The Gift That Keeps On Giving

December 15, 2023March 7, 2025David Sadowski 12 Comments

This is a very well known shot of Chicago Aurora and Elgin wood cars 309 and 310 on a May 19, 1957 fantrip at the Glen Oak Country Club stop in Glen Ellyn. As this was a photo stop, there are lots of duplicate slides of this, although not necessarily by the same photographer. Robert D. Heinlein captured this classic picture about six weeks before the end of passenger service, and this was scanned from the original red border Kodachrome slide. We are looking mainly to the east.

The holiday season is once again upon us, and our thoughts naturally turn to gift giving. Then, it struck me. Here at the Trolley Dodger, we are engaged in historic preservation. History has a lot to teach us about our present and future. The past can shine light on many things, if we can only choose to look.

There is a lot of history in the images we present here. I have learned so much since starting this blog, nearly nine years ago. I hope my readers have too. Let’s all learn together.

It is truly a gift that keeps on giving.

Happy Holidays!

Our Annual Fundraiser

Since we started this blog in 2015, we have posted nearly 16,000 images. This is our 310th post.

In a few week’s time, we will need to renew our WordPress subscription, our domain registration, and pay other bills associated with maintaining this site, so it is time for our Annual Fundraiser.

The Trolley Dodger blog can only be kept going with the help of our devoted readers. Perhaps you count yourself among them.

If you have already contributed in the past, we thank you very much for your help. Meanwhile, our goal for this fundraiser is just $700, which is only a fraction of what it costs us each year. The rest is made up from either the profits from the items we sell, which are not large, or out of our own pocket, which is not very large either.

There are links at the top and bottom of this page, where you can click and make a donation that will help us meet our goal again for this coming year, so we can continue to offer you more classic images in the future, and keep this good thing we have going.

We thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

-David Sadowski

PS- You might also like our Trolley Dodger Facebook auxiliary, a private group that now has 1,478 members.

Our friend Kenneth Gear has a Facebook group for the Railroad Record Club. If you enjoy listening to audio recordings of classic railroad trains, whether steam, electric, or diesel, you might consider joining.

FYI, the Hoosier Traction Facebook Group celebrates electric transit in Indiana and the Midwest. It also supports the activities of the annual Hoosier Traction Meet (although not affiliated with the North American Transit Historical Society, which organizes that event).

Our Next Book Project

FYI, we are hard at work researching our next book about the Chicago Aurora and Elgin interurban. Although we already have thousands of images, we start out on these book projects with some of what we need, and then have to find the rest. Some have generously shared their images with us, and some we have to pay real money for. In case you would like to help contribute to this effort, either by sharing images or making a donation, we would like to hear from you. All contributors will be mentioned in the book, which will be dedicated to the memory of the late Robert D. Heinlein. The most difficult images to find are always the earliest ones. You can contact me via messenger, at thetrolleydodger@gmail.com or via my blog. I thank you for your time and consideration.

A real photo postcard (postmarked 1930) view of Front Street in Wheaton, looking east from Main Street, including the Chicago and North Western commuter station. It has since been replaced by a newer one nearby, served by Metra’s UP-West Line. The Chicago Aurora and Elgin station was just south of here, out of view.

Here’s how it looks today.

Chicago Aurora and Elgin car 418 is at the rear of a three-car train, heading east at Canal Street on the Metropolitan “L” main line. The building to the right is now known as the Old Post Office. The middle car is formerly from the Washington, Baltimore and Annapolis that CA&E bought in the late 1930s. They tapered the ends to fir the tight clearances on the “L” and made them into control trailers. This “L” stop had a walkway leading into Union Station. It was torn down after the Garfield Park line was replaced by the new Congress expressway median line in 1958– but by that time, the CA&E had stopped running passenger service. this picture probably dates to between the mid-1940s and 1953, when the interurban cut back service to Forest Park.

Here’s San Francisco cable car #507 in the early 1950s at the outer end of the Powell-Mason line (note the turntable). Here’s what streetcar.org has to say about this car: “This cable car was built in 1893 in the East Bay town of Newark by Carter Brothers. It was numbered 507 until Muni dropped the first number on Powell cable cars in the 1970s. Car 507 served the Sacramento-Clay line until the 1906 earthquake and fire, and then was moved over to Powell Street, where it has run ever since, almost exclusively on the Powell-Mason line until 1956; on both the Mason and Hyde lines since 1957.” It was overhauled in 1957 and is still in use today. This image was taken from an original red border Kodachrome.

Chicago Aurora and Elgin wood car 300 at Wheaton on April 23, 1962, shortly before it was scrapped. (K. C. Henkels Photo)

Chicago Aurora and Elgin car 457 at Wheaton on March 14, 1957. (M. Powell Photo)

North Shore Line car 300 in 1940. The interurban had stopped using its older wood cars a few years before, and had generously allowed the Central Electric Railfans’ Association to use it as their club car, for meetings and excursions. Color pictures from 1940 are rare indeed, and this red border Kodachrome has held up well. Unfortunately, none of the NSL woods have survived. This one was used as a locker room in Waukegan for the female employees the railroad hired during WWII. It was vandalized by some sailors at war’s end, and then stripped for parts when the remaining wood cars were sold to the Chicago Aurora and Elgin in 1946. The body of car 300 was used as a diner for a few years.

North Shore Line wood car 300 is on a fantrip, while it was used as the rolling clubhouse of the Central Electric Railfans’ Association circa 1940. The presence of a city streetcar (I think it is 509) would suggest this picture was taken in Waukegan.

A Chicago and Milwaukee Electric (later the North Shore Line) 300-series car at the Racine station in 1909.

Single-deck streetcar #105 is in Hobart, Tasmania, in Australia. This system had previously used doble-deck cars, but there were problems with them toppling over. As ridership on the system decreased over time, they were replaced with these home-built substitutes. The style of red border Kodachrome slide mount dates this picture to sometime between 1939 and 1949. The last Hobart tram ran in 1960.

The North Shore Line Freight Terminal in Milwaukee in 1925. This was just east of the passenger terminal. We are looking to the north-northwest. Car 401 is in the foreground. Don’s Rail Photos (via Archive.org): “401 was built by Jewett Car in 1909 as parlor-buffet car. In 1917 it was converted to straight coach and retired in 1935. It was leased to Chicago Aurora & Elgin and renumbered 142 in 1936. It came back for a short time with the CA&E number in 1945 and sold to CA&E in 1946. It was retired in 1953.” One of the cars at right is 122, a wooden coach. Again, from Don Ross: “122 was built by Jewett Car in 1906 and retired in 1937.”

A North Shore Line lunch counter menu from March 1961. There are some pictures of the lunch counter at the Milwaukee Terminal in my book The North Shore Line.

This rare photo was taken at Church Street in Evanston, where the North Shore Line had a station along the Evanston branch of the “L” (today’s CTA Purple Line). The presence of observation car 411 would date this to between 1923 (when the car was delivered) and 1926 (when the Skokie Valley Route opened).

This 1910 image is from a copy negative and shows a Chicago and Milwaukee Electric car that had derailed at Genesee and Washington Streets in downtown Waukegan. I believe this is car 121 and not 721 as the negative envelope had it. At this date, 721 had not yet been built. The C&ME was the predecessor of the North Shore Line (the name was changed in 1916).

A Brill builder’s photo (1902) of Chicago and Milwaukee Electric car 11. This is called a combine car, as it could handle both passengers and some freight. It was rebuilt into an express trailer in 1917.

Chicago and Milwaukee Electric express car #1 was built by Brill in 1902, as the interurban started to get into the freight business. It was retired prior to 1910.

Chicago Aurora and Elgin car 454 was built in 1945 by the St. Louis Car Company and ran in service until the 1957 abandonment.

Chicago Aurora and Elgin line car #11 is shown at the Fox River Trolley Museum in South Elgin, Illinois on January 17, 1976. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

Now here’s something else that’s rare– C&NW bilevels pulled by steam. Here, we see Chicago and North Western loco #566, a 4-6-2, with an outbound commuter “scoot” at Mayfair on August 12, 1955. Bilevels were just starting to be phased in and would eventually be used exclusively, while the last C&NW steam ran in 1956. The Burlington introduced bilevels in 1950, so they ran more under steam than the C&NW did. The Mayfair station is at 4737 W. Montrose in Chicago, and the tower visible here controlled the crossing of C&NW and Milwaukee Road trains. There is a Metra stop here for the Milwaukee District North Line. The former C&NW service here is now Metra’s Union Pacific Northwest line. (James J. Buckley Photo)

South Shore Line loco #704 is at the helm of a freight train in New Carlisle, Indiana on October 9, 1960. Don’s Rail Photos (via Archive.org): “704 was built by Alco-General Electric in June 1931, #68271, 11194, as NYC 1243, Class R-2. It was renumbered 343 in August 1936 and sold to CSS&SB in 1955. It was rebuilt as 704 in 1956 and scrapped in April 1976.”

South Shore Line car 28 is at Wagner Siding on the “Ideal Section” east of Gary in June 1975. Mitch Markovitz adds, “At the east end crossing County Line (Fulton) Road.”

The entrance to the South Shore Line train platforms at the Randolph Street Station on August 4, 1974. This station has since been completely redone, and the neon sign is at the Illinois Railway Museum. (Douglas N. Grotjahn Photo)

On October 24, 1954 South Shore Line car #1 is at the Smith stop in Indiana on a fantrip. This car was built by Pullman in 1926. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

South Shore Line car #111 is heading westbound in LaSalle Avenue in South Bend on October 13, 1957. Service was cut back to the outskirts of town in 1970, after there were a couple accidents where the brakes failed and there were runaway trains on South Bend streets. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

Robert D. Heinlein captured this view of a westbound Lake Street “L” B train on October 27, 1962, the last full day of ground level service here. The following day, the “L” west of Laramie Avenue was relocated onto the adjacent Chicago and North Western embankment. The two car CTA 4000-series train is passing the gateman’s shanty (these were all manually operated gates, 24/7), which shows why the newer 6000-series cars, with their curved sides, could not make these tight clearances. Not sure which cross street this is. Mike Franklin: “Smokestack above car is between Cuyler & Harvey, thus this is west of Ridgeland. West of Oak Park Ave, the concrete does not match, making this crossing between Oak Park Ave & Ridgeland. Euclid and East have brackets at the top level of the overhead girder, while Scoville does not; therefore, this is the only possible crossing. (Next gateman’s shanty is at Elmwood, which controlled a pedestrian tunnel leading to Scoville Park.)”

Bantam (Size 828) Slides

All the images in this section are scanned from 1950s red border Kodachromes on 828 size film, with an image area slightly larger than 35mm. All the Chicago ones are marked 1955, but the actual dates are not known, as Kodak did not begin date-stamping slides until 1958.

Now here’s something I don’t see very often… a red border Kodachrome slide shot on size 828 film. This has an image area of 28x40mm, as opposed to size 135 that is 24x36mm. Kodak came up with this format in the late 1930s, as their answer to 35mm, which was just starting to become popular due to Leica and Contax. Kodak thought 36 pictures on a roll was just too many for most people, so they took 35mm film stock, eliminated the sprockets, and made paper backed roll film, in similar fashion to the popular film sizes of the time (127, 620, 120, 616, 116, etc.). Their innovation was to put a small notch in the film that would actuate an automatic frame counter in some models of the new cameras, which were branded as the Bantam line. There were still numbers on the back of the paper roll for use in cheaper cameras with the familiar little red window. It was a good idea, but ultimately didn’t catch on. Kodak went on to use some of this technology in size 126, the Instamatic series, starting in 1963. 126 was nothing more than the same 828 type film stock, preloaded into a plastic cartridge. Proper loading and unloading of paper backed roll film was always a bit problematic and had resulted in lots of light leaks and fogged film up until then, and this solved the problem. Kodak went with a 26x26mm square format but unfortunately the film did not lie perfectly flat in this cartridge, and therefore overall sharpness suffered. For a time, though, 126 was all the rage, and was pretty much the death knell for amateur photographers using paper backed roll film. Toronto PCC 4441, pictured here, had a body shell built by the St. Louis Car Company, and the rest of the car was finished by the Canadian Car & Foundry Company in 1949. This picture was taken some time between then and 1955. Bill Robb adds, “Probably taken pre-1954 when the TTC was still the Toronto Transportation Commission. It has the old monogram logo and grey roof shrouds dating from the time of delivery. The TTC changed to Toronto Transit Commission on July 1, 1954 and adopted the keystone logo.”

CTA postwar PCC 4052, a product of St. Louis Car Company, is turning from St. Lawrence Avenue onto 111th Street in the Pullman neighborhood, near the Hotel Florence. The streetcar was heading northbound and was just a few blocks from the south end of Route 4 – Cottage Grove, located at 115th Street. Buses replaced streetcars on this line on June 19, 1955, and this picture was taken that year.

CTA prewar PCC streetcar 7027 is on private right-of-way at the south end of the Cottage Grove route. This ran parallel to the Illinois Central Suburban Electric.

This shows where the Cottage Grove line entered private right-of-way with open track around 96th Street. The sign warned motorists to steer clear of the open tracks.

A string of CTA red Pullmans are in the scrap line at South Shops in 1955.

A four-car South Shore Line train at 130th Street in 1955.

The interior of a CTA red Pullman in the scrap line at South Shops in 1955.

CTA postwar PCC 7238 is a southbound Route 36 – Broadway-State car, signed for 119th and Morgan, in 1955. Not sure of the exact location, but if I had to guess, I would say we are on the south side. Mike Franklin: “Photo aaf569a, car 7238 has just crossed 95th St, heading south on Michigan Ave. While the 3-story building in the middle of the photo is gone, the neighboring bungalow to the east is still there at 124 E Michigan Ave.”

CTA red Pullman streetcars 510 and 288 are on the scrap line at South Shops in 1955.

The motorman’s section of a CTA red Pullman in the scrap line at South Shops in 1955. Scott Greig writes: “That view of the motorman’s controls inside a Pullman in the South Shops scrap line was taken inside an “air door” Pullman, cars 501-600. Where the air gauge would normally be, between the controller and brake valve, there is instead a National Pneumatic door light housing. This was interlocked with the rear doors, similar to a modern “L” car, and allowed the motorman to proceed without waiting for a bell signal from the conductor. At least two air-door cars (507 and 542) lasted long enough to be among the last six red streetcars that the CTA torched for a press event in February of 1956.”

CTA D206 and D204 were sprinklers, shown here at South Shops in 1955. D206 is still sporting a Chicago Surface Lines logo. It was built by McGuire-Cummings and retired as of December 14, 1956. D204, behind it, made it to May 17, 1958.

The front of an unidentified CTA streetcar on the scrap line at South Shops in 1955. Dan Cluley writes, “I think the unidentified car in pic aaf574a is the AA92 shown in the next photo. The remnants of the roll sign, the half open window & various scuffs in the paint all seem to match.”

CTA salt spreader AA92, shown here on the scrap line at South Shops in 1955, was originally car 2826. It was scrapped on December 27, 1955.

CTA salt spreader AA86 was originally car 1498. It was scrapped on December 14, 1956.

A worker sweeps the sidewalk along 79th Street, by CTA’s South Shops. A number of old red streetcars are seen in the scrap line in 1955, along with some retired trolley buses at left.

CTA salt spreader AA50 was originally car 1260. It was scrapped on December 27, 1955.

Experimental pre-PCC cars 7001 (left) and 4001 (right) at the CTA South Shops in 1955, where they were being used as storage sheds. 7001 was scrapped in 1959, but the body of 4001 is now at the Illinois Railway Museum.

The view through the fence at CTA South Shops in 1955 shows red Pullman 518 at right, waiting to be scrapped, with salt spreader AA92 behind it.

Chicago Trolley Buses

CTA trolley bus #9742 is westbound on Montrose at Western on Sunday, October 8, 1972. (Steve Zabel Photo) Zabel (1949-1989) lived in NYC and worked as a motorman on the subway system there for 20 years. He was an excellent photographer, and some of his pictures have ended up in books. Unfortunately, he was brutally murdered during a robbery. His killer was convicted and sent to prison.

