription disc and now can be heard again for the first time in over 80 years.

Total time – 73:32

While the elevated Chicago Loop is justly famous as a symbol of the city, the fascinating history of its subways is less well known. The City of Chicago broke ground on what would become the “Initial System of Subways” during the Great Depression and finished 20 years later. This gigantic construction project, a part of the New Deal, would overcome many obstacles while tunneling through Chicago’s soft blue clay, under congested downtown streets, and even beneath the mighty Chicago River. Chicago’s first rapid transit subway opened in 1943 after decades of wrangling over routes, financing, and logistics. It grew to encompass the State Street, Dearborn-Milwaukee, and West Side Subways, with the latter modernizing the old Garfield Park “L” into the median of Chicago’s first expressway. Take a trip underground and see how Chicago’s “I Will” spirit overcame challenges and persevered to help with the successful building of the subways that move millions. Building Chicago’s subways was national news and a matter of considerable civic pride–making it a “Second City” no more!

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Ross Harano and the Kenwood “L”

July 23, 2020November 27, 2020David Sadowski 11 Comments

Ross Harano as a toddler in 1945, with his uncle Susumu Okamoto, in front of the Kenwood “L” terminal at 42nd Place. (Courtesy of Ross Harano)

I first became interested in Ross Harano and his family’s story when I came across the picture shown above in the article What happened to Chicago’s Japanese neighborhood? by Katherine Nagasawa from WBEZ radio. I wanted to learn more, and found that Mr. Harano is, as they used to say, “in the book.” I wrote him a letter, and we began a correspondence that led to the interview that follows.

Ross Harano writes:

I was born in the Fresno Assembly Center which was at the Fresno County Fair Grounds on September 17,1942. When I was one month old, my family was shipped to the Jerome, Arkansas, internment camp. We were later allowed to relocate to Chicago.

My uncle’s name was Susumu Okamoto (1919-2005) who was married to my mother’s sister. When we settled on Oakenwald from the camp in Arkansas, my parents and my mother’s 3 sisters and their husbands along with my grandparents all lived there.

It was a full house.

During the war, my uncle Susumu served with US Military Intelligence in the Pacific along with two of my mother’s brothers. Another brother served in Europe with the Japanese American 442nd Combat Infantry Battalion. He was seriously wounded in Italy and also lived with us on Oakenwald after he recovered from his wounds.

This is a uniquely American story, and also one that is uniquely Chicago, a slice of history that deserves to be remembered.

-David Sadowski

From 1949 to 1957, the CTA operated the Kenowwd branch of the “L” as a shuttle operation, and here we see three such cars at the Indiana Avenue station. By the mid-1950s, the older gate cars had been replaced by ones formerly used on the Met “L”, as those lines were equipped with more modern steel cars. Not sure why there are three cars here– Kenwood usually used one or two car trains in these days.

Interview with Ross Harano, July 2, 2020:

Q: Maybe we could start by going back to the beginning of your family’s history, and when they came to this country, and we can just take it from there?

A: Well, I’m third generation Japanese-American. Both of my grandfathers came to America in 1898. They landed in Hawaii first as laborers in the sugar cane fields and later on the mainland as laborers on the Union Pacific railroad. Prior to the Japanese immigration, the Chinese came to this country as Forty Niners to search for gold and later to build the first transcontinental railroad. As the Chinese began to settle on the west coast, strong anti-Chinese sentiments resulted in the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Japan was the next place where the railroads looked for workers and both my grandfathers worked on the railroads and eventually settled in California where my parents were born. My father was born in Berkeley, and my mother was born in Hanford which is just outside of Fresno.

After Pearl Harbor was attacked, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 which authorized the interment of the Japanese community into 10 concentration camps away from the west coast. We evacuated out with my mother’s family because she was pregnant with me and she had three sisters who were not married at the time to care for her. We went from Hanford to the Fresno Assembly Center which was built on the Fresno County Fairgrounds. I was born in September of ’42, and in October we were shipped to Jerome, Arkansas. There were two camps in Arkansas, one at Rohwer and one at Jerome. They were about 25 miles apart and each held 8,500 Japanese internees.

Even though my family was interned behind barbed wire, seven of my uncles volunteered to serve in the US Military. Four of them served in Europe with the Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team – one was wounded in Italy and one was killed in France. Three uncles served in the Pacific in the US military intelligence. This was kept a military secret until the late ‘50s. Japanese Americans were there on the front lines intercepting Japanese messages because the Japanese didn’t know that we had translators so they didn’t speak in code on the battlefield. The Japanese Americans were on the front lines in most of the campaigns in the Pacific including Merrill’s Marauders in Burma.

The house at 4201 S. Oakenwald. (Courtesy of Ross Harano)

Ross and his maternal grandfather Rihaci Mayewaki (1886-1969) in front of the Kenwood “L” terminal at 42nd Place. (Courtesy of Ross Harano)

Ross Harano and a cousin, in front of the Kenwood “L” terminal at 42nd Place. (Courtesy of Ross Harano)

Ross and his sled. (Courtesy of Ross Harano)

Transfers from the Kenwood “L” and 43rd Street streetcar line. (Courtesy of Ross Harano)

This notice is from before October 1947, when the Chicago Transit Authority took over the “L” system. Fares were, if anything, being held artificially low for many years, while the system gradually deteriorated and the equipment aged. Once the CTA was in charge, they had more legal leeway to raise fares, in order to cover expenses, in the days before government subsidies. As a result, there were several fare increases in the 1950s. (Courtesy of Ross Harano)

In 1944 we were able to leave the camp and we eventually settled on the south side of Chicago on Oakenwald. At some point we had my mother’s three sisters and their husbands, two new baby cousins, my grandparents and my mother’s three brothers.

Q: How many people would you say were living in the same house?

A: About 14 (laughs).

Q: Things must have been kinda tight, but I suppose, you probably didn’t think about it too much, because that’s just the way things were.

A: Well it was a relatively large brick building. It was like a rowhouse where the buildings were all built next to each other with brick common walls. The upstairs had four bedrooms and one bathroom. Each bedroom had a family. When my uncle who was a carpenter returned from the Army, he built another bedroom in the basement, so we had five bedrooms. He also built another bathroom down there too, so we had two bathrooms. So, we had quite a few people in the building which was tremendous for me. I was the only child until I was four years old, so I had all my aunties and uncles to take good care of me.