CTA trolley bus 9577 has the poles down in this June 1970 photo. Although signed for Route 72 – North Avenue, I have to wonder if the actual location is a wye located at Central Avenue and West End Avenue. This was an unusual arrangement where a bus would go head in, then back out to change direction. (Charles L. Tauscher Photo)

CTA trolley bus 9209 is eastbound on route 65 – Grand Avenue in October 1967, at Grand and Halsted and Milwaukee. The Como Inn, a well known restaurant, is partially visible at right. It was open from 1924 to 2001. (Charles L. Tauscher Photo)

CTA trolley bus 9747 is westbound on Route 81 – Lawrence in May 1963. The Peter Pan restaurant, at right, was part of a chain that featured fountain creations and catered to families with children. They had several locations, including this one on the northeast corner of Lawrence and Broadway. (Charles L. Tauscher Photo)

CTA trolley bus 9327 is heading northbound on Central Avenue at Montrose in May 1963. (Charles L. Tauscher Photo)

CTA trolley bus 9325 is at Irving Park and Neenah, the west end of Route 80, in October 1967. This turnaround loop was been eliminated after diesel buses replaced electric, and service west of here (previously Route 80A) was combined with the regular route. The buildings at rear were part of the Dunning mental health complex and have since been replaced by condos. The bus loop is now incorporated into a driveway. (Charles L. Tauscher Photo)

CTA trolley bus 9412 in July 1963. Andre Kristopans: “Lawrence and Lawler – the “incomplete wye” – wires didn’t quite come together as they didn’t go past the sidewalk. (Charles L. Tauscher Photo)

It’s July 1963 (at least, that’s the processing date), and CTA trolley bus 9412 appears to be on a fantrip. Despite being signed for Route 85, the bus stop indicates Route 52 – Kedzie-California. The Pilsen Drug Store at left would suggest which neighborhood we are in, which would make the street Kedzie at 26th Street. (Charles L. Tauscher Photo)

CTA trolley bus 9412 is signed for a short-turn on Route 85 – Central in August 1963. I am not sure if this is actually Central and Wabansia, however. (Charles L. Tauscher Photo) Mike Franklin: “In reply to: Photo aaf504a, car 9412 is facing east on Wabansia Ave immediately west of Central Ave. Building to the left is still there.”

CTA trolley bus 9745 is at the east end of Route 81 – Lawrence Avenue in January 1963. The hotel in the background is located at 1201 W. Leland Avenue. Instead of having an off-street loop, trolley buses turned around via local streets in the Uptown neighborhood. (Charles L. Tauscher Photo)

It’s July 1959, and CTA trolley bus 9597 is at the Navy Pier turnaround loop for Route 65 – Grand Avenue. The building has been wrapped for some festive occasion. (Charles L. Tauscher Photo) Kevin Doerksen adds, “Regarding the picture of CTA trolley bus 9597 at Navy Pier, in 1959, the event was the Chicago International Fair and Exposition. It was an international trade fair held in conjunction with the opening of the St Lawrence Seaway.”

On December 19, 1965, Cleveland Transit trolley bus 874 ran on a fantrip in Chicago, prior to going to the Illinois Railway Museum. It also ran on two fantrips in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Here, it is at the back end of the Kedzie bus garage. (Charles L. Tauscher Photo)

East Troy in Early Days

The excellent trolley museum in East Troy, Wisconsin is the sole remaining remnant of the Milwaukee Electric interurban network. Although passenger service to East Troy ended in 1939, the electric line between that town and Mukwonago was retained for freight service and purchased by the Village of East Troy. As those operations began to wind down, it gradually morphed into a museum operation, starting in 1972. The original group that ran the museum was at loggerheads with the village, however, and left in the early 1980s, at which time the current group took over. They do a splendid job.

Here are some early shots of East Troy, taken by the late Robert D. Heinlein.

M15 in East Troy on May 18, 1958. (Robert D. Heinlein Photo)

D13, circa 1956-58. (Robert D. Heinlein Photo)

M15 in June 1959. (Robert D. Heinlein Photo)

M15 on January 5, 1957. (Robert D. Heinlein Photo)

M15 on May 18, 1958. (Robert D. Heinlein Photo)

D13 on January 5, 1957. (Robert D. Heinlein Photo)

M15 on January 5, 1957. (Robert D. Heinlein Photo)

M15 on May 18, 1958. (Robert D. Heinlein Photo)

M15 on September 30, 1956. (Robert D. Heinlein Photo)

The right-of-way and substation in East Troy on May 18, 1958. (Robert D. Heinlein Photo)

D13, circa 1956-58. (Robert D. Heinlein Photo)

Phantom Siding on January 5, 1957. (Robert D. Heinlein Photo)

The Soo Line interchange in Mukwonago on January 5, 1957. (Robert D. Heinlein Photo)

M15 in East Troy on January 5, 1957. (Robert D. Heinlein Photo)

M15 in East Troy on May 17, 1962. (Robert D. Heinlein Photo)

D13 in East Troy on May 18, 1958. (Robert D. Heinlein Photo)

L9 in East Troy on October 14, 1991. (Robert D. Heinlein Photo)

Keep those cards and letters coming in, folks.

Our Latest Book, Now Available:

The North Shore Line

FYI, my new Arcadia Publishing book The North Shore Line is now available for immediate shipment. My publisher decided to expand it to 160 pages, instead of the usual 128. That’s a 25% increase, without any change to the $23.99 price. I am quite pleased with how this turned out.

From the back cover:

As late as 1963, it was possible to board high-speed electric trains on Chicago’s famous Loop “L” that ran 90 miles north to Milwaukee. This was the Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee Railroad, commonly known as the North Shore Line. It rose from humble origins in the 1890s as a local streetcar line in Waukegan to eventually become America’s fastest interurban under the visionary management of Midwest utilities tycoon Samuel Insull. The North Shore Line, under Insull, became a worthy competitor to the established steam railroads. Hobbled by the Great Depression, the road fought back in 1941 with two streamlined, air-conditioned, articulated trains called Electroliners, which included dining service. It regained its popularity during World War II, when gasoline and tires were rationed, but eventually, it fell victim to highways and the automobile. The North Shore Line had intercity rail, commuter rail, electric freight, city streetcars, and even buses. It has been gone for nearly 60 years, but it will always remain the Road of Service.

Each copy purchased here will be signed by the author, and you will also receive a bonus North Shore Line map. Books will ship by USPS Media Mail.

Chapters:
01. Beginnings
02. The Milwaukee Division
03. The Shore Line Route
04. The Skokie Valley Route
05. The Mundelein Branch
06. On the “L”
07. City Streetcars
08. Trolley Freight
09. The Long Goodbye
10. The Legacy

Title The North Shore Line
Images of America
Author David Sadowski
Edition illustrated
Publisher Arcadia Publishing (SC), 2023
ISBN 1467108960, 978-1467108966
Length 160 pages

The price of $23.99 includes shipping within the United States.

For Shipping to US Addresses:

New Compact Disc Titles, Now Available:

HFIH
Hi-Fi Iron Horse
Price: $15.99

Hi-Fi Iron Horse is a unique collection of early steam recordings, made between 1949 and 1954. Portable tape recorders were not yet available when the earliest of these was made, but there was still another source for making high-quality audio– the optical sound track of motion picture film.

Featuring in-service steam of the Baltimore & Ohio, Bessemer & Lake Erie, Burlington, Canadian National, Delaware & Hudson, East Broad Top, Erie, Grand Trunk Western, Huntingdon & Broad Top Mountain, Western Maryland, and Rutland Railway.

Total time – 50:49

TSOS
The Sound of Steam
Reading 2124
Price: $19.99

Three very rare, out of print North Jersey Recordings LPs, now digitally remastered on two CDs at a special price.

The Sound of Steam offers a comprehensive overview of the twilight days of steam railroading in North America, with sounds recorded between 1957 and 1964. Railroads featured include the Denver & Rio Grande Western, Union Pacific, Canadian Pacific, Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range Railway, Gainesville Midland Railroad, Pennsylvania Railroad, Reading Railroad, Canadian National, Twin Seams Mining Company, Nickel Plate, Colorado & Southern, Norfolk & Western, Buffalo Creek & Gauley, Monadnock, Steamtown & Northern, Rockton & Rion Railway, and the National Railways of Mexico.

Reading 2124 features recordings made in 1959 and 1960 on a series of “Iron Horse Rambles,” excursion trips through eastern Pennsylvania. The Reading Company had retained this class T-1 4-8-4 for emergency use after steam was retired on the railroad. Seven years after the last Reading steam loco had hauled a passenger train, a series of 51 special excursion trips were held, ending in 1964. These have since been revived, and the Rambles continue.

Total time – 69:54 (Disc 1) and 61:20 (Disc 2)

RWW-V103
Rods, Wheels, and Whistles
Voice of the 103
Price: $19.99

Two very rare, out of print North Jersey Recordings LPs, now digitally remastered on two CDs at a special price.

Rods, Wheels, and Whistles features the sounds of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Norfolk and Western Railway, recorded in the twilight years of steam. This LP was originally issued in 1958, but our version is taken from the revised and expanded edition, which includes additional recordings from 1959.

Voice of the 103 documents the former Sumter and Choctaw Railroad #103, a 2-6-2 locomotive built in 1925 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works, after it was refurbished in 1962 to operate on the Middletown and New Jersey. This was an excursion service of the Empire State Railway Museum, which has since moved to a new location and no longer operates trains. The 103 is now on static display.

Our collection is rounded out with three bonus tracks from the Strasbourg Railroad, when old number 31 ran excursion trains on the oldest short line railroad in the United States (chartered in June 1832), joining the Pennsylvania Dutch towns of Strasbourg and Paradise in the early 1960s.

Total time – 46:15 (RWW) and 49:26 (V103)

Help Support The Trolley Dodger

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70 for 70 at IRM (Part Two)

July 8, 2023July 8, 2023David Sadowski 8 Comments

Wooden Chicago “L” car 1754, as part of a four-car train at the Illinois Railway Museum on July 1, 2023.

Our previous post 70 for 70 at IRM (Part One) featured still pictures we took of the July 1, 2023 Trolley Pageant. This was also a rich opportunity to shoot videos, so this post features no less that 45 different ones, most lasting one minute or less. We hope that you will enjoy them.

Part One included historical information on many of these cars. Information on nearly all the cars from the Illinois Railway Museum‘s extensive collection can be found here or here.

Before the end of this month, the Trolley Dodger blog will reach one million page views. We thank all our readers for their support.

-David Sadowski

PS- You might also like our Trolley Dodger Facebook auxiliary, a private group that now has 1,328 members.

The 2023 IRM Trolley Pageant Videos

North Shore Line Electroliner 801-802:

Placing the trolley pole of 251 back on the wire, as part of the North Shore Line 5-car train:

The North Shore Line 5-car train:

North Shore Line line car 604 and Merchandise Despatch car 229:

North Shore Line city streetcar 354 and Illinois Terminal 101:

Chicago Surface Lines 1374 and 3142:

Chicago Surface Lines 144:

Chicago Transit Authority 4391 backs up:

An Illinois Terminal 3-car train, with 277, 518, and 234:

Indiana Railroad car 65 making a backup move:

Chicago Transit Authority 4391:

Chicago Surface Lines 144:

Chicago Surface Lines 3142:

Chicago Surface Lines “Matchbox” 1374:

The Illinois Terminal 3-car train:

Illinois Terminal 101:

North Shore Line city streetcar 354:

North Shore Line box motor 229 and line car 604:

Electroliner 801-802:

The five-car North Shore Line train, with 749, 757, 714, 160, and 251:

Shaker Heights Rapid Transit car 18:

Cooperativa de Transportes Urbanos y Sub-Urbanos (Veracruz, Mexico) open car 19:

Chicago and West Towns 141:

Sand Springs Railway car 68:

The four-car train of Chicago Aurora & Elgin woods included 319, 36, 309, and 308:

The four-car train of Chicago Aurora & Elgin steels included 431, 409, 460, and 451:

A four-car train of wooden Chicago “L” cars included cars 24 (aka 1024), 1797, 1268, and 1754:

A four-car train of CTA 4000s, including cars 4290, 4412, 4410, and 4146:

SEPTA Broad Street Subway car 55, operating for the first time since 2011:

A 7-car CTA “L” train, made up of cars 41, 22, 6655-6, 30, and 6125-26:

The 7-car “L” train finally gets cleared to pass:

A six car train of 1960s/70s CTA rapid transit cars, made up of 2153-4, 2243-44, and 2433-4:

Municipality of East Troy box motor/line car M15 (formerly Milwaukee Electric):

Milwaukee Electric work car D13:

The trolley freight train, led by Commonwealth Edison loco 4:

Three South Shore Line cars (34, 40, and 504), hauled by a diesel locomotive:

South Shore Line line car 1100:

Illinois Central cars 1380 and 1198:

The 7-car train of CTA 6000s and single car units:

The train of CTA 6000s and single car units moves out of the way, allowing Illinois Central Highliners 1630 and 1637 to be seen as they pass the Depot:

Electric locos South Shore Line 803, Pennsylvania Railroad GG-1 4927, and Amtrak 945 finish up the Trolley Pageant:

Our Latest Book, Now Available:

The North Shore Line

From the back cover:

As late as 1963, it was possible to board high-speed electric trains on Chicago’s famous Loop “L” that ran 90 miles north to Milwaukee. This was the Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee Railroad, commonly known as the North Shore Line. It rose from humble origins in the 1890s as a local streetcar line in Waukegan to eventually become America’s fastest interurban under the visionary management of Midwest utilities tycoon Samuel Insull. The North Shore Line, under Insull, became a worthy competitor to the established steam railroads. Hobbled by the Great Depression, the road fought back in 1941 with two streamlined, air-conditioned, articulated trains called Electroliners, which included dining service. It regained its popularity during World War II, when gasoline and tires were rationed, but eventually, it fell victim to highways and the automobile. The North Shore Line had intercity rail, commuter rail, electric freight, city streetcars, and even buses. It has been gone for nearly 60 years, but it will always remain the Road of Service.

Each copy purchased here will be signed by the author, and you will also receive a bonus North Shore Line map. Books will ship by USPS Media Mail.

Title The North Shore Line
Images of America
Author David Sadowski
Edition illustrated
Publisher Arcadia Publishing (SC), 2023
ISBN 1467108960, 978-1467108966
Length 160 pages

The price of $23.99 includes shipping within the United States.

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New Compact Disc, Now Available:

CTA-1
The Last Chicago Streetcars 1958
# of Discs – 1
Price: $15.99

Until now, it seemed as though audio recordings of Chicago streetcars were practically non-existent. For whatever reason, the late William A. Steventon does not appear to have made any for his Railroad Record Club, even though he did make other recordings in the Chicago area in 1956.

Now, audio recordings of the last runs of Chicago streetcars have been found, in the collections of the late Jeffrey L. Wien (who was one of the riders on that last car). We do not know who made these recordings, but this must have been done using a portable reel-to-reel machine.

These important recordings will finally fill a gap in transit history. The last Chicago Transit Authority streetcar finished its run in the early hours of June 21, 1958. Now you can experience these events just as Chicagoans did.

As a bonus, we have included Keeping Pace, a 1939 Chicago Surface Lines employee training program. This was digitally transferred from an original 16” transcription disc. These recordings were unheard for 80 years.

Total time – 74:38

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Postcards From the Bridge

May 14, 2023May 21, 2023David Sadowski 15 Comments

This real photo postcard image shows the four-track Metropolitan “L” bridge (actually two separate bridges, side by side), but it also shows a small experimental lifeboat moored at left. One author’s research into the history of this boat is featured in this post, and also sheds some further light on when this photo was taken.

From the start of the Trolley Dodger in 2015, I hoped this blog would become a resource for others, and I am pleased that this has happened. Sometimes these inquiries take strange and unexpected turns, and that is certainly the case regarding the early real photo postcard shown above. This interesting tangent of Chicago history is covered in detail further down in this post. Research can raise just as many questions as it answers, and that is definitely what happened here regarding the small experimental boat visible in the lower left-hand corner of this and other postcards of the Met bridge.

We also have a goodly number of excellent images for your perusal, from some of the great traction photographers.

We regret the passing on April 30th of Robert Heinlein, aged 84. He was one of the giants in his field, and our next post will be a tribute to him. Some of Mr. Heinlein’s photos are in my recent book The North Shore Line, and I am glad he was able to see the finished product. He spent his entire career sharing his knowledge and helping others, and he will be sorely missed. You can read his obituary here.

Keep those cards and letters coming in, folks.

-David Sadowski

PS- You might also like our Trolley Dodger Facebook auxiliary, a private group that now has 1,162 members.

I will be giving a program on my new North Shore Line book on 7:30 pm on Friday evening, May 19th, at Chicago Union Station for the Railroad & Shortlines Club of Chicago. There is no charge. Please do not arrive before 7:15 pm.

Chicago Union Station
Room 107A
500 W. Jackson Blvd.
Chicago, Illinois

Please enter at 500 W. Jackson Boulevard, between Clinton and Canal. Call 312 725-0432 during the meeting for assistance.

We gave two presentations in April that were well attended and received. First, we spoke at the Libertyville Historical Society on the 17th. You can view that presentation here. To date, there have been about 3500 views.

On the 20th, we were at the History Center of lake Bluff and Lake Forest. You can view that presentation here.

Postcards From the Bridge

Sandy Cleary writes:

Good morning! I hope this finds you well 🙂

I’ve been lost on the site for a few weeks since finding it—it scratches an itch I also have—and I’m really grateful for the work that you’ve done in documenting a lot of pretty niche historical artifacts. I’m very curious about one in particular. It’s mentioned in this post here, above the text “I recently bought this real photo postcard, circa 1910.”

I’m pretty certain it comes from the summer of 1907. The boat docked in the lower left of that photo is an obscure lifeboat designed by Robert Brown, of Chicago; it was tied up to the Chicago Sanitary District dock in 1907 but Brown stopped paying docking fees in March, 1908 and it’s absent in another 1908 photo of the bridge. Debris on the loading dock to the northeast of the bridge matches debris visible in Detroit Publishing Co. photo 070152 (here at the LOC), which was taken at the same time as 070153 (LOC link); based on the SS Pueblo’s transit records that photo must’ve been taken on July 30th, 1907.

I’ve been working on writing up the history of Robert Brown’s boat, which features in some other Chicago lore a few years later, and for which the photographic so far consists of only three photos: the two Detroit Publishing Co. ones, and whoever took the picture used in the postcard you found. It was reused in numerous postcards (colorized with the title “Elevated R. R. Jackknife Bridge over Chicago River, Chicago”—you can find examples on eBay).

The one you posted, though, is by far the clearest. I was wondering if you could tell me anything about the postcard’s copyright or who might have printed it? I’ve never been able to find what the photographic source might’ve been. A clearer example, one which might make the text on the white sign north of the boat legible and make it easier to fix the exact date the photo was taken, would be invaluable but I’m not sure where to start looking.

(Also, the version you’ve found is evidently a different crop—the colorized version shows more of the western bank and the dock itself).

I appreciate your time—any pointers on anything more about that postcard or the photo that was responsible for it would be incredibly helpful. The work you did on restoring the one you found was already enough for me to conclude when the boat was actually tied up at Van Buren St., which I’d been despairing of finding possible.

Kind regards
Sandy

Thanks for writing. It’s remarkable how small details in such photographs can be of so much use to researchers today.

In the meantime, what a remarkable piece of scholarship you have achieved!

As you can see, the reverse side of the postcard doesn’t identify the maker. But perhaps it can still be identified by comparison with other postcards with the same printing, whose manufacturers are known to experts.

Would it be alright for me to share your original note with the readers of my blog (and accompanying Facebook group)? You never know what useful information others might have to share.

Sandy Cleary:

Absolutely, you can share with whomever! The information I have is unfortunately pretty limited. From my boat-focused point of view, what’s known is:

1. Chicagoan carpenter Robert Brown designed and built an odd-shaped lifeboat in 1905, which was photographed for a magazine in ~1905/1906
2. His company, the International Automatic Lifeboat Company, paid the Chicago Sanitary District a $5/mo docking fee for the Van Buren St. dock between October, 1906 and March, 1908
3. Hans Behm took three photos of the Metropolitan West Side railroad bridge on July 30th, two of which depict the boat.
4. It’s gone by a September, 1908 photo of the bridge taken, I think, by the Chicago Sanitary District (because the MWRD has posted this picture a few times)
5. The only other photo is the one from the postcard, which must’ve been taken between October, 1906 and March, 1908. The overall bridge configuration seems to be the same between the postcard and the 1907 photos, as does the debris seen on the loading dock on the northeast side of the bridge:

After that the boat disappears for a few years, until it was found sunk in the north draw of the Wells Street Bridge (just south of the Chicago & North Western depot there. Then it was shown for a few months as “The Foolkiller,” putatively the world’s first submarine, after which it disappears again and is now only really relevant for weird Chicago lore.

Fortunately a lot of the Chicago Sanitary District records are online, and I was able to get in touch with someone from Commonwealth Edison who also had some useful information, but I have to imagine a lot of the information from the L companies pre-merger is gone. It seems to me that there might have been some reason why people were taking pictures of the Met’s bridge around the same time, but I’m not sure what that might have been.

I know that there was pressure to have it removed because of how significantly it impacted the channel by ~1911 or so—tracing over old Sanborn maps from 1906 really drives home how dramatic that constriction was:

At the time the western span of the Jackson Blvd. bridge and the Metropolitan West Side crossed what Sanborn identifies as property belonging to the Pacific, Fort Wayne & Chicago, during its period when it was not part of the Penn, I think—I am not a train girl. The Met’s viaduct would’ve crossed over the PFW&C freight house, before that whole west bank became Chicago & North Western property again. In any case the bridge wasn’t actually torn down until 1961 (by that point, as I understand it, the CTA hadn’t been using it to carry rail traffic since 1958).

Thank you so much again for your time and for your help with this. How these photo postcards worked has been something of a mystery to me. Numerous different versions seem to have been made, and I just don’t know whether these were the same company, or different companies skirting copyright because Google Images wasn’t a thing at the time, or what. But the fact that there is such a high-quality photo, anywhere, is extremely heartening.

I suspect the postcard that I have was very short-lived in the marketplace, as this was a transition period between real photo postcards and printed ones. Even if some of the colorized versions may have used the same original negative as a starting point, the eventual results look more and more like drawings rather than photographs.

As to the sudden popularity of pictures of the Met “L” bridge, starting in 1907, this coincided with a major change in how people could write messages on postcards:

DIVIDED BACK PERIOD: 1907-1915

“In 1907, a major change on the address side of postcards occurred. This change was prompted by the Universal Postal Congress, the legislative body of the Universal Postal Union. The convention decreed that postal cards produced by governments of member nations could have messages on the left half of the address side, effective October 1, 1907. The Universal Postal Congress also decreed that after March 1, 1907, government-produced cards in the United States could bear messages on the address side.2 Congress passed an act on March 1, 1907, in compliance with the Union’s decree, allowing privately produced postcards to bear messages on the left half of the card’s back. The next day, the Postmaster-General issued Order No. 146, granting privileges to privately produced postcards that were already granted in international mail, including the allowance of message space. On June 13, 1907, the Postmaster-General issued Order No. 539, which allowed government-produced postcards to bear messages on the left half of the address side.3 These changes to the backs of postcards ushered in the Divided Back Period, which spans from 1907 until 1915. The Divided Back Period is also known as the “Golden Age of Postcards,” due to the vast popularity of postcards during this time period.”

“Another type of postcard that began to be produced and popularly used during the Divided Back period and through the White Border period is the “real photo” postcard. “Real photo” postcards were first produced using the Kodak “postcard camera.” The postcard camera could take a picture and then print a postcard-size negative of the picture, complete with a divided back and place for postage.”

Source: https://siarchives.si.edu/history/featured-topics/postcard/postcard-history

Sandy Cleary:

I’ll be honest, I hadn’t heard “real photo post card” as a term before I read your blog, and then noticed “RPPC” everywhere on eBay.

There are, as far as I can tell, three versions of this postcard. The first two are the colorized ones, which are labeled on the back as no. 171 of the Franklin Post Card Co.—of Germany, although ironically the earliest example I can find, postmarked August 17th, 1909, says “Made in Germany.” There were two distinct crops of that. The first (type A) is the widest crop, and it’s the one where the “E” in “Elevated” is written more like a backwards 3.

The second (type B) is one that the UIC Library gives copyright to Copelin Commercial Photographers in a black-and-white photographic form. This seems to be more common; the earliest postmark so far I’ve found is from September 13, 1910. Both of these two show up with postmarks as late as 1915. They went through different print runs, though; the back variously says:

* Aug. 17 1909: “No. 171. Made in Germany” (Type A)
* Sep. 13 1910: “No. 171.” (Type B)
* Aug 16, 1911: “No. 171” (Type B)
* Nov. 3 1911: “171” (Type B) (it’s possible the “No.” has been scratched off)
* Oct. 14 1912: “No. 171. Publ. by Franklin Post Card Co., Chicago, Ill. Made in Germany” (Type A)
* Aug. 13 1915: “No. 171. Publ. by Franklin Post Card Co., Chicago, Ill.” (Type B)

…As I write this up I realize this means that the widest version is rarer because it’s the German version. The design on the back, with the more ornate “Post Card” lettering, is identical to other postcards published by (for example) M. Weixelbaum, of Lima, and Provincetown Advocate and the Cardinell-Vincent Co. in addition to Franklin. I don’t understand why some postcards were made in Germany and some were not. Apparently the early 1900s was “postcard mania” in Germany, according to Deutsche Welle. I’d never heard of that before.

Anyway, the third one is the one you’ve found, which has different writing, and is also a much closer crop. Here are all three, superimposed:

What is a little puzzling to me is that the postcard you found is of such high quality that implies (to me) that a medium-format negative was accessible to whomever wound up creating all of the derivatives, which I wouldn’t have expected if it was being held in, say, the Franklin vault. But if it was a Franklin photo, the reverse doesn’t look like the reverse of any Franklin postcards. I tried image-searching for postcard backs looking for something similar, and turned up these from Vermont, which use the same language but a different font in “Post Card.”

Given your link, that creates the unfortunate possibility that what you have is, in fact, the only copy of that postcard, because it was created by someone who was interested in the bridge (or liked the composition), had access to the original, and printed it as a one-off postcard, which is why so far as I can tell it’s never appeared elsewhere. The title is odd—as you note, this isn’t the Northwestern, and the bridge seems to have been well-known as a Metropolitan West Side bridge to locals. Or perhaps it dates from the 20s or 30s, and whoever was writing it just guessed. I don’t know.

I’m also not sure if it’s significant (beyond “postcard mania”) that the early examples are German. There was a big German population in Chicago at the time, and the Germans apparently did like postcards. Germans also liked bridges; Scherzer was born in Illinois, but his parents were German immigrants. One of the earlier photos of the Met bridge (I think it might be the oldest) is from a German postcard:

Text says: “‘Folding’ Bridge over the Chicago River (bridge closed)”; handwriting says (I think): “Dear Dad: Sent you today (payday) $1.00 worth of 1 and 2-cent post stamps. Let me know if these arrived safely.”

It has occurred to me that I could poke around here in Berlin to see if there’s anything promising, but if memory serves most Chicagoan immigrants came from further north (Pomerania and such). Here in Berlin our train esoterica is only the “ghost stations” from the Cold War and that some of our subway stops are mildly radioactive because they used uranium oxide glazing in the tile.

Anyway! Thank you again for your time, and for the link to that Smithsonian article!

This is all very interesting to me, and should also interest my readers. Thanks very much for sharing these wonderful images.

In the early years of photography, negatives were usually large enough to be contact printed onto photo paper, without using an enlarger. The “chicken scratch” writing on my postcard could have been inked onto a glass plate, on top of the negative, or it may have been applied to the negative itself. The proportions of postcards are more rectangular than many of the standard film formats of the time, which may help explain the cropping.

While doing further research into this story, I came across a series of blog posts.

Is this something you wrote?

Sandy Cleary:

Yeah, that’s me 🙂

The “Foolkiller” was originally covered by Cecil Adams in the “Straight Dope” column of the Chicago alternative weekly Chicago Reader, and then later by podcaster Mark Chrisler of The Constant. It’s been stuck in my head for about fifteen years, so I’ve been trying to pull together as much as I can rather than leaving things on various email threads or chat discussions, in case any one else ever goes searching. It’s also been a good way to start organizing my thoughts on the matter (I don’t think many people read that blog).

That’s an interesting steer, re: the negatives. The UIC holding is described as a “photographic print” although I understand the MWRD (the Chicago water authority) apparently found a number of glass plates in their archives. The Library of Congress also (I think) has the original Hans Behm photos, which are described as glass 8×10 negatives (here’s one of them below). I need to read up on that era of photography, apparently.

(The Detroit Publishing Co. photos taken by Behm were also turned into colorized photo postcards, although they don’t seem to have been as popular, or at least most of the Met depictions are not those. There’s an early one that the Central Electric Railfans’ Association wrote up about ten years ago; that’s given a copyright date of 1907 but it must be earlier because the bridge doesn’t have the circular pilings that it would retain for most of its life and were in place by 1907; on the other hand, the Palmer Building is visible (leftmost skyscraper) and that was built sometime between 1903 and 1906).

FYI, I wrote that CERA blog post you refer to.

Sandy Cleary:

I’ve also seen your name on the Industrial History page about the bridge, come to think of it.

And this brings the story up to date. Ms. Cleary’s blog posts, linked above, shed additional light on the story of this experimental boat, which I can summarize as follows. This was one of several attempts at creating a safer lifeboat, to be carried on ships, and for rescues. A number of such ideas were patented in the late 1800s and early 1900s, all very speculative, of course.

The International Automatic Lifeboat Company prototype, designed by Robert Brown, was moored in the Chicago River for some period of time, and not always near the Metropolitan West Side “L” bridge. The US Navy studied the concept and decided it was not practical, as it would have been too difficult to get people into this boat during rescues. This most likely doomed its prospects.

At some point, the boat sank, and was later pulled out of the river, whereupon some enterprising persons displayed it as a supposed submarine, which it was not.

The postcard we have mistakenly identifies this as the Northwestern “L”. In actuality, it was the Metropolitan West side Elevated, but some of its trains did go to Chicago’s northwest side. The Northwestern “L” actually ran to the north side, despite the name.

I hope that further information may shed more light on this story in the future. In the meantime, here are some additional examples of postcards showing the Met “L” bridge.

-David Sadowski

Trackwork near the Met bridge was somewhat complex. Tracks to the right fanned out, leading to the Wells Street Terminal. The tracks at left connected to the Loop “L” via Van Buren Street. (Robert Heinlein Collection)

We are looking west from the Wells Street Terminal towards the dual bridges over the Chicago River. (Robert Heinlein Collection)

This is the only photo I have seen that shows the interior of the Met bridge interlocking tower. (Robert Heinlein Collection)

A 1906 postcard, made at a time when messages could only go on the front of the card.

The back of the 1906 card. Only the address was permitted here.

A 1908 postcard.

By 1908, messages were allowed on the left side of the card back.

A 1909 postcard, based on the 1907 photo.

The rear of the 1909 postcard.

A 1911 postcard, based on the 1907 photo.

The back of a 1911 postcard.

A 1912 postcard.

The back side of a 1912 postcard.

A 1915 postcard, clearly based on the 1907 photo.

The back side of a 1915 postcard.

A 1919 postcard.

The back side of a 1919 postcard.

A 1920 postcard.

And here are some later views of the bridge, from various angles:

A view of the Metropolitan “L” crossing the Chicago River on July 10, 1949. We are looking to the northwest.

Over the years, I have seen many poor quality duplicate slides with this view, looking to the northwest, with a Garfield Park “L” train crossing the Met bridge over the Chicago River, with Union Station in the background. However, this was scanned from an original red border Kodachrome slide, circa 1955-58. The name of the photographer is not known. This must be a Garfield train, and the results are stunning. Douglas cars were re-routed over the Lake Street “L” in 1954. Logan Square trains began running via the Milwaukee-Dearborn Subway in 1951.

CTA 2256 is part of a four-car Met train, turning from Market Street onto the double bridge over the Chicago River in March 1951.
(Truman Hefner Photo)

This picture of the old Met bridge over the Chicago River is undated, but probably dates to circa 1952-55 based on the type of red border Kodachrome mount it is in. But it is certainly after the the other picture in this post, taken at much the same location, since the building at rear, or part of it, was in the process of being torn down. This was not related to expressway construction, since the “L” at this point was north of there. Once the Congress rapid transit line opened in 1958, this section of “L” was taken out of service and by the early 1960s it had been torn down.

Stylish Coit Tower sits atop Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, and has afforded an unparalleled view since its completion in 1933. In April 1987, when this picture was taken, the view included Muni streetcar 578, built in 1896. Although it resembles a cable car, it uses overhead wire. It is occasionally operated for special events and is the oldest streetcar in use in the country. In recent years wheelchair access was added.

A Milwaukee Road push-pull commuter train is at Rondout (an unincorporated area in Lake County, IL) on September 2, 1963. Bi-levels were introduced to the Milwaukee Road around 1961 and ridership was much lower than it is today, so often one car sufficed instead of seven or eight as you see today on Metra. The station here was removed around 1965 on what is now the Metra Milwaukee District North Line. I believe we are looking to the northwest, and that the overpass may be the former North Shore Line Mundelein branch, which had been abandoned on January 21, 1963. There was a tower located kitty-corner to the station, to the right and behind the photographer, which was last used in 2015. (William D. Volkmer Photo)

Don’s Rail Photos (via Archive.org): “410 was built as a trailer observation car by Cincinnati Car in June 1923, #2640. It was out of service in 1932. It was rebuilt on December 31, 1942, as a two motor coach by closing in the open platform and changing the seating.” Here is how it looked in December 1958 at the Mundelein Terminal. (Russell D. Porter Photo)

North Shore Line Electroliner 801-802 is on the CTA “L” in August 1962.

This is a nice overhead view of a four-car train of North Shore Line Silverliners on Chicago’s “L” in August 1962.

North Shore Line cars 157, 169, and 175 are heading southbound on the Sixth Street Viaduct in Milwaukee on April 19, 1959.