CTA 6180 is at 43rd and Oakenwald on August 8, 1953, the last day of streetcar service on the 43rd-Root Street line. Note the Illinois Central station at rear. (C. Edward Hedstrom Photo)

And at that time, everybody was working. My mother was working at Hart, Schaffner and Marx, which was on west Van Buren near the Chicago river. And so, she would take the “L” to work every day which was very convenient since we lived across the street from the Kenwood “L” end of the line terminal. There was a 43rd Street Illinois Central stop next to us, and plus, we had the 43rd streetcar. It was a very convenient place to live in terms of getting to work and shopping, and plus, it was an interesting neighborhood.

In those days, Chicago was very segregated and African Americans were not allowed to live east of Cottage Grove. And so, the neighborhood, when we first moved in was all white. Many of our neighbors on Oakenwald were of third or fourth generation German ancestry. When the first African Americans began to move east of Cottage Grove, my neighborhood changed from white to black over the summer – like in two months. Most of my friends ended up moving to Oak Lawn which was basically farmland in those days. Oak Lawn was being developed and a lot of my friends built or bought homes in that area.

Q: What year was this, then, when the segregation ended?

A: Oh, probably about 1953, let’s see, I was in fifth grade. If you look at my grammar school pictures, you can see the change. When I graduated, my class was all black. I still keep in touch with some of my classmates from grammar school.

Q: Are they on Facebook?

A: No, I don’t do Facebook. I do emails. I have a flip phone, I don’t have one of those fancy phones.

The corner of Oakenwald and 42nd Place today.

Q: Is the house still there, that you guys lived in?

A: No, what happened is that in 1961, the City of Chicago tore down the whole neighborhood to build projects between Lake Park on the west and the Illinois Central tracks on the east and from 43rd Street north to 40th Street. Unfortunately, the projects were never successful because evidently there were two gangs that got involved and I heard that they were shooting at each other between these two buildings. And sometime in the 90s, those two projects were torn down. Actually, they were blown up and it was a big media event. Now, that whole area has been rebuilt. Oakenwald grammar school was torn down and now there are all new townhouses. So, the whole neighborhood has really changed. All the vacant lots on Oakenwald are now new townhouses.

Q: Wow. What was the address of the house you were living in?

A: 4201 S. Oakenwald. It was on the southeast corner of 42nd and Oakenwald directly across the street from the Kenwood “L” end-of-the-line station there.

4323 South Oakenwald Avenue on March 23, 1949. This house is long gone. (Charles W. Cushman Collection)

Q: Had that been a wealthy neighborhood at one point in the past?

We ran a lo-fi version of this picture in a previous post. The location at first was a real mystery, but turned out to be 42nd Place, the terminal of the CTA Kenwood branch, looking west. The next photo was taken further down the platform. (We ran originally ran this with other pictures that we saw on eBay, but hadn’t been able to purchase. It was relisted and we decided to buy it after all.) Ross Harano adds, “The view is looking north rather than west. The building with the chimney is Oakenwald Grammar School at 4071 S. Lake Park that I attended. The tower on the right is the “Kiosk Sphinx” that was on an estate just north of the grammar school. Geoffrey Baer had a segment on his WTTW’s “Ask Geoffrey” about the wealthy family that built a Mediterranean style home with a pool and “Eiffel” tower. The property to the west of the station was owned by Nelson Coal. You can see the coal moving equipment in the photo. Nelson Coal stored mountains of coal east of the terminal tracks next to the Illinois Central Tracks. We used to play soldiers on the coal until we would be chased away by Nelson Coal workers.”

A: No, it was sort of middle class, I suspect. The wealthy area was north of us. If you looked at Lake Park, around Oakwood Boulevard there were a lot of mansions there—big, big mansions. I remember as a kid in grammar school they were vacant, and we used to play in them before they were torn down. There was one mansion which was a Mediterranean style with a swimming pool and a replica of the Eiffel Tower which could be seen in one of the CTA pictures that you had.

Q: What happened to this Eiffel Tower replica? Is that still there, or is it gone?

A: There’s a whole long story on Ask Geoffrey (WTTW – Chicago Tonight) about it. (See link at the end of this article.) The family made a lot of money. They built the home next to some other big mansions. Eventually, it was the last one left standing. The son had it and there was some dispute in the family so that it was eventually torn down to build an annex classroom building for the Oakenwald grammar school in 1955.

Q: Did you say that the grammar school’s not there anymore?

A: That was all torn down.

Q: Until 1949, the Kenwood “L” ran downtown, and wasn’t it such that they had these things called Kenwood-Wilson Expresses, or something like that?

A: Yes, what it was, was that there were three tracks, and so the Kenwood “L” ran as a local, so it would go to Indiana Avenue, then it would stop at I think like maybe 35th, maybe at Cermak, maybe at Roosevelt, it was a local that went around the Loop and came back. I remember riding it with my mother. She would shop at Marshall Field’s and there was an entrance to Marshall Field’s from the “L” platform. She would shop, and I would hang onto her as she walked around Marshall Field’s. And then when it became a local (shuttle) and ended at Indiana, the platform was extended to cover up the track.

Q: Right. And then from that point forward, I think they only used two tracks heading north. They weren’t using the express track anymore.

A: Correct.

Q: Do you know which trains would have used the third track, in the middle, the express track?

A: The Jackson Park and Englewood lines were using it.

Q: And then the Kenwood was the local, it went around the Loop and came back, but I saw some pictures of trains that said Kenwood-Wilson.

A: There might’ve been a Kenwood Express that ran downtown via the subway to Wilson. Maybe during Rush Hour, they ran express, I don’t know.

Q: And then the Stock Yards “L” was always a shuttle?

A: Yeah, it started at Indiana Avenue, went around a circle in the Stock Yards and came back to Indiana.

This postcard, circa 1910, shows one of the single track “L” stations that were a unique feature of the old Stockyards branch.

Gate car #204 at Halsted on the Stock Yards branch.

Q: Did you ever ride the Stock Yards “L”?

A: Once as a kid. I rode every train when I was a kid.

Q: Just to have the experience, you rode every line?

A: What happened was that if you were under 10 or something like that, you rode free with an adult. So, my friends and I would we would follow some adults through the ticket line. We would hop on the trains and ride ‘em. I remember we rode the Ravenswood line when it was one of the first to have the metal cars. So, we took the train up to Belmont and caught the Ravenswood line. We went all the way to the end and came back. I remember that we sat in the front. There was one seat at the front window that sat sideways and was across from the driver’s compartment. There were three of us. I remember that we all sat there making a lot of noise. It’s a wonder we didn’t get kicked off the train.

Q: It must have been quite a thrill to go down into the subway for the first time.

A: Yeah, we would ride the trains all the time just to ride the trains. We got on for nothing and we were never disorderly. During the Christmas season, we’d go downtown to Marshall Field’s and play in the toy department until a salesperson would ask us where our parents were at and we would leave. We would then work our way down to The Fair (department store), Carson Pirie Scott until we got kicked out. We would then get on the train and come home. That was our entertainment during the Christmas season—we’d play in the toy departments (laughs), there was only two or three of us at a time.

Q: You had mentioned that you got to know the people who drove the trains, the Kenwood line, especially, I would imagine, when it was a shuttle operation.

A: There were only one or two drivers at that point. There was a grocery store right next to the terminal. We just called it Fred’s. The owner’s name was Fred Mamet and I worked there from sixth grade as a stock boy, delivery boy and eventually as a butcher. And I made sandwiches for the “L” drivers and conductors so I got to know them, one of them would let me drive the train for just a very short distance.

Q: Do you remember their names?

A: I was trying to remember. This one fellow was named Dillard which was his last name. And then there was our neighbor and I don’t remember his name at all. He lived on Oakenwald. He was a driver and he’s the one who let me drive.

Q: Tell me about the Kenwood line. They had a terminal there, but I suppose there were times when they really didn’t park hardly any trains there, I think they stored them elsewhere for a while, after it became a shuttle.

A: When the trains were running downtown, the whole thing was filled. There had to be maybe ten tracks for storing and repairing the cars. I don’t remember the exact number, but there were always cars up there. But when it became a shuttle, those other tracks were always empty.

Q: And then they just used a couple of trains, going back and forth?

A: One or two at the most. At night, they just had one train running.

Q: They used both tracks, they didn’t just use one of the two tracks?

A: They used both tracks.

Q: And when they got to the ends, they would go down to a single track, just use one of the two tracks?

A: Before it was a shuttle, the tracks on both sides of the terminal platform were used. When it became a shuttle, they would switch into one track on one side of the platform.

Q: That makes sense. The stations themselves were on an embankment and were sort of different than usual “L” stations, because they had been built by some other company. I think that line opened in 1907, and it pretty much stayed the same until 1957, when they got rid of it, and they had some the oldest cars, those wooden cars. That and the Stock Yards were the last two lines to use wooden cars on the whole system.

A: I remember the ones with a platform on each side, with a gate there (laughs).

Chicago “L” car 24 (aka 1024) at the Illinois Railway Museum in 2019.

Q: Those gate cars, there is only one of those that was saved. It’s at the Illinois Railway Museum. It was originally called car 24, later they changed it to 1024, and within the last few years, they have restored that car back to its original appearance and changed it back to being car 24. That one’s out there, whenever the museum is going to open again. You can ride on that one when they have it out. It’s apparently been brought back to the way it was when it was new.

A: They had like straw seats, laminated with some sort of, it wasn’t plastic, looked like straw.

Q: I think it was cane.

A: Cane, it would be, yes. The train would pull in the station, the conductor’s first job was to reverse the seats.

Q: Are you talking about, on the gate cars?

A: Yeah.

Q: What about the other cars? The other cars they had, later, were from the Metropolitan “L”, where they weren’t needed anymore, those ones that had different roofs. Did those have reversible seats too, or not?

A: Gee, I don’t remember. I just remember, it struck me that the conductor would have to change the seats. That was the first thing they did when the train pulled into the station. And the later ones, they may not have had the reversable seats. I don’t remember.

Q: And the gate cars, did they usually use a two-car train?

A: Yeah, two cars at the most.

Q: And then, the conductor, to open and close the doors, had to stand between the two cars?

A: Correct.

Q: You can imagine what that would have been like in the wintertime. Did the conductors ride outside like that, between the two cars? Or did they go between the two cars when it went into the station?

A: They would ride in the car and when they would come to a station, they would go outside and open the gates. There would be a driver and a conductor.

Q: They continued that practice, even on the steel cars that they had from the 1920s, and it wasn’t until the early 1950s that they changed that, and tried to change it around, so the conductor didn’t have to go between the two cars like that.

A: I remember the subway. Every two cars had a conductor that opened and closed the doors. The Kenwood “L” was something when it was running downtown. There would be a lot of people getting off at Oakenwald. In fact, I remember when I was a kid, I used to have a lemonade stand in front of my house and sell lemonade to everybody when they were getting off the train.

Q: At that time, it was a very popular line?

A: The whole neighborhood, whoever worked downtown, there would be a lotta people riding it, as a kid I remember that.

Q: But later, by the time it quit, by 1957, how was the ridership then?

A: Oh, very few. Very, very few.

Q: Because it was a shuttle, or for other reasons?

A: The neighborhood was changing racially and fewer African Americans worked downtown.

My best friend Eddie Moore’s father worked at the Post Office. Another friend across the street, I think her father was a teacher. It was what I call a middle-class neighborhood in those days.

(This and the next picture) Danny Yoshida, Ross Harano and his sister Cathy In March 1951. Ross writes, “Danny is on the left. He lived on Lake Park and 38th and was a classmate at Oakenwald until he moved to 45th and Lake Park.” (Both courtesy of Ross Harano)

Q: Right. I worked for LaSalle Photo for many years, are you familiar with that company at all? The Yamamoto family. (1700 W. Diversey)

A: Oh sure, I know LaSalle. A lot of my buddies worked there. My good friend Danny Yoshida married the daughter.

Q: Right. Now, he died?

A: Yeah, he died.

Q: What happened to him?

A: I don’t know. I lost track of him. I was at an event and I was talking to someone who turned out to be his cousin. I learned that both Danny and his younger brother, Kenny, died. I believe the sister Carole is still alive. She married a friend of mine, but I lost touch with them. I have a lot of pictures of Danny and me at Oakenwald.

Q: Was he from the neighborhood?

A: He was at Oakenwald Grammar School. Then they moved to 45th and Lake Park, so he might’ve gone to Shakespeare Grammar School after that.