There are not many color photos showing this prewar paint scheme, seen here on North Shore Line coach 739 at the Milwaukee Terminal on June 25, 1942.

North Shore Line coach 173 is at the Mundelein Terminal in November 1962, just two months before the end of service. Car 160, now at the Illinois Railway Museum, is at right on a storage track. (Walter Schopp Photo)

After the North Shore Line abandonment, car 727 went to the Southern Iowa Railway. Here it is shown on June 14, 1964, next to Waterloo, Cedar Falls, and Northern car 100. Within a few years, both cars ended up on the Iowa Terminal Railroad (now the Iowa Traction Railway), but unfortunately, car 100 was destroyed in a 1967 fire. 727 is still operable.

Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee #607 is at North Chicago Junction on November 16, 1941. “The ‘Big Hook’ operating as a loco, hauling a 12 car drag and caboose.” The color is described as orange and black. (Vic Wagner Photo)

North Shore Line city streetcar 359, a 1920s product of the St. Louis Car Company, is shown at North Chicago Junction on March 2, 1941. This was the south end of the line for Waukegan streetcars. (Vic Wagner Photo)

North Shore Line Silverliner 771 at the Milwaukee Terinal.

$A three car Chicago and Milwaukee Electric (predecessor of the North shore Line) express train, made up of woods including car 401, from an early colorized postcard. The location here may be Lake Forest. Don\s Rail Photos (via Archive.org): "401 was built by Jewett Car in 1909 as parlor-buffet car. In 1917 it was converted to straight coach and retired in 1935. It was leased to Chicago Aurora & Elgin and renumbered 142 in 1936. It came back for a short time with the CA&E number in 1945 and sold to CA&E in 1946. It was retired in 1953."$

A three car Chicago and Milwaukee Electric (predecessor of the North shore Line) express train, made up of woods including car 401, from an early colorized postcard. The location here may be Lake Forest. Dons Rail Photos (via Archive.org): “401 was built by Jewett Car in 1909 as parlor-buffet car. In 1917 it was converted to straight coach and retired in 1935. It was leased to Chicago Aurora & Elgin and renumbered 142 in 1936. It came back for a short time with the CA&E number in 1945 and sold to CA&E in 1946. It was retired in 1953.”

As the song goes, they paved paradise and put up a parking lot at the former site of the North shore Line’s Milwaukee Terminal, seen here on August 24, 1966. The former switchman’s shanty was the only thing carried over. (Richard H. Young Photo)

On June 6, 1954, the National Railway Historical Society held a farewell fantrip on the Red Arrow interurban line to West Chester, PA. Here, the fantrip cars are stopped at the West Chester Water Works. Car 66 was built by Brill in 1926 and was declared surplus in 1970, after Red Arrow was taken over by SEPTA. It is now at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum in Washington, PA.

Fairmount Park Transit car 10, built by Brill in 1896, as it appeared on April 6, 1946, not long before the line was abandoned. There are not many color photos of this operation. (David H. Cope Photo)

Fairmount Park Transit was an interesting streetcar operation that ran from 1896 to 1946, all on the grounds of a public park in Philadelphia, completely separate from the rest of the local streetcar system. Here we see car #1.

This picture was taken on July 26, 1961 at the Red Arrow Lines (Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company) 69th Street Terminal. Amazingly, the sign still mentions the Lehigh Valley Transit interurban, which stopped operating in 1951, and which hadn’t operated to this station since 1949.

A Lehigh Valley Transit Liberty Bell Limited interurban car is heading northbound at West Point in Pennsylvania on September 18, 1948. Rail service ended three years later. (James P. Shuman Photo)

CTA PCC 4382 appears to be turning east from Clark Street onto Division Street. Close examination of the slide shows the streetcar is signed for Route 36 – Broadway-Downtown. As Steve De Rose notes, the south portion of Broadway-State was “bustituted ” on December 5, 1955, and the Blatz ad campaign on the side of the car dates this picture to 1956.

Chicago Surface Lines PCC 4125 and red car 1403 are at 73rd Street and Vincennes Avenue in March 1947, as the newest and oldest streetcars in the CSL fleet. (Vic Wagner Photo)

The Union Stock Yards, as seen from the “L”, probably circa 1908 when this branch line opened. From a real photo postcard.

CTA 4409 is at the head of a two-car fantrip train at Francisco on the Ravenswood “L” on November 25, 1973. This was at the end of regular service for the 4000-series cars, built in the early 1920s. (Arthur H. Peterson Photo)

A view looking north at the CTA Linden Avenue “L” yard in Wilmette in June 1966 shows where the North Shore Line’s Shore Line Route tracks branched off at right and continued north. After service ended in 1955, the CTA incorporated some of this trackage into its storage yard, which has since been reconfigured.

This duplicate slide was described as showing the CTA Douglas Park “L” at Kenton Avenue in May 1952. That may be the correct date, but I believe it actually shows an eastbound Garfield Park train between Laramie and Central Avenue. West of here, the “L” turned to run parallel to the B&OCT. The area at left is where the Eisenhower expressway runs today, and this is approximately the location of the Lotus tunnel.

CTA 2102 is at the tail end of a Lake-Dan Ryan train in April 1975, turning the sharp corner from Wabash to Lake. After the horrific crash here two years later, where some “L” cars fell off the structure, additional steel was added to help prevent a future reoccurrence.

Passengers are boarding an eastbound South Shore Line train, headed by car 107, at Michigan City, IN in May 1959. Now, the line is being double-tracked at this location, and the street turned into a private right-of-way. The facade of the old station is going to become part of a new redevelopment here. From left to right, the several cars visible include an early 50s Chevy, a ’59 Chevy, a ’55 Oldsmobile, a late ’50s Cadillac, a 1956 Buick, and a 1959 Ford.

A South Shore Line train, with car 101 at the helm, is at the East Chicago station on February 8, 1953. In 1956 the street trackage here was replaced by a new bypass route, running parallel to the Indiana Toll Road. (James P. Shuman Photo)

Chicago Aurora and Elgin 404 at Forest Park, circa 1955-57. We are looking north. After interurban service was cut back to here in 1953, the CA&E had a track for midday car storage, seen at left.

The final fantrip on the Chicago Aurora and Elgin took place on a wintry December 7, 1958, about six months prior to the complete abandonment of the interurban, which had stopped operating passenger service on July 3, 1957. I am not sure of this location in Chicago’s western suburbs, although the sign at right would suggest it is at one of several Main Streets in the area. Wood cars 319 and 320 were used. By this time, automatic gates had been removed, and the train had to be flagged at each such crossing. Jason Learakos: “Glen Ellyn, Illinois. The photo is facing east across Main Street from the station there.” Mike Franklin says we are “looking SE at Main St., Glen Ellyn.”

Chicago Aurora and Elgin wood car #20, built in 1902, ran for 55 years on that interurban before heading to the Fox River Trolley Museum, where it remains. Here it is in October 1970, when this operation was still known as “RELIC.” These are former tracks of the Aurora, Elgin, and Fox River Electric, which was affiliated with the CA&E.

Chicago Aurora and Elgin car 409, the only Pullman saved from the fleet, is shown operating at “Trolleyville USA” in Olmstead Falls, OH on August 28, 1965. It is now at the Illinois Railway Museum.

Chicago Aurora and Elgin car 20 at “RELIC” in South Elgin in August 1968.

Chicago’s Central Station opened in 1893 to serve trains to the World’s Columbian Exposition site. Trains of the Illinois Central and the “Big Four” (the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway, which after 1906 was affiliated with the New York Central) used this station, which was adjacent to the tracks (electrified in 1926) now used by the Metra Electric and South Shore Line. After Amtrak took over intercity passenger train operations in 1971, they consolidated service to Union Station the following year, and Central Station closed. Demolition began on June 3, 1974, which is right around when this photo was taken.

Another photo of the soon to be demolished Central Station in June 1974.

Don’s Rail Photos (via Archive.org): “65 was built by Cincinnati Car in August 1928, #2985, as I&SE 230. In 1933 it was sold to ICRT as 230 and in 1941 it was sold to SHRT as 65. In 1949 it was sold to Ed Tennyson and leased as Speedrail 65 where it originally operated with a modified Shaker Heights paint scheme. When repainted, the Speedrail logo was omitted. It was scrapped in 1952.” Based on that, my best guess is this picture may date to near the end of service in 1951. The location is at Sixth and Michigan in Milwaukee, by the North Shore Line Terminal. Transport Company bus 930 is also visible.

Don’s Rail Photos (via Archive.org): “66 was built by Cincinnati Car in August 1929, #3025, as Dayton & Troy Ry 203. It was returned to Cincinnati Car in 1932, and in 1938 it was sold to Lehigh Valley Transit as 1102. In 1949 it was sold to Speedrail, but was not rehabilitated until March 1951. But it only ran for 3 months before the line was abandoned and then scrapped in 1952.” Here it is seen during that brief period of operation in Waukesha. Larry Sakar: “aae249 is a photo I also have. The 66 is indeed laying over at the Waukesha loop/ Two questions remain to this day. 1. Was there any specific spot where the cars were supposed to stop? Seems to me I see photos of TM cars laying over parked in a variety of places on the loop. For instance that great single leading duplex shot which was the common lash-up during the WWII era is parked in a different spot than the 66. 2. I have never seen a photo of cars laying over on the Waukesha loop with passengers either boarding or waiting to board. I am inclined to think that passengers could not be carried the two blocks between the Waukesha station at Clinton Street & Broadway and the loop because when the line was cut back to Waukesha loop on 12-30-45 passenger service had been abandoned beyond downtown Waukesha. This is speculative on my part. I don’t really know. Jay Maeder and the city of Waukesha tangled over the sale of the Waukesha loop. The city wanted to buy it from Speedrail to accommodate more cars. Maeder was willing to sell. Initially he asked something like $1100 until he saw the appraisal and quickly raised the asking price to $2500. The city accused him of trying to gouge him and refused to budge beyond $1500. Maeder said they were trying to cheat him and they were. When Hyman-Michaels had the property appraised the appraisal came in at $2200! Just where he planned to turn the cars around if he sold the loop I don’t know. He publicly said there were “lots of places where Speedrail could turn the cars but I can’t think of any!” In the end the city got it anyway and it became a parking lot until the 1980s. It is now the site of a very big Walgreens Drug Store. The Motor Transport Co. freight building was torn down shortly after Speedrail came to an end.”

Don’s Rail Photos (via Archive.org): “62 was built by Cincinnati Car in August 1928, #2985, as I&SE 245. In 1933 it was sold to ICRT as 245 and in 1941 it was sold to SHRT as 62. In 1949 it was sold to Ed Tennyson and leased as Speedrail 62 and was scrapped in 1952.” This photo may have been taken in Waukesha and could date to just prior to the 1951 abandonment. Larry Sakar: “This is NOT toward the end of Speedrail. The lack of front stripes on the curved sider indicates that this is pre Summer 1950 when the two black stripes began to appear on the curved side cars. O’Brien photos took some great photos of the Waukesha loop including an aerial shot of it before it became the loop. They were located about a block or so east of the Waukesha station.” Mike Franklin says we are “looking SE on Broadway from Clinton St, Waukesha, WI.”

Milwaukee Electric M15 at an undetermined location. Stephen Karlson writes, “M15 is under the train shed at East Troy that was later removed. That stretch of the right of way remains off limits to boarding passengers at the preservation railway as the ground is on the same plot of land as the house that was once the station. Thus the loading platform for the electric cars is by the substation.”

Milwaukee Electric 1112 at Waukesha, WI on March 15, 1947. (Vic Wagner Photo) Don’s Rail Photos (via Archive.org): “1112 was built by Kuhlman Car in February 1909, #405. It was rebuilt in 1926. It was one of three sold for scrap in January 1952, before the rest of the cars.” Larry Sakar: “Fantastic shot of the typical Waukesha train during WWII. When first tried TM discovered that placing the single 1100 series car behind the duplex did not work. Because the door on a single 1100 was at the rear of the car and in the center of a duplex they quickly found that the door on the single 1100 did not reach the station platforms or designated loading zone. Thus, two stops had to be made. The solution was to place the single 1100 series car first. Trial and error I guess you’d say.”

Milwaukee Electric interurban car 1106 is at Mukwonago, Wisconsin, on the line going out to East Troy. Passenger service was abandoned here in 1939, although freight service continued for decades. This is currently where the East Troy Railroad Museum operates. I’ve been told that this station was located near an interchange north of where the Elegant Farmer is now, and that the station itself was moved and turned into a residence, which still exists, although additions have been made to it.

Milwaukee Electric 1105. Don’s Rail Photos (via Archive.org): “The Milwaukee Northern Ry came under TM control in 1923 and was officially merged on April 30, 1928. Under TM management 4 of their cars were rebuilt in a fashion similar to the other TM rebuilt interurbans. After 1928, most of the cars were further rebuilt and renumbered to replace the original 1100s which had been renumbered when they were rebuilt. 1101 was to have been rebuilt from MN 20, but it became 1105 instead. Thus there was no 1101.” It may originally have been built in 1907.

Milwaukee Electric streetcar 641 on route 19. Don’s Rail Photos (via Archive.org): “641 was built at Cold Springs in 1913. It was reconditioned as a two man car in 1928.”

Milwaukee Rapid Transit and Speedrail car 61 is at an undetermined location (Waukesha?) and looks rather worse for the wear, with unrepaired collision damage, probably just prior to the 1951 abandonment. Larry Sakar adds: “This is at the Waukesha station. Wilbur Lumber was directly across the street from the station. Note the cement safety island to the left of the car. It was there to facilitate loading so that passengers didn’t have to stand in the street. All traffic passed to the photo left of that island. Today a bank occupies the site of Wilbur Lumber Co. I guess the Wilburs were a prominent Waukesha family from what my friend John Schoenknecht who is the editor of Landmark, the official publication of the Waukesha County Historical Society, told me. Oh, by the way what you see in the background of that shot of the car at Wilbur Lumber is the Madison Street hill which is still there. There was a Milwaukee Road crossing that isn’t visible in the photo and once across it Broadway becomes Madison.” Mike Franklin says this “is indeed Waukesha. Looking NW across Madison St from Clinton St.”

Milwaukee Rapid Transit and Speedrail car 60. Don’s Rail Photos (via Archive.org): “60 was built by Cincinnati Car in August 1929, #3030, as Indianapolis & Southeastern Traction 260. It replaced the heavy-weight cars which became TMER&L 1180 series. In 1933 it was sold to Inter-City Rapid Transit as 260 and in 1941 it was sold to Shaker Heights Rapid Transit as 60. In 1949 it was sold to Ed Tennyson and leased as Speedrail 60 and was scrapped in 1952.” Larry Sakar: “Car 60 is on the bridge over Brookdale Drive on the Hales Corners line on 10-16-49. This is the inaugural fan trip using car 60 that traveled over both lines. Both the bridge and embankment are gone. This is the location where the construction train used to take workers building the suburb of Greendale to and from cut off and went in a southeasterly direction thru what is now Root River Parkway. One of the dumbest things Jay Maeder ever said was that he “intended to restore passenger service to Greendale.” There never was passenger service to Greendale. I’m about a mile or so north of Greendale. MCTS has a bus line (Rt. 76-76th St.) that serves Greendale. I’ve yet to see a single passenger on that part of the line. Greendale is wealth personified! By the way car 65 was supposed to have been used on the inaugural fan trip but it was on the “sick list”. Another thing of interest regarding the 10-16-49 fan trip. Car 60 developed mechanical problems as soon as the car descended the “slide” onto the Rapid Transit line at 8th Street. At the Gravel Pit they put in to the siding. A fan with a vast knowledge of interurban cars opened the hatches in the floor and disconnected the motor leads on motors 3 and 4. Car 60 ran on two motors for the rest of that fan trip. The name of the knowledgeable railfan was George Krambles!! The late Lew Martin recalled that while stopped there a fan remarked, “The line has been in business for a little over a month and they have a car in the scrap line already!” Two other well known railfans were on that car. Barney Neuberger wearing his classic pork pie hat and one Mr. Albert C. Kalmbach, head of the publishing company that bore his name. Kalmbach was seated in the 4th row on the right side of car 60.”

Milwaukee Electric freight motor and utility car M15. Don’s Rail Photos (via Archive.org): “M15 was built at Cold Spring Shops in 1920 as a trailer, but it was motorized almost immediately. It was transferred to the isolated East Troy operation in 1939, and sold to the Municipality of East Troy in 1949. It is sold to WERHS in 1982 and (is) now preserved at the IRM (since) 1989.”