Q: Small world, yeah. What I recall, of course, Bill Yamamoto, he was very much, I would say, patriotic, in the sense that he could have saved a lot of money by using Fuji chemistry and paper, but he would only use Kodak, because it was American.

A: My uncle, Earl Harano, in North Platte, Nebraska, was also in the same business, so they knew each other. My uncle had a photography studio, in North Platte, Nebraska, and he secured all the school photos in Nebraska and southern South Dakota.

If you needed a job, Bill would hire you. If your son needed a job, Bill had a job for you. I had a lot of friends working there.

Q: When they let you drive a Kenwood “L” train for a little while, that must’ve been quite a thrill.

A: Yeah, it was just a brass handled knob on this thing. There was no speed involved. The train couldn’t go that fast. It had a governor on it, anyway (laughs). I think you turned the knob to a certain point, if you wanted it to go fast, you had to do something to get it to go to the next speed. The train had two speeds—slow, and slower (laughs). By the way, each driver would bring his own brass handled knob.

Q: The brake was separate?

A: I don’t remember the brake at all.

Q: On those cars, I think it was separate—probably air brakes.

A: It might have been. I never had to use the brake because I was going so slow (laughs). I didn’t drive it that far… I just drove it between the next to the last station at Lake Park to the terminal. I didn’t drive the whole route. I just drove it a little bit, so I could tell all my buddies, “Hey! I drove the train!”

Q: You’re probably one of the last few people alive who ever did, on that line.

A: (laughs) I never told anybody except my buddies we did it. I didn’t want to get anyone in trouble.

Q: Did they have basically the same two people working there, right up until the time it quit, or did that change?

A: All I remember is that I started working at the grocery store in sixth grade so that would be about 1954. Around that time, I met the drivers and conductors. I knew the ticket-taker in the station… it was a woman. I would just hang on to an adult and go right through. It wasn’t even a turnstyle.

Q: It’s unfortunate there really aren’t a lot of pictures of the interiors of many of these stations.

A: It was a pretty big station. If you look at pictures of the station, it was a pretty big building.

Q: Did they have a newsstand in there, or not?

A: At one point, there was a newsstand but it closed when the “L” became a shuttle. There was a ticket taker in the building where you paid your fare. When you arrived, there was an outside turnstyle cage to exit. You could also exit through the terminal.

Q: There was a short portion of the Kenwood line that was on a steel structure, and it joined up with this other embankment, and also had freight trains on it, right?

A: Right. It joined up at Lake Park.

Q: How far of a distance would that have been?

A: The tracks from the 42nd Place terminal went north to 40th and curved west to join up with the embankment. So it was about two and a half blocks. Along the north side of the embankment was 40th Street.

Q: That must have been fun, to ride some of these lines that don’t exist anymore. What was it like to ride on the Stockyards line?

A: I didn’t ride it that often. It was an adventure just to see everything. You’d get on at Indiana (Avenue), you’d ride, you’d see the Stockyards. I think I was having too much fun with my friends, to pay much close attention. We didn’t get off, that’s for sure. We just stayed on it for the round trip.

Q: I suppose there was quite an odor to the place in those days, wasn’t there?

A: We lived east of there, so yeah, when the wind was blowing, you could smell it. It wasn’t that bad of a smell. But you’d smell it when you went around (on the “L”).

Q: And that was unique, because they had a single-track loop there. They had some stations where there was only one track.

A: Yep. I don’t remember that. I only remember being on a train. I wasn’t paying too much attention to the tracks or anything, and plus there was two other kids, so we were joking around a lot (laughs).

Q: Tell me then, what happened to your family when you moved away from the neighborhood, to the north side. Was that because they shut down the “L”, or were there other factors involved?

A: What happened was that the “L” was shut down in ’57, and they began to tear it down in ’61. I was at Hyde Park High School. I started there in ’56 so I took the Kenwood “L” and transferred to the Jackson Park “L” and went to the end of the line at 63rd and Stony Island. In ’57, I started taking the 43rd Street bus to Drexel, and then I caught the southbound Drexel bus. It was a #1 or #5 Jeffrey Bus which dropped me off right in front of the school on Stony Island.

Q: Your family moved to the north side?

A: In 1961, the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) purchased all the homes in the neighborhood to be torn down to construct the two high rise buildings. The CHA bought our property, which was lucky, otherwise we would’ve had a hard time selling it. We moved to Uptown only two-and-a-half blocks away from the (CTA) Red Line Argyle station. I would take the “L” everywhere. I gave my last car away to my son-in-law in 1990. I was working downtown so I took the subway every day.

Q: They recently completely rebuilt the whole Wilson Avenue station, and all the tracks around it. It was a huge project, and cost about $250m.

A: And now they’re doing a big thing. They’re gonna rebuild all the tracks along the way, get rid of the concrete bridges, and put in a steel structure to eliminate the center thing. They just started on it.

Q: Some of the stations are going to be shut down for a while. But at least they restored the lower portion of that Wilson station, bringing it back to its 1920s appearance. It was nice of them to do that, even though the whole inside is completely brand new.

A: They will have an organic food store there. The Argyle stop, when we first moved up north had two exits, one on the north side and one on the south side of Argyle. And eventually, when they redid the platform, they eliminated the south side exit.

Q: Tell me what happened to you and your family, after you moved north. You moved to Uptown for a few years…

A: We’re still in Uptown. My parents bought a 4 flat building on Argyle and we had our whole family in the building: my parents, my grandparents, my sister, my cousin, and my wife and kids lived there. Then I got wanderlust and I bought a building across the alley on Winnemac. My in-laws lived with us. It felt like a compound, like on The Godfather. We had all of our family around us, all the time, which was tremendous.

Q: What was your career, then?

A: I graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in finance and worked in the actuarial department at CNA Insurance. And then I went out in the field and sold insurance and later ended up being vice president of the Bank of Chicago on Wilson and Broadway. When that bank was sold, I was vice-president of another community bank in Andersonville and later left banking to run an international trading group. Afterwards, I worked in government for the Attorney General of Illinois, Neil Hartigan, and later Roland Burris. Then I became president of the World Trade Center of Chicago which was at the Merchandise Mart. Then I ended up working for the State again as the Director of Trade for the State of Illinois. I retired in 2005.

Q: And what do you do to keep busy now?

A: I am the principal of a consulting group that specializes in assisting companies to export and import products and services. So I do a lot of consulting work for several companies. I’m trying to retire, but I keep getting new projects all the time.

Q: The internment of Japanese-Americans was a dark chapter in American history, one which unfortunately was affirmed by the Supreme Court, in a kind of notorious decision (Korematsu v. United States), which still, I don’t think, has been overturned since.

A: The internment of Japanese Americans in World War II is still constitutional. Fred Korematsu, Gordon Hirabayashi and Minoru Yasui were the three cases in which the US Supreme Court ruled that the internment was constitutional based upon on the grounds of military necessity.

The Supreme Court decisions have not been overturned. In 1983, however, the US District Court in San Francisco ruled that the US Government had withheld a government report that indicated that there were no cases of espionage or sabotage by the Japanese and that there was no military necessity for the Japanese American interment. The US District Court vacated the three convictions, however, the Supreme Court decisions have not been overturned. (Editor’s note: The Roberts Court essentially disavowed the Korematsu decision in the majority opinion to Trump v. Hawaii (2018), saying it had been wrongly decided.)

Q: Like I say, a dark chapter in American history, and unfortunately, now, our government is not doing good things with immigrants, and separating families, and establishing things that seem almost like concentration camps all over again.

A; Yes, the Japanese-American community has really been actively involved in protesting all of this.

I don’t know if you are aware of it, but in 1950, during the Joe McCarthy period, the Internal Security Act was passed in Congress. Title I of the Internal Security Act set up the Subversive Activity Control Board, which would be like Nazi Germany, they would have somebody on your block to report you, if they thought you were a Commie. Well, the liberals thought that this would pass, so they added Title II, which set up concentration camps in this country to be used in the event of war or insurrection within the US. The liberals thought that would be so revolting that everybody would vote against it.

But the anti-Communist mood was so bad in 1950, that if you didn’t vote for it, you felt like you weren’t coming back to Congress according to Congressman Sid Yates. He was a Northside Chicago Congressman first elected in 1948. So it was passed and vetoed by President Harry Truman. Congress voted to override his veto and ten camps were actually built in the US. Eventually, Title I was ruled unconstitutional and Title II, however, stayed on the books and was never repealed.

The original bill was known as the Nixon-Mundt Bill. We knew that Truman wouldn’t implement it, and the same for both Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. Eventually the ten camps were turned over to the Bureau of Prisons. And then in 1968 with all the rioting and everything else going on, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) said that the Black militants had declared war on the United States and were leading an insurrection and, therefore, the Internal Security Act of 1950 would be used to round them up and herd them into these camps.

So, what happened was, the Japanese American Citizens League led the effort to repeal Title II of the Internal Security Act and in 1973, it was repealed in Congress when there was a big wave of new Democratic Congressmen elected because of President Nixon’s unpopularity just like what took place in 2018. President Nixon signed the repeal legislation in Portland, Oregon, on his way to meet Emperor Hirohito. So the original Nixon-Mundt law’s repeal legislation was signed into law by President Nixon.

Q: That’s one of the ironies of history, I guess.

A: And the true irony is that Allenwood, Pennsylvania, where all of the Watergate conspirators went, was built under the Internal Security Act of 1950.

Q: I remember that when I worked for LaSalle Photo, the government issued some sort of an apology to the people who had been interned and offered them a cash payment.

A: In the mid-1970’s the Japanese American Citizens League began to seek redress and reparations for the Japanese community that were wrongfully interned during World War II. After many years of lobbying with Congressmen and Senators, a Federal Commission was appointed to hold hearings in several cities including Chicago. The Commission reported its findings to Congress and a Redress and Reparations Bill was introduced in both the House and Senate. After several years, it was finally passed in Congress. But it took a while to convince Reagan to sign the repeal legislation in August 1988. The original estimate by the Bank of America that financial losses were $5 billion in 1988 dollars which meant about $40k for every person who was in camp. Well, they didn’t do that. They sent $20k to everyone who was still alive. So, if you were alive in August 1988, you were eligible to get $20k in reparations. Most people felt the apology letter was more important than the money. The checks were finally mailed out when Bush was President. President Bush signed the formal apology letter and there was a check attached to it.

Q: Because you were in the camps, then, you did receive this kind of payment?

A: Oh yeah, I got a check, $20k check. I cashed it. Some folks said they weren’t going to cash it, I said good luck, I cashed mine. I made a copy of it, and I also have the original letter from Bush.

Q: I remember from when I worked at LaSalle Photo, this lady I worked with, said she was going to refuse the payment.

A: Some folks felt that way, I had no problem with that. I think that when the payment was refused, the money was put into a foundation. The foundation funds were spent on educational programs about the camps and the funds were used to take care of the camps. In the camp at Rohwer, Arkansas, there’s a cemetery for the internees who died in the camps that needs to be maintained. And also, the camps are now designated as national monuments.

Q: Well, if we don’t learn from history, we are probably doomed to repeat it.

A: That’s true.

Q: A lesson that unfortunately, many people haven’t learned.

A: Yes, and what is happening today, as you know, and even with this Covid-19 situation, Asians are being picked out. Because it started in China. We’re a visible minority, so in World War II I was a Jap, in the Korean War I was a Chink, in the Vietnam War I was a Gook. People can’t tell us apart, so because of that, and the fact that our existence in the US has never been legitimatized in the history books, we’re always viewed as foreigners. People keep saying to me, “Where did you learn English?”, Hyde Park High School, “Where were you born?”, California, “Where were your parents born?”, California, “Your grandfather?”, Japan, “You’re Japanese.” Now I don’t ask anybody where they’re from. If they’re white, you never ask anybody, are you Lithuanian, Polish, Estonian, or Ukrainian, whatever. We don’t ask that. Although I do ask people, I see your last name, and I say, oh, you have a Polish background, and I’ve been to Poland, and my son-in-law’s Polish. I have a lot of friends who are Lithuanian and Ukrainian. I was very active with the Baltic ethnic groups. We keep in touch with each other.

Q: This book I am working on is going to be called Chicago’s Lost “L”s. The idea is to tell a story through pictures.

A: Frank Kruesi, who was head of the CTA way back, is a hero to me because he eliminated the A/B stops. Argyle was an “A” stop, so if you heard a train coming, you’d run like hell to get up there and sometimes and it turned out to be a “B” train that went right by you. He is a hero to me because if you hear a train coming you know it’s going to stop (laughs).