Don’s Rail Photos (via Archive.org): “61 was built by Cincinnati Car in August 1928, #2985, as I&SE 235. In 1933 it was sold to ICRT as 235 and in 1941 it was sold to SHRT as 61. In 1949 it was sold to Ed Tennyson and leased as Speedrail 61 and was scrapped in 1952.” Here 61 is at an undetermined location. Since it is still signed for Milwaukee Rapid Transit and Speedrail, this may be circa 1949-50. Larry Sakar: “The car is westbound on West Michigan Street at North 5th Street. The building in the background (whitish and prominent) was the Boston Store, a department store that at one time was owned by the same company that owned Carson’s in Chicago- P.A. Bergner. The building is still there but the Boston Store is not. I believe it is now housing for seniors. Note the traffic policeman standing in the middle of the intersection. Believe it or not there were no stop and go lights on Michigan Street until Speedrail was gone. Every intersection had a traffic policeman. The late Doug Traxler said the one place you did not want to get stopped was at the top of the hill at 6th and Michigan because half of your car was hanging downhill and making that turn by the NSL station was no picnic. Motorman Don Leistikow concurred and offered this tale: “Yes, I remember that traffic officer. I was one of several motormen who discovered that he had a good day when he had cigars so I, like some of the other motormen, always made sure he had a box of cigars. Things always seemed to go better for him when he had a box of cigars!” Traxler remembered him shouting at him, “Pull it Up. Pull it way up,” when he got stopped there one time.” Mike Franklin says we are “looking east on Michigan St. from 5th St. in Milwaukee.”

Gary Railways car #1 at an undetermined location. William Shapotkin: “We are in downtown Valparaiso, IN. The car is laying over in Franklin St north of Main (now Lincolnway) taking its layover at the east end-of-line. View looks south. Building at right (N/W corner of intersection) is still standing today.”

Gary Railways cars 16 and 19 on the May 1, 1938 fantrip which is considered the beginnings of the Central Electric Railfans’ Association.

Gary Railways line car #11 at the Garyton Loop. (Edward Frank, Jr. Photo)

A view of the right of way along the Gary Railways Indiana Harbor Division near Gary, IN by Edward Frank, Jr.

A view of the right-of-way along the Gary Railways Hammond Division, near Hammond IN, by Edward Frank, Jr.

A view of the Gary Railways right-of-way on the Indiana Harbor Division near Gary, IN by Edward Frank, Jr. Presumably that is his bicycle by the telephone pole. Rail service on the Indiana Harbor Division was abandoned in March 1939.

Our Latest Book, Now Available:

The North Shore Line

From the back cover:

As late as 1963, it was possible to board high-speed electric trains on Chicago’s famous Loop “L” that ran 90 miles north to Milwaukee. This was the Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee Railroad, commonly known as the North Shore Line. It rose from humble origins in the 1890s as a local streetcar line in Waukegan to eventually become America’s fastest interurban under the visionary management of Midwest utilities tycoon Samuel Insull. The North Shore Line, under Insull, became a worthy competitor to the established steam railroads. Hobbled by the Great Depression, the road fought back in 1941 with two streamlined, air-conditioned, articulated trains called Electroliners, which included dining service. It regained its popularity during World War II, when gasoline and tires were rationed, but eventually, it fell victim to highways and the automobile. The North Shore Line had intercity rail, commuter rail, electric freight, city streetcars, and even buses. It has been gone for nearly 60 years, but it will always remain the Road of Service.

Each copy purchased here will be signed by the author, and you will also receive a bonus North Shore Line map. Books will ship by USPS Media Mail.

Title The North Shore Line
Images of America
Author David Sadowski
Edition illustrated
Publisher Arcadia Publishing (SC), 2023
ISBN 1467108960, 978-1467108966
Length 160 pages

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Borrowed Time

May 26, 2022January 2, 2025David Sadowski 5 Comments

This January 1960 view, looking northeast, shows the temporary Central Avenue side platform station during construction of the Congress expressway. The CTA Congress median line had opened as far west as Cicero Avenue in June 1958, but farther west, used a series of temporary ground level alignments while highway work continue. The temporary station here was in use from October 1959 until October 1960, when the permanent center platform station opened. You can see a stairway for the new platform, built into the concrete wall of the Central Avenue underpass. The side platforms allowed for simultaneous construction of the new station. The expressway originally ended at Laramie Avenue (5200 W.), but was extended to Central (5600 W. ) in early 1960, and finally opened to Oak Park, Forest Park, and Maywood in October 1960. Newly delivered single car unit 22 heads up this westbound Congress-Milwaukee “A” train. East of here, the tracks curve off to go into the Lotus Tunnel, taking the line into the expressway median. Ultimately, this station did not develop much ridership, and closed in 1973, although it is still extant. (Jeffrey L. Wien Photo)

I was thinking about the expression “living on borrowed time” recently. I guess all of us are doing that, in a sense, but it occurred to me that when we look at old photographs, they can transport us back into the past. It’s almost as if by looking at them, we can borrow back some of the past.

Here are lots of photos that do just that. We also have some pictures from our recent trip to the East Troy Railroad Museum in Wisconsin. This was our first chance to see North Shore Line car 761 since it was restored by the museum.

I can’t say enough good things about the museum and its volunteers. We were treated to a tour of the barn where 761 and several other cars are stored. Even better, we ran into the Heinlein family who just happened to be there that day.

Keep those cards and letters coming in, folks. And thanks for lending us some of your time.

-David Sadowski

PS- You might also like our Trolley Dodger Facebook auxiliary, a private group that now has 835 members.

Our friend Kenneth Gear now has a Facebook group for the Railroad Record Club. If you enjoy listening to audio recordings of classic railroad trains, whether steam, electric, or diesel, you might consider joining.

Work on our North Shore Line book is ongoing. Donations are needed in order to bring this to a successful conclusion. You will find donation links at the top and bottom of each post. We thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

Recent Finds

New York Central loco 5287, a 4-6-4, heads south at Roosevelt Road on August 24, 1954. (David R. Sweetland Photo)

I recently purchased this “real photo postcard,” and the seller said this was the Harvard station on the Englewood branch of the “L”. However, closer inspection of the photo shows that this is actually the Princeton station, which opened in 1905, and closed in 1949 as part of the CTA’s restructuring of north-south service.

Electroliner 803-804 at Red Arrow’s 69th Street Shops on November 10, 1963, shortly after arriving from Chicago. (Jeffrey L. Wien Photo)

Liberty Liner “Valley Forge,” formerly North Shore Line Electroliner 801-802, being put into service on Red Arrow’s Norristown line on January 26, 1964. (Jeffrey L. Wien Photo)

SEPTA Liberty Liner “Valley Forge” crosses the Schuylkill River in September 1976, near the end of service on the Red Arrow line to Norristown. (Jeffrey L. Wien Photo)

Liberty Liner “Valley Forge,” formerly North Shore Line Electroliner 801-802, just after delivery to the Illinois Railway Museum on May 9, 1982. (Jeffrey L. Wien Photo)

Liberty Liner “Valley Forge,” aka Electroliner 801-802, at the Illinois Railway Museum on October 2, 1982. (Jeffrey L. Wien Photo)

North Shore Line wood car 134 is on a siding, and may be possibly be in New Trier school tripper service on the Shore Line Route, before the late 1930s Winnetka Grade Separation project. Don’s Rail Photos: “134 was built by Jewett Car Co in 1907 as C&ME 134. It was rebuilt in 1914 retired in 1948. In 1936, the CA&E leased 11 surplus cars from the CNS&M. These cars were modified for service by raising the coupler height, installing electric heat instead of the coal-fired hot water heaters, modifying the control, and adding jumper receptacles and other minor fittings to allow them to train with the other CA&E cars. Since these were 50 mile per hour cars, and the CA&E cars were 60 MPH cars, they were soon operated only in trains of their own kind rather than mixed in with other cars. In 1945 they were returned to the North Shore where they operated briefly. They were purchased in 1946 and last ran in regular service in September, 1953.”

CTA gate car 390. Don’s Rail Photos: “390 was built by American Car & Foundry Co in 1905 as SSRT 390. It became CERy 390 in 1913 and became CRT 390 in 1923. It was retired on June 20, 1957.” Andre Kristopans: “390 I think is at North/Halsted. At first thought Sedgwick, but background does not match.”

On March 29, 1943, the first official Chicago Rapid Transit Company train heads into the north portal of the new State Street Subway, then still under construction. Only one track was in service, and the south portal was still being built. Test rides were being given to servicemen and war bond buyers. The official opening was on October 17th.

Shaker Heights Rapid Transit car 302, formerly of the Aurora, Elgin & Fox River Electric, is inbound at Woodhill Road on September 6, 1951. Don’s Rail Photos: “302 was built by St Louis Car in 1924, #1308. In 1936 it was sold to CI/SHRT as 302 and in 1954 it was sold to Gerald Brookins for the Columbia Park & Southwestern aka Trolleyville.” Sounds like it was scrapped there for parts.

North Shore Line city streetcar 354 at the Illinois Railway Museum in September 1972.

The conventional view of the North Shore Line station in Lake Forest.

A different view of the large North Shore Line station in Lake Forest that served the Shore Line Route. This can’t be later than 1916, as the railroad is identified by its previous name, the Chicago and Milwaukee Electric. The station survived the 1955 Shore Line abandonment, but was torn down around 1970.

I believe we are looking north at the Chicago and North Western commuter train station in Highland Park. If so, the North Shore Line’s tracks for the Shore Line Route would be at right in the adjacent street. Apparently the station footprint here did not allow for sufficient space to locate the NSL tracks on private right-of-way.

Another view of the C&NW Highland Park station, again looking north with the NSL Shore Line tracks in the street at right.

The entrance to Ravinia Park around 1915. It was built by the Chicago and Milwaukee Electric to help generate more ridership.

This shows the wooden “L” ramp under construction for the CTA’s Garfield Park temporary trackage that ran east of here in Van Buren Street during construction of the Congress expressway. You can see where the temporary structure was going to turn and head south, to rejoin the existing Garfield Park “L” near Sacramento Boulevard. The new alignment was used starting in September 1953, so this is some time before then. (Henryk Shafer Photo)

Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company (aka Red Arrow) cars 77 and 8 in Media, PA on April 25, 1954. Brilliner 8 is still in its original 1941 paint scheme. (Russell E. Jackson Photo)

Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company (aka Red Arrow) car 83 on the West Chester line in 1954. Buses replaced trolleys on this long route the same year, as part of a highway widening project. Don’s Rail Photos: “83 was built by Brill Car Co in March 1932, #22980. It became SEPTA 83 in 1970 and sold to Middletown & Hummelstown in 1982.” The M&H actually purchased car 86 in 1982, which was found to have some damage. So car 83 was renumbered as 86 by SEPTA and sold to them that way. The original car 86 also went along and was scrapped for parts. M&H is a diesel-powered tourist operation and the Red Arrow car is in storage there.

Laurel Line (Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley Railroad) cars 38, 114, and 35. I assume this is in Scranton, PA. Interurban passenger service quit on December 31, 1952.

Laurel Line car 32.

Laurel Line car 19 looks like it has seen better days.

Laurel Line car 35.

Laurel Line car 32.

Another view of Laurel Line car 19.

CTA single car units 41 and 42, equipped with trolley poles for use on the Evanston branch, are posed at Sedgwick on the Ravenswood line. The date may be June 26, 1960. Sunday fantrips were popular, when Ravenswood trains only went as far as Armitage, and the fans could have lengthy photo stops without interfering with regular service. North Shore Line trains were routed via the outer tracks at this time. (Richard J. Anderson Photo)

A CTA single car unit heads south just north of South Boulevard in Evanston on May 26, 1963.

A train of 4000s at Armitage.

4000s at Wellington.

6000s at Wellington.

CTA 2041 at Hamlin on the Lake Street “L”, signed as a “B” train, sometime between 1964 and 1969.

6000s at Wellington.

CTA single car unit #2 at the Skokie Swift terminal at Dempster, some time in the 1960s.

4000s at Wellington.

Brooklyn and Queens Transit PCC 1070 is at Park Circle on November 11, 1955, running on the 68-C 1 Ave line.

Brooklyn and Queens Transit PCC 1001 is at the Bristol Street loop on line 35 – Church on May 30, 1956. The auto at right is in the “bathtub” style that was briefly popular around 1950.

Brooklyn and Queens Transit PCC 1031 in May 30, 1956. This is a Church Avenue car entering the underpass at Ocean Parkway.

Chicago Surface Lines work car S-53 on October 21, 1940. Don’s Rail Photos: “S53, supply car, was built by Chicago Railways in 1909 as 10. It was renumbered S53 in 1913 and became CSL S53 in 1914. It was retired on November 25, 1949.”

Chicago Transit Authority snow plow S-319 (ex-3146) at Skokie Shops in April 1955. Don’s Rail Photos: “3146 was built by St. Louis Car in 1901 as Lake Street Elevated RR 146. It was renumbered 3146 in 1913 and became CRT 3146 in 1923.” Not sure when it was converted into a work car.

North Shore Line city streetcar 357 is in Waukegan in 1946, signed for the Naval Station. Streetcar service ended the following year. Don’s Rail Photos: “357 was built by St Louis Car Co in January 1928, #1453. It was retired in 1948 and scrapped in 1950. The last city cars purchased new by the North Shore were cars 351 thru 360. They came from St. Louis Car in 1927 and 1928 and were designed to operate as one or two man cars. 351 thru 358 went to Milwaukee, and 359 and 360 went to Waukegan. In 1942, 353 thru 358 were sent to Waukegan for wartime service. It is said that 351 and 352 were also sent to Waukegan, but if so, their stay was short. In 1947, with the abandonment of the Waukegan lines, the entire group was sent to Milwaukee to replace the Birneys. They ran until abandonment on August 12, 1951.”

NSL loco 458 at the Pettibone Yard in North Chicago on July 16, 1960. (Gordon E. Lloyd Photo)

A North Shore Line freight train, headed by loco 456, at North Chicago Junction on March 2, 1946. (Gordon E. Lloyd Photo)

The North Shore Line headquarters in Highwood, IL. (Gordon E. Lloyd Photo)

NSL Silverliner756 at Highwood on April 15, 1950. (Gordon E. Lloyd Photo)

A three-car North Shore Line train on the “L”. (Gordon E. Lloyd Photo)

NSL 411 at Highwood on June 12, 1949. Don’s Rail Photos: “411 was built as a trailer observation car by Cincinnati Car in June 1923 #2640. It was out of service in 1932. It was rebuilt on February 25, 1943 as a two motor coach by closing in the open platform and changing the seating, and was sold to Trolley Museum of New York in 1963. It was sold to Wisconsin Electric Railway & Historical Society in 1973 and sold to the Escanaba & Lake Superior in 1989.” (Gordon E. Lloyd Photo)

A four-car NSL train on Greenleaf Avenue in Wilmette on February 11, 1939. (Gordon E. Lloyd Photo)

We have several pictures from this fantrip, which covered the Shore Line Route and then continued north to Milwaukee. I bought this, as I thought it might shed some light on the photo stops. But this “timetable” only gives the starting time of the trip. It does list points of interest, route mileage, safety rules, and has a complete roster of the equipment as of late 1954… including which 15 cars had already been converted to Silverliners by that time. (I think the total had reached 30 by 1963.)

Original 1920s artwork for four North Shore Line posters… in the collection of David A. Myers, who bought them when the railroad was going out of business in 1963.

The North Shore Line Mundelein Terminal in December 1962.

The same location today, looking east. The old terminal was located just to the right of that telephone pole. You can see where the old right-of-way was in that clearing at rear.

A North Shore Line train heads north at North Chicago Junction in June 1961. The tracks at left led to the old Shore Line Route. After the 1955 abandonment, one track was kept in service to connect with the headquarters at Highwood (and also for freight use). (William Shapotkin Collection)

The late William C. Hoffman took this picture of an Electroliner menu on November 12, 1962.

The East Troy Railroad Museum

Milwaukee streetcar 846 at East Troy. Don’s Rail Photos: “846 was built by St Louis Car Co in 1920, #1239. It was one-manned in 1925 and was donated to the Kentucky Railway Museum in 1958. After two floods it went to the Appleton Trolley Museum in 1983. It was found to be severely damaged and was finally restored in 1998. In October 2002, the ATM merged with the East Troy Electric Railroad Museum and 846 was the first car moved.”

South Shore Line car 24. Don’s Rail Photos: “24 was built by Pullman in 1927. It was lengthened and air conditioned, and got picture windows in 1947.” East Troy has turned it into a dining car.

South Shore Line car 33. Don’s Rail Photos: “33 was built by Standard Car in 1929, #P-3340. It was air-conditioned and sold to National Park Service in 1983.”

These stickers were applied to South Shore Line cars in the mid-1970s and became a rallying cry against abandonment.

South Shore Line car 9. Don’s Rail Photos: “9 was built by Pullman in 1926.”

South Shore Line car 13. Don’s Rail Photos: “13 was built by Pullman in 1926 and was rebuilt in 1946.”

CTA 4453. Don’s Rail Photos: “4453 was built by Cincinnati Car in 1924, #2860. It was acquired by Indiana Transportation Museum in 1974 and sold to East Troy Electric Ry in 1995.” George Trapp adds: “Enjoyed your latest post, but have a correction on the build dates for CRT/CTA 4420 and 4453 at East Troy. This order #2860 for cars 4356-4455 was placed in December of 1924 but the cars were actually built in 1925, being delivered in late summer, August and September. Car #4422 was photographed on September 4, 1925 by Cincinnati Car. The only cars built in 1924 were 4351-4355, order #2715 ordered in 1923 by Chicago Elevated prior to merger of January, 1924 of Northwestern, Metropolitan and South Side into CRT. Bankrupt Chicago & Oak Park purchased at foreclosure later in January, 1924.”

Sheboygan Light, Power and Railway Company car 26. Don’s Rail Photos: “Sheboygan 26 was built by Cincinnati Car in 1908, #835. It was converted to one man operation. It later was used as a lake cabin for many years and was given full restoration to its original condition.” This car was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.

Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light Company locomotive L-9. Don’s Rail Photos: “L9 was built at Cold Spring in 1944. It became WEPCo L9 in 1963 and was acquired by WERHS in 1979. It became East Troy Electric Ry L9 in 1989.”

South Shore Line car 30. Don’s Rail Photos: “30 was built by Standard Car in 1929, #P-3340. It was air conditioned and sold to Wisconsin Electric Railway Museum in 1984. It was sold to East Troy Electric Ry in 1984. It was later rebuilt without the humps and renumbered 1130.”

South Shore Line car 25. Don’s Rail Photos: “25 was built by Pullman in 1927. It was lengthened and air conditioned, and got picture windows in 1947.” East Troy has turned it into a dining car.

North Shore Line car 761 has recently been restored by East Troy and looks beautiful. Don’s Rail Photos: “761 was built by Standard Steel Car Co in 1930. It was modernized in 1949 and rebuilt as a Silverliner in October 11, 1957.” It has had a number of owners since 1963 but came to East Troy from the Michigan Transit Museum in 2001.

Watch your step. The car could board on either high-level or low-level platforms.

761’s cab area.

This would have been the smoking compartment back in the day.

The museum is justifiably proud of their restoration work.

The ticket booth at East Troy.

Bob Heinlein and his brother at East Troy.

Aboard 4420.

CTA 4420 at the Elegant Farmer store in Mukwonago. Don’s Rail Photos: “4420 was built by Cincinnati Car in 1924, #2860. It was acquired by Wisconsin Electric Historical Society on February 11, 1975, and sold to East Troy Electric Ry in 1988.” George Trapp adds: “Enjoyed your latest post, but have a correction on the build dates for CRT/CTA 4420 and 4453 at East Troy. This order #2860 for cars 4356-4455 was placed in December of 1924 but the cars were actually built in 1925, being delivered in late summer, August and September. Car #4422 was photographed on September 4, 1925 by Cincinnati Car. The only cars built in 1924 were 4351-4355, order #2715 ordered in 1923 by Chicago Elevated prior to merger of January, 1924 of Northwestern, Metropolitan and South Side into CRT. Bankrupt Chicago & Oak Park purchased at foreclosure later in January, 1924.”

Recent Correspondence

We recently received these two photos from our good friend David Harrison:

CTA 3311 on June 19, 2006 charter, paying tribute to the 2005 World Champion Chicago White Sox. (Bruce C. Nelson Photo, courtesy of David Harrison)

David Harrison in his CTA uniform, near Loomis, in a photo taken by his mother. I couldn’t quite make the processing date out on the slide– it was either December ’65 or ’66, although this picture was obviously taken at a different time of the year.

North Shore Line Mystery Photo

If anyone knows who took this picture, taken at the North Shore Line’s Milwaukee Terminal, please let me know. I checked with the Center for Railroad Photography and Art, and it apparently was not taken by the late John E. Gruber, although it does look similar to his work.

Now Available:

SGA-1
Stan Griffith Audio Recordings of the North Shore Line
# of Discs – 1
Price: $15.99

The late Stanwood C. Griffith (1926-2013) was an interesting character who is probably best known for building the two-foot gauge Rock River Valley Traction, a miniature electric railway that is large enough to ride on. He began building it on private property in a mysterious wooded area somewhere near Rockford, IL around 1950. Work continues on it to this day, and there are several videos of it on YouTube.

We only recently found out that he recorded some North Shore Line audio. Even better, what he did record is different than the other known recordings by William A. Steventon and Brad Miller.

Mr. Griffith made the only known recordings of the Shore Line Route, which quit in 1955. Steventon didn’t record NSL until the following year, and the Miller recordings are circa 1960.

This recording has some occasional narration. At one point, Griffith notes that the trolley bus wires in Kenosha are gone. Trolley buses ran there until 1952, so this dates the recordings to circa 1952-55.

He also recorded North Shore Line street running in Milwaukee, which is also unique as far as I am aware. There are also recordings of Milwaukee streetcars on this CD.

Total time – 52:36

Chicago’s Lost “L”s Online Presentation

We recently gave an online presentation about our book Chicago’s Lost “L”s for the Chicago Public Library, as part of their One Book, One Chicago series. You can watch it online by following this link.

The Trolley Dodger On the Air

We appeared on the Dave Plier Show on WGN radio on July 16, 2021, to discuss Chicago’s Lost “L”s. You can hear that discussion here.

Our Latest Book, Now Available:

Chicago’s Lost “L”s

From the back cover:

Chicago’s system of elevated railways, known locally as the “L,” has run continuously since 1892 and, like the city, has never stood still. It helped neighborhoods grow, brought their increasingly diverse populations together, and gave the famous Loop its name. But today’s system has changed radically over the years. Chicago’s Lost “L”s tells the story of former lines such as Garfield Park, Humboldt Park, Kenwood, Stockyards, Normal Park, Westchester, and Niles Center. It was once possible to take high-speed trains on the L directly to Aurora, Elgin, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The L started out as four different companies, two starting out using steam engines instead of electricity. Eventually, all four came together via the Union Loop. The L is more than a way of getting around. Its trains are a place where people meet and interact. Some say the best way to experience the city is via the L, with its second-story view. Chicago’s Lost “L”s is virtually a “secret history” of Chicago, and this is your ticket. David Sadowski grew up riding the L all over the city. He is the author of Chicago Trolleys and Building Chicago’s Subways and runs the online Trolley Dodger blog.

The Images of America series celebrates the history of neighborhoods, towns, and cities across the country. Using archival photographs, each title presents the distinctive stories from the past that shape the character of the community today. Arcadia is proud to play a part in the preservation of local heritage, making history available to all.

Title Chicago’s Lost “L”s
Images of America
Author David Sadowski
Edition illustrated
Publisher Arcadia Publishing (SC), 2021
ISBN 1467100007, 9781467100007
Length 128 pages

Chapters:
01. The South Side “L”
02. The Lake Street “L”
03. The Metropolitan “L”
04. The Northwestern “L”
05. The Union Loop
06. Lost Equipment
07. Lost Interurbans
08. Lost Terminals
09. Lost… and Found

Each copy purchased here will be signed by the author, and you will also receive a bonus facsimile of a 1926 Chicago Rapid Transit Company map, with interesting facts about the “L” on the reverse side.

The price of $23.99 includes shipping within the United States.

For Shipping to US Addresses:

For Shipping to Canada:

For Shipping Elsewhere:

Help Support The Trolley Dodger

This is our 289th 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 879,000 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.

Recent Finds and New Releases

December 17, 2021May 27, 2024David Sadowski Leave a comment

A colorized view of the Indianapolis Traction Terminal waiting room, circa 1909.

Besides our usual crop of classic traction photos, this time we also have exciting news about two new products related to the Railroad Record Club. Our good friend Ken Gear has been hard at work on collecting all things related to the late William Steventon’s railroad audio recordings and releases.

The result is a new book on disc, A Guide To the Railroad Record Club (see article below). This was quite a project and labor of love on Ken’s part!

Kenneth Gear‘s doggedness and determination resulted in his tracking down and purchasing the surviving RRC master tapes a few years back, and he has been hard at work having them digitized, at considerable personal expense, so that you and many others can enjoy them with today’s technology. We have already released a few RRC Rarities CDs from Ken’s collection.

When Ken heard the digitized version of RRC LP #08, Canadian National: Canadian Railroading in the Days of Steam, recorded by the late Elwin Purington, he was surprised to find the original tapes were more than twice the length of the 10″ LP. The resulting LP had been considerably edited down to the limited space available, 15 minutes per side.

The scenes were the same, but each was greatly shortened. Now, on compact disc, it is possible to present the full length recordings of this classic LP, which was one of Steventon’s best sellers and an all-around favorite, for the very first time.

Even better, a considerable part of the proceeds of these releases, both available through our Online Store or through the links below, will go to defray some of the thousands of dollars Ken has spent in trying to preserve this history for future generations. Chances are, without his efforts, the Steventon Railroad Record Club collection of tapes and other artifacts would have ended up in a dumpster by now, for lack of interest on anyone’s part in saving them.

For this, Ken deserves the thanks of anyone who enjoys hearing these historic recordings.

-David Sadowski

PS- You might also like our Trolley Dodger Facebook auxiliary, a private group that now has 643 members.

Kenneth Gear now has a Facebook group for all things related to the Railroad Record Club, and other railroad audio recordings. Again, it is a private group.

Auction for Jim Martin’s North Shore Line Sign

Jim Martin is a great guy, and you may have seen some of the North Shore Line videos he has posted to YouTube, taken from his original color 8mm movies. He recently contacted us, as he wants to sell an original porcelain-on-metal North Shore Line sign he purchased from legendary Chicago bookseller Owen Davies in 1962. (You can read more about Owen Davies here.)

This must have been from a Shore Line Route station, since the North Shore Line was still in operation at that time. You can find out more about this eBay auction here. Although we are running the auction and providing our “good offices,” 100% of the proceeds will go to Jim.

It ends at 9:02 PM Central Time on Friday, December 17th. Good luck with your bids.

Now Available – A Guide to the Railroad Record Club E-Book:

Price: $19.99

$10 from the sale of each RRC E-Book will go to Kenneth Gear to repay him for some of his costs in saving this important history.

As many Trolley Dodger readers are aware David and I have been trying to preserve the legacy of William Steventon’s Railroad Record Club. To that end we have collected all the released LPs and reissued them on CDs. We have posted many RRC traction photographs in this blog, put together a history of the club and gathered biographical information about William Steventon and his recording associates.

We uncovered some interesting information about the techniques and equipment used to make field recordings in the pre-digital age and the process of producing the LPs. I acquired the William Steventon estate and discovered a veritable treasure trove of unreleased audio, master tapes, original artwork commissioned for the album jackets, test pressings, movie films and numerous artifacts from all phases of the record making procedure from field tape to released LP.

Despite all that we accomplished we still had one very important question to answer. Now that we had all this material, how do we make it available to everyone who would be interested.

Much audio has been donated to museums and historical societies and CDs are offered for sale in the online store. The history of the club and the story of my efforts to buy the estate have appeared in this blog, but still, that didn’t seem to be enough. We wanted to do more. This wonderful historical material deserves more.

David finally hit on the perfect idea, he suggested that I write an eBook. This format would allow us to present not only a more detailed history of the club and an updated account of my purchase of the estate, but it could also include audio files, photo scans and movie files. Virtually all the Railroad Record Club archive could be gathered into one place!

I began to put the eBook together over a year ago. I rewrote the RRC history that appeared in this blog adding a lot of newly discovered data. Next, I revised my account of the estate purchase and wrote and entirely new chapter detailing the preservation efforts and the cost it entailed. I made lists of every single object acquired and made notes on condition. I spent many days photographing every item including scores of record jackets, labels, pressing plates and test pressings from the many editions of each LP. Countless hours were spent scanning documents, personal letters, magazine ads and articles. Photographs from the collection needed scanning and retouching. All this had to be cataloged and organized and information from many different sources had to be interpreted and fit into the timeline of RRC milestones. A lot of time and effort went into making the Railroad Record Club archive available on a convenient and inexpensive data disc electronic book.

In addition to all of the above, I have compiled what I think is an invaluable resource for RRC enthusiasts. The eBook has a compendium section that contains details about every released record. Each LP’s entry has all the accumulated information we have so far been able to discover about a particular record. Details such as the original release date, reissue date, differences in the various edition jackets and liner notes, master tape specifics and recording dates are listed. There are photo scans of each of the LP’s jackets, labels, test pressings, print blocks, master tapes, pressing plates and artwork. An “Additional Information” section is included for each record detailing any interesting facts we uncovered about the recordist, railroad equipment or notable incidents occurring during the field recording. Best of all each record’s entry has bonus audio tracks that may include unreleased recordings, audio salvaged from ancient homemade records, radio programs and/or railroad sounds from tapes that were in Steventon’s personal collection. Here are a two sample photos of record labels and the “data sheet” entry for Record Number SP-6.

RAILROAD RECORD CLUB

COMPENDIUM

DATA SHEET

RECORD NUMBER: SP-6

TITLE: THE MILWAUKEE ROAD

Box Cab Locomotives On The Coast Division

RELEASED ON 12 INCH DISC ONLY

NRP MATRIX CODE: NR 15567

YEAR OF FIRST PRESSING: 1983

JACKET ILLUSTRATION NOTES:

1st edition jacket has a drawing of CMSt.P&P box cab locomotive No. 10500 by Marshall (Pat) McMahon. Caption under drawing reads “No. 10500, later E-25 on Houser Way Renton, WA in the 1930’s. Drawn from a photo by James A. Turner in the warren W. Wing collection.”

Back has liner notes.

2nd edition jacket identical to 1st edition

SURVIVING MASTER TAPE(S):

None in the William Steventon estate.

DOCUMENT/PHOTO FOLDER CONTENTS:

(There may exist other editions and variations then those pictured)

1st edition jacket front and back

1st and 2nd edition labels

NRP test pressing labels side 1 and 2

Cassette card

McMahon CMSt.P&P box cab artwork

SOUND FOLDER CONTENTS:

Short excerpt from the unofficial sampler.

Elwin Purington CMSt.P&P box cab bonus track.

Sound folder notes:

Track 1:

In 1965 William Steventon ceased operating the Railroad Record Club as an actual “club.”

From then on all records were sold individually with no minimum to buy. He also stopped producing the sampler records at this time and no sampler records were made after the 8th year (1964).

To continue where Steventon left off an unofficial special pressings sampler has been made for this eBook. Excerpts of approximately 3 minutes each have been added to the sounds folders of the special pressings records.

Track 2:

This track was recorded by and is narrated by Elwin Purington. The recordings were made at Black River Junction near Seattle, Washington in 1960. The audio was taken from a tape-recorded letter Purington made to Steventon in 1961. These are some of Purington’s earliest stereo recordings and are very realistic. The air horn on those box cab monsters might blow you right out of your chair!

The scene opens as a long train arrives at Black River Junction powered by a set of the old box cabs. Various switching maneuvers are made in the yard. Then the cars are taken north on the wye and a “flying switch” is made and the caboose is moved over to the head end of the locomotives. The caboose’s high pitched air whistle is heard as the train, caboose now leading, crosses a road. Now heading east the train does more switching work. With all local work completed the caboose is put back where it belongs and the train heads out on the south leg of the wye towards Tacoma.

Total: 15:44

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

On the jacket front this record is advertised as the 30th anniversary issue 1953-1983. Steventon always dated the beginning of the Railroad Record Club to 1953, the year he made his first railroad recordings.

With the exception for two tracks on side 1, this is the only RRC record recorded in true stereo.

This was the last all new Railroad Record Club release.

Steventon first heard these Milwaukee Road box cab recordings in 1961. It would be 22 years before the recordings were finally released on vinyl.

Elsewhere on the eBook are scans of traction photographs that were sold by the Railroad Record Club.

There is a movie file containing William Steventon’s railroad home movies with footage of the PRR, B&O, N&W and NY Central among others. Traction fans will certainly enjoy scenes of the Washington D. C. Capital Transit streetcars and freight operations. A few screenshots follow:

Every known Steventon recording date, location and subject railroad has been collected and organized into a list.

Record ideas that never came to be are discussed and some interesting facts about the records and the people that recorded them are revealed.

For instance:

William Steventon endured health problems from an early age and his father, an engineer on the New York Central, broke company rules by allowing young William in the cab with him for fear that the child may die without them having spent enough time together.

Record Number 9 was recorded by Thomas A. Hosick. He was co-inventor of the low-pollution, Eliptocline automotive steam vapor engine and was featured in a 1966 cover story in Popular Science magazine.

William Steventon had the assistance of an CNS&M train accident victim in securing permission to make recordings on board North Shore trains.

Record SP-6 was the last all new RRC record and the only one recorded in stereo.

Many other previously unknown facts about the 37-year history of the Railroad Record Club have been painstakingly collected and combined with rare audio and video, vintage ads, photographs, catalogs and much more. A more complete look at the Railroad Record Club would be impossible to produce.