Q: You know why that came about, because when the CTA, the Rapid Transit and the Surface Lines had been competitors, more or less. The typical thing was that, in some places, they had stations every two blocks on the “L”, and people lived in the neighborhoods and they would walk to the “L”. Things started to change when people got more cars, and the CTA took over, and they were trying to consolidate everything, and develop more of a cooperative system between the buses, streetcars, and the “L”, they closed a lot of stations, to try and speed up the service, because like you say, with those old cars, there were two speeds—slow, and slower. They found that if they speeded things up, they would get more riders. The A/B thing, that started out in Oak Park on the Lake Street “L”, in 1948, and it was credited with saving that line, because otherwise, the service was pretty slow. At first it was a good thing, because there were too many stations, but over the years, they closed so many stations, that by the time they got rid of the A/B thing, it was totally unnecessary. There weren’t that many stations, and now they’ve even put a few of them back. Now maybe in some places, they have too few stations. We’ve gone back to where the trains make all the stops again.

The view from the roof of the house at 4201 S. Oakenwald. In the distance, you can see the 43rd Street station of the Illinois Central Electric commuter trains. (Courtesy of Ross Harano)

A: I looked at your web site and I noticed your mentioning the South Shore “Orange” trains. They were fast. I had two friends killed by the Illinois Central trains. We used to cross the tracks, you know, to get to the park.

Q: Was that on a lower level than the rest of the neighborhood?

A: The Illinois Central tracks were slightly below level. And so, there was one kid, we used to play ice hockey together was killed by a local while I was in grammar school, so it probably had to be the early ‘50s. The other friend was hit by the South Shore “Orange” train.

Q: It’s been fascinating talking to you. A lot of your family’s history, it’s very important history, for the City of Chicago, because we value diversity here. And it’s history that I think more people ought to know.

A: I agree.

Q: Thanks so much!

Ross Harano in 2012.

Further Information:

Internment of Japanese Americans

Harano and Mayewacki Family World War II Veterans

Japanese-American Service in World War II

Korematsu v. United States

Mitsuye Endo

Jerome War Relocation Center

The McCarran Internal Security Act

WTTW segment from Chicago Tonight about the Kenwood “L”

WTTW segment from Chicago Tonight about the Kiosk Sphinx (Eiffel Tower replica)

Article about the Kiosk Sphinx

1939 Chicago Surface Lines Training Program

RAL
Red Arrow Lines 1967: Straffords and Bullets
# of Discs – 1
Price: $14.99

Total time – 73:32

While the elevated Chicago Loop is justly famous as a symbol of the city, the fascinating history of its subways is less well known. The City of Chicago broke ground on what would become the “Initial System of Subways” during the Great Depression and finished 20 years later. This gigantic construction project, a part of the New Deal, would overcome many obstacles while tunneling through Chicago’s soft blue clay, under congested downtown streets, and even beneath the mighty Chicago River. Chicago’s first rapid transit subway opened in 1943 after decades of wrangling over routes, financing, and logistics. It grew to encompass the State Street, Dearborn-Milwaukee, and West Side Subways, with the latter modernizing the old Garfield Park “L” into the median of Chicago’s first expressway. Take a trip underground and see how Chicago’s “I Will” spirit overcame challenges and persevered to help with the successful building of the subways that move millions. Building Chicago’s subways was national news and a matter of considerable civic pride–making it a “Second City” no more!

Help Support The Trolley Dodger

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Loose Ends, Part Two

July 20, 2020July 8, 2022David Sadowski 15 Comments

Now here is a very unusual view, taken on April 14, 1957 from the wooden trestle used by Garfield Park “L” trains to loop around at Forest Park circa 1953-59. This arrangement was necessary due to the separation of CTA and CA&E tracks, when the latter cut back service due to the Congress Expressway construction project in the city. Interurban trains turned on a loop between the CTA tracks on the east side of the terminal, while CTA trains went up and over the CA&E on the west end. To get this picture, the photographer either had to be inside a train, or on the walkway. This is only the second such picture I have seen, and the view looks to the north. In the background, you can see the Chicago Great Western freight tracks, abandoned in the early 1970s. The terminal area has been redone twice since then, and the buildings at right in the background are where a parking lot is now. The Altenheim retirement home (at left), built in 1886, is still there today at 7824 W. Madison Street. A two-car train of CTA “Baldy” 4000s negotiates the loop.

Here are more “loose ends” for your enjoyment. Most of today’s pictures were scanned a year ago as part of a much larger batch, and are from the collections of William Shapotkin, for which we are most grateful. Most of these are classic black-and-white pictures of Chicago Surface Lines streetcars.

If you have questions, comments, or additional information about any of the locations in these pictures, we would love to hear from you. As always, please refer to each image by its file name, which you can find by hovering your computer mouse over it. (For example, the image at the top of this post is rbk501.) As of July 22nd, thanks to our readers, we have updated the captions on 20 of these photos.

Enjoy!

-David Sadowski

Recent Finds

What is known today as the East Troy Electric Railroad survived to the present day due to its continued use as an electric freight line, as this scene from April 16, 1965 shows. Once part of the TMER&L interurban network, there was passenger service between East Troy and Milwaukee from 1907 to 1939. The railroad continued to operated freight for another ten years after that, and starting in 1950, the interchange line was owned and operated by East Troy. Museum operations began to be phased in as early as 1967. Here, we see line car M-15 at Mukwonago. This car is now at the Illinois Railway Museum.

CSL PCC 4062, on its way toward delivery from the Pullman plant in Massachusetts to Chicago in 1946, as the city’s first postwar streetcar.

Through a process of elimination, it can be determined that this is a rare photo of the interior of experimental CSL pre-PCC car 7001, built by Brill in 1934. The Cottage Grove destination sign means we are in Chicago, and the seat configuration is different than the 1936 PCCs. The flat back window means this is not the 4001, so this is the 7001 for sure. Interestingly, the seats looks nearly identical to those found in Washington DC pre-PCC 1053 (see the following picture). The Washington cars were built in 1935 and while the order was split between Brill and St. Louis Car Company, the seats were most likely sourced from a third vendor and were the same in all those cars (and unfortunately, none exist today).

Here are some pictures we previously posted of 7001 and 1053:

The experimental Brill-built pre-PCC 7001 as it appeared at 77th and Vincennes on September 10, 1959, shortly before it was scrapped. (Clark Frazier Photo)

DC Transit pre-PCC streamlined streetcar at the National Capital Trolley Museum in 1993. Part of a 20-car order in 1935, split between Brill and St Louis Car Company. This is a St. Louis Car Company product. Sadly this car was lost to a carbarn fire at the museum in 2003. (John Smatlak Photo)

1053 interior. (John Smatlak Photo)

From the Collections of William Shapotkin:

CSL 6226 at Damen and 63rd in 1944.

CSL 6073 at Roosevelt and Wabash.

CSL prewar PCC 4002 at Kedzie Station, pulling in after operating on the Madison-Fifth line.

CSL 6148.

CSL 1812, signed for Adams-Downtown.

CSL 6122,

CSL 1545.

CSL 1859 is near a construction site. But the extreme contrast of this picture offers no clue to the location. Andre Kristopans: “1859 at construction site WB on Adams at Clinton.” Marty Robinson adds, “This improved view clearly show Adams on the street sign, and the sign on the building to the left says Franklin Bowling.”

CSL 3180.

CSL 3123 at Cermak and Prairie, east end of the Cermak route.

CSL 2617.

CSL 6235 on the South Chicago-Ewing route. Mike adds, “6235 is heading south on Ewing just past 94th. The bar in the background still exists.”

CSL 392 is heading to 74th and Ashland.

CSL 6243 on the Pershing Road line.

CSL 6248 is on the South Chicago-Ewing route. Mike adds, “6248 is heading north on Ewing across the 92nd St. Bridge. The tower in the background is visible in the photo of 6235, too. The blast furnaces of Youngstown Sheet & Tube are visible at left.”

CSL 793, signed to go to Damen and Blue Island, is near Diamond Lil’s Tavern. Mike adds, “793 is at the corner of 18th & Damen – the Diamond Lil’s building is still standing.”

CSL 3120 on a 1940s charter. Mike adds, “3120 is at the corner of 79th & Vincennes. The building in the background recently burned down and was demolished.”

CSL 5723,

51st and South Park, circa 1929. The Willard Theater was located at 340 E. 51st Street. It closed in the 1950s, and the building is now used as a church and community center.

South Chicago and 93rd.

CSL 3266, running on the 59th-61st Street route. Mike adds, “3266 is heading south on Blackstone from 60th. The street has been vacated and none of the buildings remain.”

The interior of CSL 1400.

CSL 1616 heads west on Lake Street in the 1940s, with the Lake Street “L” station at Laramie in the background. The “L” went down an inclined ramp and ran on the surface to Forest Park, and paralleled the streetcar line for a few blocks.

CSL 4035, in an experimental color scheme, at Madison and Austin circa 1945-46. Several different designs were tried out just prior to the arrival of the 600 postwar PCCs, but the design chosen was not exactly like any of these.

State and Randolph, June 18, 1942.

CSL 4018 in an experimental paint scheme circa 1945-46. This is the Madison-Austin loop, west end of Route 20.

CSL 6149 is southbound at Halsted and Chicago.

CSL 6135 at Pershing and Ashland.

CSL 3099. Mike: “3099 is at the corner of Leavitt and Coulter. The corner building still stands.”

CSL 5733.

CSL 5612. Mike adds, “5612 is heading west on 56th from Stony Island. Bret Harte School is at left and in background are both the older and newer wings of the Windermere Hotel.”

CSL 1841. Not sure where Burny’s Grill, at right, was located.

CSL 1836, signed to go to Van Buren and Dearborn.

The interior of CSL 1218.

Chicago & West Towns 165, signed for Melrose Park. I am wondering if this could be on Lake Street in Maywood.

SF Muni double-end PCC 1008.

Chicago & West Towns 164 is eastbound on Lake Street in Oak Park, near Austin Boulevard.

CSL 3286. Is this the interior of Kedzie Station?

CSL 6221. Andre Kristopans: “6221 nb on S Chicago at 79th/ Stony Island.”

CSL 1875. (Joe L. Diaz Photo) Mike Franklin adds, “Car 1875 is westbound on Harrison and appears to be turning northbound on Halsted. Camera is looking NE from Blue Island Ave.”

CSL 5746 in July 1946.

CSL 5724 on the South Deering route.

CSL 5737.

CSL 3174, signed for Through Route 8 (Halsted).

CSL 1522.

CSL 6143 at Wacker Drive in downtown Chicago, heading north.

CSL 5941. S. Terman adds, “5941 is at North/Cicero carbarn.”

CSL 1602 under the “L” (Lake Street… or 63rd?). M.E.: “I thought I read someplace that streetcars on Lake St. had to be narrower than normal because the tracks were closer together than normal because the L support beams were so close to the tracks. That, in turn, meant the auto lanes were outside the L structure. So I suspect this picture shows 63rd St. under the Jackson Park L.” On the other hand, Mike writes, “1602 is on Lake near Sangamon (the street sign is half visible at far left). That is most likely the Morgan St. station for the Lake Street elevated train in the background.”

5243 at Randolph and State. From the looks of things, this might predate the creation of the Chicago Surface Lines.

CSL 5819 at Cottage Grove and 115th.

CSL 3191 at Clark and LaSalle.

CSL 3041 at Montrose and Milwaukee (west end of the Montrose line). S. Terman adds, “Since 3041 brill is a 2 man car, its looks odd as Montrose is 1 man operation unless its a school trip.” Thanks to Steve D. for correcting this location (we had thought it was Montrose and Broadway, which is how the photo was marked, see his Comment.) The view looks northwest. He speculates that there was a delay on Elston, and a two-man car from that line was diverted onto west Montrose.

The same location today.

CSL 1415 at Laramie and Lake, near the Lake Street “L”.

CRT 4069 is, I believe northbound at Chicago Avenue, running as a Ravenswood Express sometime between 1943 and 1949, a period when the Rave was routed through the new State Street Subway. (Edward Frank, Jr. Photo) M.E.: “As your caption says, the Ravenswood ran in the State St. subway til 1949. And then it ran through to Englewood. After 1949, when the CTA implemented A and B skip-stop service, Englewood trains went instead to Howard St., and the Ravenswood got its own service using the original L structure into the Loop. As for the destination sign on the front, this style preceded A and B service. I think it’s possible this picture was taken prior to 1943. Miles Beitler: “Photo img750 puzzles me. If this was in fact a subway train, the destination sign should read “VIA SUBWAY” and the train would serve the Chicago/State subway station rather than the Chicago Avenue elevated station. Since Ravenswood express trains did use the subway until 1949, and this train obviously did not, I wonder if the photo predates the opening of the subway.”