Despite all the work and research that went into compiling this archive, profit and return on investment was not the driving force. Preservation was! It is our belief that the best way to ensure that the legacy of the RRC continues to educate and entertain for years to come is to get it into as many hands as possible. That is why we are offering this incredible amount of material for the low price of $19.99. Each part of this eBook is worth that price on its own. Hours of vintage railroad audio, two video programs and scores of traction photos are included for that one low price. The compendium will prove to be a much-used resource to anyone who is a Railroad Record Club devotee. Even if you have little interest in the RRC itself, the audio and video alone is an outstanding bargain. Please consider purchasing a copy and help David and I preserve the work that William Steventon and all his contributors worked so hard to create.

–Kenneth Gear

Now Available:

RRC08D
Railroad Record Club #08 Deluxe Edition: Canadian National: Canadian Railroading in the Days of Steam, Recorded by Elwin Purington
The Complete Recording From the Original Master Tapes
Price: $15.99

Canadian National. Steaming giants pound high iron on mountain trails, rumble over trestles, hit torpedos and whistle for many road crossings. Mountain railroading with heavy power and lingering whistles! Includes locomotives 3566, 4301, 6013, 3560.

Total time – 72:57

$5 from the sale of RRC08D CD will go to Kenneth Gear to repay him for some of his costs in saving this important history.

A railfan takes his picture of Philadelphia Transportation Company 5205 on September 14, 1956.

CSL 2802 must have been a fan favorite, as it was used on fantrips both on June 12, 1940 and July 13, 1941. Chances are this trip might be the earlier one, if the Indianapolis sign was correct. Indianapolis Boulevard is in Hammond, on the Hammond, Whiting, and East Chicago line that stopped going into Indiana on June 9, 1940. Of course, fans often used to put all sorts of signs up during trips, even if they weren’t going to those places.

Brooklyn-Queens Transit 8258, a Peter Witt, was built by St. Louis Car Company in 1925. The trolley is on Stillwell Avenue at Coney Island.

The same location today, courtesy of Mark J. Wolodarsky.

Milwaukee Electric heavyweight cars 1129 and 1135, along with CTA trolley bus 9192, at the Illinois Electric Railway Museum in North Chicago, IL in August 1959. It is now at Union as bus 192, its original number.

Illinois Terminal combine 277 was built by the St. Louis Car Company in 1913. Here it is at the IERM in North Chicago in August 1959.

Indiana Railroad car 65 at the IERM site in North Chicago in August 1959. Don Ross: “65 was built by Pullman in 1931, #6399. The lounge section was replaced by a baggage section. 65 was sold to the Cedar Rapids & Iowa City as 120 in 1941. In 1954 it was purchased as the first car of the Illinois Railway Museum, which was known as the Illinois Electric Railway Museum at that time. I put in many enjoyable hours working on that car prior to 1960 when I moved to Peoria.” It appears this picture was taken when the car was being repainted from CRANDIC colors to its original IR colors.

This, and the next two pictures, show former Milwaukee Electric work car M-15 at East Troy in August 1959. Don’s Rail Photos: “M15 was built at Cold Spring Shops in 1920 as a trailer, but it was motorized almost immediately. It was transferred to the isolated East Troy operation in 1939, and sold to the Municipality of East Troy in 1949. It is sold to WERHS in 1982 and now preserved at the IRM (since) 1989.”

North Shore Line city streetcar 354 at the IERM in North Chicago in August 1959. Don Ross: “354 was built by St Louis Car Co in January 1928, #1453. It became the last car on August 12, 1951. It was purchased by the president of the Chicago Hardware Foundry. It was painted into the green and red of CHF, but the motors were removed. The car was acquired by the Illinois Electric Railway Museum (now IRM). Restoration began in 1958 (I put many hours on the car), and it is now in operation in Union. When I visited the car in 1989, it brought back many happy memories.”

A two-car Milwaukee Electric interurban train at an unknown location, bound for Milwaukee.
(Ray Muller Photo)

Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee car 300. Don’s Rail Photos: “300 thru 302 were built by Jewett in 1909 as mainline coaches. As the steel cars arrived, they were downgraded to local and school tripper service. In 1936 they became sleet cutters. In 1939 300 was turned over to the Central Electric Railfans Association as a private car. The ownership remained with the CNS&M, but the maintenance was taken over by CERA. During the war, with many members in service, CERA relinquished control, and the car was scrapped in 1947. 301 and 302 were retired in 1939 and scrapped in 1940.”

CNS&M 300 in Highwood, IL, when it was the Central Electric Railfans’ Association private car in 1941.

North Shore Line car 300 at an unknown location (somewhere along the Shore Line Route), possibly on the same 1941 fantrip as in the previous picture.

North Shore Line Birney car 336 in Milwaukee in 1946. The city streetcar franchise holder was the Chicago & Milwaukee Electric, predecessor of the CNS&M, so that’s how the cars were lettered.

North Shore Line Birney car 329, built by Cincinnati Car Company in 1922, at the Harrison Street Shops in Milwaukee on June 21, 1947. (Bob McLeod Photo)

North Shore Line city streetcar 360 in Waukegan, signed to go to the Naval Station.

North Shore Line wood car 200, probably near the end of its service life in the 1930s.

North Shore Line combination car 81, built by American in 1910, was taken out of regular service in 1935, and retired in 1937. (James B. M. Johnson Photo)

Chicago Surface Lines 4008 is eastbound on Madison at Laramie on October 25, 1945, sporting “tiger stripes.”

The Grand Rapids Railroad did not number their streetcars, giving them names instead. This is the “James W. Ransom,” named after an early settler to this area. Buses were substituted for streetcars here in 1935. (Stephen D. Maguire Photo)

Chicago Surface Lines car 2855, possibly circa 1942, when CSL looked into putting cars like these back into service, after they had been in storage for a decade. Ultimately, it was decided against doing this, and this class of cars ended its days in work service. Don’s Rail Photos: “2855 was built by South Chicago City Ry in 1907 as SCCRy 341. It was rebuilt in 1907 and became C&SCRy 841 in 1908. It was renumbered 2855 in 1913 and became CSL 2855 in 1914. It was later converted as a salt car and renumbered AA106 in 1948. It was retired on October 11, 1951.” (Charles Able Photo)

Five Mile Beach Electric Railway car 21, circa 1940. It ran in Wildwood, New Jersey. Streetcars were replaced by buses in this seacoast town in 1945.

Five Mile Beach Electric Railway car 21.

Five Mile Beach Electric Railway car 21, circa 1940.

Five Mile Beach Electric Railway car 35, circa 1940.

The Atlantic City and Shore (aka the “Shore Fast Line”) ran between Atlantic City and Ocean City until 1948. Here, car 109 is in Atlantic City. It was built by the John Stephenson Company in 1906.

LaMar M. Kelly (1897-1947) was an early, and noted, railfan photographer. He took this picture of Chicago Aurora and Elgin electric loco 3004 at the Wheaton Yard on August 6, 1939.

LaMar Kelley’s large 116-sized negative came in this old Kodak envelope. He took the photo in 1939, but the envelope could be even older than that.

SEPTA 160, a Strafford car, is on the Norristown High-Speed Line at top, with an electric commuter rail train below. The bridge crossed the Schuylkill River. This photo was taken on September 6, 1978.

CSL 6285, called either a Peter Witt or a Sedan, is on Route 22 – Clark-Wentworth, possibly in the 1930s. Car 6285 was built by CSL in 1929.

CSL 6208 in Hammond, Indiana in 1940, shortly before service on this line was cut back to the state line. Don’s Rail Photos: “6208 (a Multiple Unit car) was built by CSL in 1924. It was rebuilt as one man service in 1932.”

CSL 2615 (known as a Robertson Rebuild) crosses a bridge on 106th Street on June 21, 1941. We are looking west. Don’s Rail Photos: “2615 was built by St Louis Car Co in 1901. It was retired on December 4, 1945.” (Robert W. Gibson Photo)

MBTA (Boston) 3344, an ex-Dallas double-ended PCC is at Milton Lower Mills on the Ashmont-Mattapan line on March 24, 1968.

CTA 4000s and 2200s on the Loop “L” in 1973. looking west from Clark and Lake. The train at left is an Evanston Express, with Lake-Dan Ryan on the right.

CTA red Pullman 863 is running northbound on Stony Island at 72nd, headed towards Navy Pier. A Kaiser-Frazer dealership is in the distance, and a truck dealer at right.

On May 16, 1954, CTA red Pullman 479 is at the Western and 79th turnaround loop on a CERA fantrip. During this period, streetcars were used on Western during weekdays only, so the fantrip cars did not impede regular traffic. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

North Shore Line car 748 at Lake Bluff, IL on October 19, 1963, several months after abandonment of the line.

No information came with this one, which shows North Shore Line car 732 at, I presume, Highwood in perhaps the 1930s or 40s.

I recently won this auction for “an unsent Real Photo Postcard. It is titled Heyworth Grading Gang #5 Aug. ’06. / C.M.E.R.R. (Horlicsville) (sic) Marshall Photo. CYKO Stamp Box on the reverse. Horlicksville was a place that takes its name from the Horlick family, which had the Horlick malted milk plant in the community. This town was located about two miles north of Racine Wisconsin and this photo would have been taken about the time they were building the Chicago Milwaukee Electric Railroad Line between Racine and Milwaukee.”

Chicago’s Lost “L”s Online Presentation

The Trolley Dodger On the Air

We appeared on the Dave Plier Show on WGN radio on July 16, 2021, to discuss Chicago’s Lost “L”s. You can hear that discussion here.

Our Latest Book, Now Available:

Chicago’s Lost “L”s

From the back cover:

Chicago’s system of elevated railways, known locally as the “L,” has run continuously since 1892 and, like the city, has never stood still. It helped neighborhoods grow, brought their increasingly diverse populations together, and gave the famous Loop its name. But today’s system has changed radically over the years. Chicago’s Lost “L”s tells the story of former lines such as Garfield Park, Humboldt Park, Kenwood, Stockyards, Normal Park, Westchester, and Niles Center. It was once possible to take high-speed trains on the L directly to Aurora, Elgin, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The L started out as four different companies, two starting out using steam engines instead of electricity. Eventually, all four came together via the Union Loop. The L is more than a way of getting around. Its trains are a place where people meet and interact. Some say the best way to experience the city is via the L, with its second-story view. Chicago’s Lost “L”s is virtually a “secret history” of Chicago, and this is your ticket. David Sadowski grew up riding the L all over the city. He is the author of Chicago Trolleys and Building Chicago’s Subways and runs the online Trolley Dodger blog.

The Images of America series celebrates the history of neighborhoods, towns, and cities across the country. Using archival photographs, each title presents the distinctive stories from the past that shape the character of the community today. Arcadia is proud to play a part in the preservation of local heritage, making history available to all.

The price of $23.99 includes shipping within the United States.

For Shipping to US Addresses:

For Shipping to Canada:

For Shipping Elsewhere:

NEW DVD:

A Tribute to the North Shore Line

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the demise of the fabled North Shore Line interurban in January 2013, Jeffrey L. Wien and Bradley Criss made a very thorough and professional video presentation, covering the entire route between Chicago and Milwaukee and then some. Sadly, both men are gone now, but their work remains, making this video a tribute to them, as much as it is a tribute to the Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee.

Jeff drew on his own vast collections of movie films, both his own and others such as the late William C. Hoffman, wrote and gave the narration. Bradley acted as video editor, and added authentic sound effects from archival recordings of the North Shore Line.

It was always Jeff’s intention to make this video available to the public, but unfortunately, this did not happen in his lifetime. Now, as the caretakers of Jeff’s railfan legacy, we are proud to offer this excellent two-hour program to you for the first time. The result is a fitting tribute to what Jeff called his “Perpetual Adoration,” which was the name of a stop on the interurban.

Jeff was a wholehearted supporter of our activities, and the proceeds from the sale of this disc will help defray some of the expenses of keeping the Trolley Dodger web site going.

Total time – 121:22

# of Discs – 1
Price: $19.99 (Includes shipping within the United States)

Help Support The Trolley Dodger

This is our 282nd 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 830,000 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.

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

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

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!

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.
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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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Reader Showcase

November 30, 2019December 2, 2019David Sadowski 4 Comments

On this Thanksgiving Day weekend, we here at the Trolley Dodger have many things to be thankful for… chiefly among them, our readers. This seems like a good time to feature recent correspondence with our very knowledgeable and astute readers. We thank all our contributors.

I wish you the best in this upcoming holiday season.

-David Sadowski

Kim Bolan writes:

Just came across The Trolley Dodger and what a great and detailed work. It reminds me of my youth in Milwaukee riding No. 10 Line in Tosa (Wauwautosa) and also Speedrail. I have a question regarding #978. I lived in San Francisco but never saw this car in operation. Is it part of Muni’s heritage collection?

Just received this 35mm transparency (Kodak film and processing) from an unknown photographer taken September 1984 of car 978 at San Francisco, CA (see above).

Car 978 was loaned to San Francisco in the mid-1980s, intended for use in the SF Trolley Festival, but my understanding is it was damaged somehow and never operated there. As far as I know, the car is now at the East Troy Electric Railroad in Wisconsin, where it is stored inoperable.

There is a picture of it in SF in this post.

Here is the full story on what happened to 978, thanks to Larry Sakar:

Regarding the question about TM streetcar 978 in San Francisco, I know all about it. MUNI and TWERHS* worked out a deal whereby 978 was to be sent to San Francisco to participate in the very first Historic Streetcar Festival in 1983. It was not in the best of condition to begin with. En route, one of the truck bolsters (the 900’s were notorious for having bad bolsters) gave way and came through the floor (it was being trucked out there.) It was unloaded and brought to Geneva upper yard where it was parked in among some Boeing LRV’s. It made its way back to East Troy probably at the end of the festival in September and was never a part of the historic fleet. Now, here’s some additional info about it.

The 978 was saved by Mr. Al Buetschle, then of Milwaukee but since 1960 or 61 a resident of Oakley, CA. Oakley is in Contra Costa County about 60 miles NE of San Francisco. Oakley is a little “one-horse town” in what is known as the Tri-Delta region.

The streetcar was initially saved on behalf of the Wauwatosa Kiwanis Club who gave Al the money to buy it. It would take pages for me to provide all of the details of the day he bought it. Frederick J. Johnson head of M&STC personally handled the sale. Al had told them he wanted a 900 and one from that group of 10 because they were the only ones with that metal sun shade over the center window.

When he got to Col Spring shops sure enough they had an 800 waiting. He refused to accept it. The car he really wanted was the 975 but it was too far back in the scrap line in lower Cold Spring yard. To get the 978 meant moving 3 cars ahead of it. Johnson was plenty mad about having to do that. So they get on the first car to be moved. Johnson puts a fuse in the fuse box. But then he stupidly cranks up the controller and blows the fuse.

This happens a second time so Al says, “Here, I’ll show you what to do!” Johnson immediately wants to know, “How do you know how to operate a streetcar?” Al tells him he was friendly with a motorman who taught him to run a car on the Rt. 10 West Allis branch between Calvary Cemetery cut and 67th St. Murray, the motorman would then take it from there since it involved descending from the former Rapid Transit line and making a safety stop before crossing 68th St.

Well, Dave, Johnson has an absolute fit!! *&%%^( (expletives deleted) I want his name.” Al says, “No. He has retired now that streetcars are gone so it doesn’t matter “In the end he got the 978 and Johnson even gave him his money back admiring him for his tenacity. Al had a friend who had access to a flatbed truck. Johnson let him drive 978 up from lower Cold Spring. The car was loaded onto the flatbed truck and taken to a piece of track adjacent to the C&NW and a lumber company at North 91st Street and West Flag Avenue on Milwaukee’s northwest side.

By this time the Kiwanis Club decided they didn’t want it so Al now owned it. He took out all the seats and repainted the interior before putting them back. He would work on 978 as his time permitted. The Kiwanis Club had the “brainy” idea of displaying the car in Hart Park in Wauwatosa. Hart Park is just down the private right-of-way (now a driveway) parallel to West State Street, east of the Harwood Avenue streetcar terminal at Harwood and State Streets (long gone).

In 1961, Al got a job as a controller for a company and moved to the Bay Area. No, he didn’t take 978 with him. It then ended up at the Mid-Continent Railway museum in North Freedom. In the mid to late ’60’s the group that is now TWERHS was formed and the car went with them to their first home in North Lake, WI. In 1972 they opened the East Troy Trolley Museum which is now under a different organization.

None of us are really sure where 978 is. It is in need of major restoration. At one time the rumor was that it was going to be sent to Brookville Equipment out east. They’re the company that does all the refurbishing of MUNI’s historic PCC fleet.