Chicago & West Towns 1151, eastbound on Lake Street in Oak Park, a block away from the end of the line at Austin Boulevard. The building to the north is still standing.

The same location today.

This is a somewhat unusual view, taken along the B&OCT tracks, just west of Central Avenue. At left, you can see the CTA’s Central Avenue stop on the Congress line, now the Blue Line. The station closed in 1973 due to lack of ridership. The Eisenhower expressway would be to the left of the station, which was not served by buses, and was the only walkup (other than the Forest Park terminal) on this line, which is almost all in an open cut. We are looking mainly to the east and a bit to the north.

A two-car train of CRT gate cars at Halsted on the Stock Yards branch of the “L”. This picture can be dated to about March 1946 from the advertising posters. The Olsen and Johnson comedy team, of Hellzapoppin’ fame, were appearing at the Schubert Theater in Laffing Room Only.

When we see pictures of Western Avenue PCC cars, the question is usually, which terminal is this? Berwyn and 79th had very similar turnaround loops, built around the same time (and still used today by buses). Since the buildings at rear do not match those seen at Berwyn, I am going to say this is Western and 79th. M.E.: “This has to be 79th, for two reasons: (1) Photos I have seen of the Berwyn terminal have more vegetation. (2) In the foreground of this picture are bus lanes. I don’t remember any bus service at Berwyn. On the contrary, both the 49A South Western and both lines on 79th St. (route 79 east to the lake, and route 79A west to Cicero) used this terminal.”

North Shore Line streetcar 360 is signed for the Naval Station, which makes this Waukegan. Joe Stupar: “The North Shore Line streetcar 360 looks like it might be at the North end of North Av? The house looks a lot like 416 W Greenwood Av, still there.”

Not sure where this rather blurry picture of a CSL car barn is. Andre Kristopans: “The blurry carbarn shot should be Burnside, looking south on Drexel from 93rd.” M.E.: “I’ll hazard a guess this is the carbarn on 93rd at Drexel (900 east). I say this because I think there are railroad cars in the background. A block or so east of the Drexel barn, the 93rd St. car turned right (on Kenwood, I think) to reach a private right-of-way that crossed the railroad at grade level. Altogether an interesting operation.”

A North Shore Line Electroliner is off in the distance, making a stop at… where? Scott Greig: “The southbound Electroliner with the MD car at far left is looking northeast at Downey’s-Great Lakes. MD cars were commonly used to move sailors’ baggage, even after LCL service ended in 1947.” Joe Stupar: “The Electroliner looks like it’s at Great Lakes? Looks like a coach and an MD car in the pocket there.”

CSL 3258 on the 59th-61st route. Could this be the east end of the line? M.E.: “This is definitely the east end of the 59th/61st line. It is on Blackstone Ave. (1430 E.) looking north toward the Midway Plaisance (which was between 59th St. to the north and 60th St. to the south).. Across the Midway are some buildings from the University of Chicago. Notice that both trolleys are up, and the destination sign says “Central Park”, referring to Central Park Ave. (3600 W.), the line’s western terminus. (As I remember, the eastbound terminal sign read “60th – Blackstone”.) Google maps shows where 61st St. turned left toward where Blackstone would have been. In Google, Blackstone is labelled farther north.”

A North Shore Line train “at speed,” as they used to say. Not sure where this is. Joe Stupar: “The North Shore train at speed looks like it might be at 4 Mile Substation? The building looks similar, and this other photo of the south side shows a similar setup with the high tension wires coming over the building, and a simple tap with no steel structure.”

CSL 3219 is at the east end of the 43rd Street line, adjacent to an Illinois Central electric suburban service station. This was also near the end of the line of the Kenwood branch of the “L”.

A pair of CAT wooden “L” cars, shown here, survived into the mid-1960s, as shown by this view of the yard at Logan Square, where 6000s and 2000s are in evidence. This dates the picture to sometime between 1964 and 1970. Andre Kristopans: “The wood work motors at Logan Square hauled the rail grinder sleds until 1965 or so.” Scott Greig: “Wood “L” cars at Logan…there were several wood cars (particularly the 1809-1815 group) that lasted in work service as late as 1968, maybe even 1970. Given that there’s no crane or flat cars with them, they may be a rail grinder train.”

I believe this is the Chicago & West Towns car barn, which was located in North Riverside. (Many photos list it as “Berwyn,” but it’s across the street from that suburb.) The West Towns had two car barns, the other at Lake and Ridgeland in Oak Park. Although both were in the ‘burbs, the North Riverside one was often referred to as the “suburban” barn. The area around the Oak Park barn was a lot more built up than this.

1939 Chicago Surface Lines Training Program

RAL
Red Arrow Lines 1967: Straffords and Bullets
# of Discs – 1
Price: $14.99

Total time – 73:32

While the elevated Chicago Loop is justly famous as a symbol of the city, the fascinating history of its subways is less well known. The City of Chicago broke ground on what would become the “Initial System of Subways” during the Great Depression and finished 20 years later. This gigantic construction project, a part of the New Deal, would overcome many obstacles while tunneling through Chicago’s soft blue clay, under congested downtown streets, and even beneath the mighty Chicago River. Chicago’s first rapid transit subway opened in 1943 after decades of wrangling over routes, financing, and logistics. It grew to encompass the State Street, Dearborn-Milwaukee, and West Side Subways, with the latter modernizing the old Garfield Park “L” into the median of Chicago’s first expressway. Take a trip underground and see how Chicago’s “I Will” spirit overcame challenges and persevered to help with the successful building of the subways that move millions. Building Chicago’s subways was national news and a matter of considerable civic pride–making it a “Second City” no more!

Help Support The Trolley Dodger

This is our 253rd post, and we are gradually creating a body of work and an online resource for the benefit of all railfans, everywhere. To date, we have received over 647,000 page views, for which we are very grateful.

You can help us continue our original transit research by checking out the fine products in our Online Store.

As we have said before, “If you buy here, we will be here.”

We thank you for your support.

DONATIONS

Your financial contributions help make this web site better, and are greatly appreciated.