Did Al see it when it was in San Francisco? Yes he did. He has a fantastic picture he took with 978 and his red sports car (convertible). He is putting the trolley pole on the wire. I f I recall correctly his red car was a T-Bird. It was totaled about 10 years ago when he was hit by a group of teenagers out joy riding and who as you can probably guess were not insured.

I snapped a picture of it sitting in among the Boeing cars in 1983. I had to climb up on a narrow cement ledge and shot thru the openings in a cyclone fence. I’ll have to see if I still have it and if I do I will scan it and send it.

By the way, as a little boy of maybe 9 or 10 my grandparents came over one day. They said they were taking me to see something but wouldn’t tell me what. It was a surprise. Yes, it was the 978 at the lumber company. The Milwaukee Journal had run a small story about it with a picture. It had to be when Al was doing the repainting because I remember looking thru the glass in the door (I came up about as far as the bottom of the glass in the door. All of the seats were piled at that end of the car and I thought they were going to junk it.

My grandmother who had taken me on my streetcar rides on RT. 10 between about 1955 and 3-1-58 said she didn’t know. Who could ever have imagined that 30 years later I would meet the person who saved 978. One other coincidence, David. From 1978 to 1997 I worked for Security Savings & Loan Association on 2nd and Wisconsin downtown. The Corporate Secretary was a man named Walter Bruno. As it happens he was Al’s Godfather!

Thanks, Larry, for sharing the complete story. There is a database of saved North American electric railcars, last updated in 2014, and that is my source for saying that, as far as I know, the 978 is at East Troy.

*The Wisconsin Electric Railway Historical Society

Here’s more from Larry Sakar:

Here is the photo of 978 I took in September, 1983. The picture that follows was the Geneva car house which suffered severe damage in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. I think I took this in 1987 because that is a train with MUNI’s then new BREDA cars. Now they have new ones which I’ve only seen in pictures in Trains and Railfan & Railroad. The Market Street subway for MUNI was closed when I was there in 2017 because they were testing the new cars. If you look at the right hand side of the picture there’s that concrete wall I mentioned having to climb on top of and the fence I had to shoot thru.

The most popular cars during the Trolley Festival and in the event they hold for one day in September of every year (forgot its name) are the two Blackpool, England boat trams #’s 228 and 232. Here are some shots I took while riding it in 1983. Last, here is an Al Buetschle shot. It was taken at the site of the Speedrail 9-2-50 accident post Speedrail abandonment. Those are remnants from duplex 39-40 that was demolished by 1192-93.

The Milwaukee Electric Rapid Transit Freight Terminal

Larry Sakar writes:

It stood for 76 years, had four different owners and was razed in 2006 as part of the Marquette Interchange reconstruction project. I am talking about the Rapid Transit freight terminal building constructed by TM and opened in 1930 at 940 W. St. Paul Avenue.

TM fully expected that freight would play an important role in operations over the Milwaukee Rapid Transit Line. Unfortunately, like the Rapid Transit Line itself which opened on Sept. 22, 1930 the timing couldn’t have been worse! As part of its planned freight operations TM acquired Motor Transport Company in 1930 from Yellow Trucking.

A decade later, TMER&T turned its back on all rail operations. Motor Transport Company was sold back to Yellow Trucking. Its trucks had a Transport Company orange cab and a silver trailer with the Transport Company diamond logo. But instead of saying The Transport Company, as the logo on busses and streetcars did, it said Motor Transport Company. I vividly recall seeing those trucks around Milwaukee. I always wondered how they could get away with using The Transport Company’s logo not knowing until years later that it had once been a part of the company.

TMER&T occupied offices on two floors of the eight-story terminal. Its successor, The Milwaukee & Suburban Transport Corp. which succeeded it in late 1952 continued to have its corporate offices there until 1962 when they moved to 4212 W. Highland Blvd. The former Cold Spring shops buildings still stand, and have been sold for adaptive reuse. MCTS corporate offices are on North 17th St. & West Fond du Lac Avenue.

I took the “Now” photos in 2003. In 1940, in addition to selling off Motor Transport Co. TMER&T sold the Rapid Transit freight terminal building to GE Holdings. Sometime after `1938, the electric sign on the roof was changed to read “The Transport Company”. GE owned the building until 1971 when they sold it to Aldrich Chemical. The electric sign was removed altogether after M&STC moved out in 1962. When GE took over in 1940, “General Electric Building” was painted on just below the roof. Looking at my 2003 photos it would appear that they sand blasted that off when Aldrich Chemical took over in 1971.

I bought this photo from Don Ross a few years back. It is from the collection of Tom Manz. I don’t know if he is the person who took the picture but I kind of doubt it. I’ve no idea who did or why. It could be that they were plotting out the area so they could determine where they wanted the ramps to and from the soon to be built “High Rise Bridge” over the Menomonee River Valley would be constructed.

These are the ramps that take you from eastbound I-94 either north on I-43 or south on I-94. I-94 turns south to cross the valley so from this point east the road becomes I-794 which takes you east and then south over the Hoan Bridge. The High Rise bridge was built over a three-year period beginning in the summer of 1966. I know because my brother got a job working on its construction during summer break from college (Michigan State U. in East Lansing). I vividly remember my mother having an absolute fit about him working up there.

The view is looking south and slightly east. The former freight terminal is on the right hand side of the picture about 1/3 of the way up from the bottom of the picture. Just put a finger on the right hand corner of the picture at the bottom and move it up and a bit left. That first visible street is North 10th Street. The Rapid Transit freight terminal is right at that corner. The factory directly across the street with the connecting pedestrian overpass is the Cutler-Hammer Company, still there today. The railroad tracks belong to the Milwaukee Road.

OK. Follow the street in front of the terminal to the left (east). Right where it dog-legs there is an open space. That is where Motor Transport Company was located. The intersection above and to the left is North 8th & W. St. Paul. Move your finger down slightly and that’s where the so called “temporary ramp” over the portal of the never completed subway had been. I’m not certain if any of that dark space beneath the 8th Street bridge could have been part of the unfinished subway. The street in the foreground with all of the traffic is Clybourn Street, which has been converted to the on and on ramp to I-94 which didn’t begin until 13th Street.

I have printed a copy of the first scan and with a ruler and magic marker put in the approximate route of the Rapid Transit from the turn off of Clybourn Street to the crossing of North 10th Street. The Hibernia Street one-block L began on the west side of North 10th Street. -Larry

More from Larry:

While browsing around on the “Net” recently I ran across this great picture credited to your Trolley Dodger website. I was wondering when it ran on your site as I don’t recall having seen it. Do you know where this is? I can tell you if you don’t. This is a northbound Port Washington train at the intersection of North 3rd and West Wells Streets. This is former dining car duplex 1196-97, which unlike its mate 1198-99 was never repainted in the yellow with green stripes paint scheme. The two trains were hated by both motormen and conductors alike, because their single door made them slow to load and unload passengers. Both became mainstays on the Port Washington line until it was abandoned in the KMCL ownership era on 3-28-48. The Port Washington destination sign dates the picture to sometime between 1940 and 1948. I do not recall the exact date but in 1940 service north of Port Washington was abandoned and a new loop installed in Port Washington west of the downtown area. Typical of TM’s notorious frugality, the bridge over Pike Creek just outside the new Port Washington Loop was the one that had once crossed the White River in Burlington.

I took these pictures in 1989 showing the ex TM Port Washington Station sitting on what little was left of the former loop. A Wisconsin Telephone Company building had been built over most of the loop. I’m not sure if it’s still there but the last picture I saw of it the building had undergone a complete remodeling and bore no resemblance to its original appearance.

Thanks for sharing the pictures and information. I am sure our readers will appreciate it.

The picture in question appeared here.

Don’s Rail Photos says, “1196-1197 was built at Cold Spring in 1929. The second car was equipped with small dining facilities but it was shortly rebuilt with a baggage compartment at the rear end. It was stored at West Allis Station after a few years. In 1942 it was rebuilt with all coach and scrapped in 1952.” This car is shown in downtown Milwaukee, signed for the Port Washington interurban line.

Steven G. writes:

Can anyone at Trolley Dodger help me out? I want to find photos of all FOUR sides of any of the Insull inspired Spanish stations. Don’t laugh… but I am actually going to have a 26′ x 70′ station built. I have a good photo of the Briergate station… but the other 3 sides: no present photos to look at.
THANKS!!!

I will look into this and see what I can do, thanks.

Dave…. Luck has it and I’m pretty happy with what I have for photos now. From the GEM (Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Historical publication)… I have a photo now of the back side of the Deeprpath station. Wasn’t sure what the “cube” on the back side was. Turns out – the Beverly Shores (Indiana) South Shore station has a sketch in it’s National Historic designation paperwork that shows the “cube” is the enclosure linking the back of the station with a basement under the station. (For some reason, none of the Insull Station’s had indoor stairs to their basements).

Anyway… with some Google earth street shots, I have the side of the station I was missing. Sooo… yes, I now have a view “all the way around” and can see what all four corners of the station looked like. Sadly, in comparing the Beverly Shores station with Briergate: the chimney at Briergate is gone and I suspect where that ugly red garage was placed took out the passenger side of the station. I can also see where Briergate no longer has the arched front door. The door frame has been altered for a rectangular storm door.

As I live about a 3 1/2 hour drive from Beverly Shores, I am going to drive my car from north of Detroit to Michigan City, hop on the South Shore, hop off at Beverly Shores with my camera, measuring tape, pencil and paper & I will then get ‘hands’ on measurements of windows, doors, etc. By the time I finish – I can hop on the train back to Michigan City. This will take less then half a day to do all this. But… I can put some serious numbers into these ‘station sketches’, & push onto actually putting together a construction blueprint!!!

You may already know this: photo set 1 is Deerpath (frt) Deerpath (bk) & below is the parking lot side of Beverly Shores sta. Photo set 2 is Beverly Shores (top) and Briergate (below).

This is great, thank you! I am sure others will enjoy seeing these pictures.

Steve G. replies:

Here’s the floor plan at all the Insull stations had… and a better photo of the station front door. Not sure WHY the residents installed a neon light sign over the passenger station… but it is still there and it’s lit each night at dusk (smiles)

Mitch Markovitz adds:

The neon sign at Beverly Shores Depot was not installed by the residents. It came with the depot when it was new in 1929. Touting the new development by Bartlett who had the railroad and Post Construction build the building. The Venango (River) guys had the neon sign repaired by Jeff Jolley back in ’85. It then had to be re-done again.

Recent Finds

Here are some of our own recent photo finds. These include some unrealized plans, dated December 9, 1970, showing how the City of Chicago intended to replace the Loop “L” with subways in stages. This was eventually abandoned as being too expensive, and the “L” looks to be here to stay as an iconic part of Chicago.

-David Sadowski

Wacker Drive construction at Madison Street on September 19, 1951. The view is looking north. An eastbound CTA PCC is on shoo-fly trackage. Note how dirty the Civic Opera House building is at left, most likely due to the widespread use of coal for heating in this era.

A close-up of the previous picture, showing the construction of Lower Wacker Drive.

A City of Chicago rendering of the Wells Street Plaza, just east of the old Main Post Office, dated January 25, 1956.

A photo of this “street car waiting room,” located at 38th and Western, appeared in Bulletin 146 of the Central Electric Railfans’ Association. Here is another view by Bob Selle, taken on January 30, 1954. This amenity was provided by a local merchant and, due to a fire, did not last long after the end of streetcar service in 1956.

CTA 6165 is at 51st and Indiana Avenue on August 18, 1952, in this photo by Bob Selle.

A Blast From the Past

Sean Hunnicutt writes:

I thought this might be a nice thing to revisit in Trolley Dodger or Chicago L Facebook page. Well done!

This was my attempt, long ago, in a galaxy far far away, to get Chicago to have a “circulator” streetcar of the type that several other cities have since built. From the Chicago Tribune, August 1, 1982.

Mystery Photo

A picture appeared in Bulletin 146 of the Central Electric Railfans’ Association (page 301), credited to Charles Thorpe, from the Wien-Criss Archive, showing a Chicago PCC streetcar at Clark and Wells. Someone posted this image to Facebook, and in response, another writer questioned the accuracy of the location, since Wells does not run into Clark today. This prompted some correspondence between me and Andre Kristopans.

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.

The same location today.

Me:

When did the CTA put a bus turnaround where Lincoln, Clark, and Wells meet? When was it removed? (I assume, when Route 11 ended?)

Wells dead ends now, and doesn’t actually meet Clark. But did they meet at one time, and was Wells truncated?

Andre:

Close but no banana. Until the 1960s, Wells continued straight north until it merged into Clark. There was double track on Wells that joined tracks on Clark. Lincoln dead ended into Clark pretty much as it does today. The only part of Lincoln that had track in this area was a single track coming off the southbound Clark track that joined the northbound Wells track, roughly 50 feet long. This was erroneously referred to by CTA as “Menominee” in Armitage route descriptions. Menominee is actually a half block south and never had tracks. The hundred odd feet of Wells between Clark and Lincoln is the only thing missing.

Now the CTA built a terminal at Clark and Wisconsin, a block north, in the 70s. There was continuous and vehement opposition from the owner of the adjacent house from day one, and as a result in the 90s CTA gave up and closed it down. Armitage, Ogden, and some Lincoln buses used it. Look at the Armitage route history on the Irm-cta website for exact dates.

Thanks for the information… and we thank all our readers! Keep those cards and letters coming in, folks.

-David Sadowski

Recent Correspondence

Don Ross writes:

I thought your readers might enjoy seeing this photo from my collection. It shows a westbound 800 on the private right-of-way heading for the Harwood Avenue terminal. (The way to tell an 800 from a 900 is by the front center window. 800s had a much narrower center window than the 900s.) It’s hard to make out but State Street is to the left of the poles in this picture (where you see the jumble of white colored buildings. The RR tracks to the right of it belonged to the Milwaukee Road back then. This stretch of private right-of-way was a favorite for photographers.

Just east of this point the streetcars made an “S” turn to the right (south, cut across a roughly 3/4 block patch of r.o.w. and then emerged on a street called Motor Avenue where they ran east for a little over a block to North 68th Street. At 68th they turned right, crossed the Menomonee River for the second time, and climbed the hill to West Wells Street. Here they turned left to head east on Wells all the way to downtown Milwaukee. Before getting there, the cars would cross the Menomonee River a third time on the famous Wells Street streetcar trestle.

Never has a bridge terrified so many people! My first streetcar rides in Milwaukee occurred when I was about 5 and ended on the last day 3-1-58. My grandmother and I got off the car on each end of the trestle and rode across several times so, as she said, “You’ll always remember it” and I do. She would always prep me as the car was about to cross, “Now, don’t be afraid.” Are you kidding? I loved every minute of it and yes, I never forgot the experience. Actually, Dave, I think she was the one who was afraid. It was remarkable to watch how people either stared straight ahead or kept their eyes on the magazine or newspaper they were reading.

After streetcars quit on 3-1-58 the Milwaukee & Suburban Transport Corp. donated the trestle to the city of Milwaukee. The city debated for two years as to what to do with it but in the end it was dismantled in 1960. In all the years that trestle served the streetcars, and in the earliest days interurban trains, there was never an accident or derailment of any kind. However, the bridge was notorious for drivers who had imbibed a bit too much of the product “that made Milwaukee famous,” some of which was brewed by Miller Brewing at the east end of the trestle, tried driving across. If bouncing along the ties and rails didn’t sober them up the damage to their tires and front end suspension sure did along with the traffic citation, and a bill from the Transport Co. for removal of their car and any damage done to the trestle.

The late Lew Martin, a member of the Railroad Historical Foundation also known as the “607 gang” for Milwaukee streetcar 607 which they purchased in March of 1949 and were in the process of restoring a Hibernia St. yards just east of the Rapid Transit freight terminal at 940 W. St. Paul Ave. told me that he and a group of his friends would wait at the end of the Wells Street trestle usually the west end. That was a stop. They would climb onto the back end while holding on to the trolley rope and ride across. Lew commented, “Boy, if my mother had ever found out what I’d been doing I’d have been in a lot of trouble!”

Another former Milwaukeean, Mr. “Pete” Rogers who by the 1980’s when I got to know him was living in Bullhead City, AZ told the story of a school trip on the streetcar from his high school, Juneau High, which was a few blocks north of the Rapid Transit line when the line was there to the Milwaukee Public Museum downtown on 8th and Wisconsin. The Central Library and Public Museum used to occupy the same building. Today, the museum has its own building on 8th and Wells. Anyway, boys will be boys. Streetcars had bars across the lower part of the windows to prevent kids from sticking their hands out. One of his buddies discovered that a set of the bars below the window at which they were seated were loose. They managed to work an entire panel of bars loose and thinking it would be great fun, lifted it up and sent it sailing over the railing of the viaduct where it came crashing down in the parking lot of the Hilty-Forster Lumber Company 80 feet below. They thought it was a great prank until the next day. The class was called to the school auditorium. Up on stage stood the principal and a Transport Company supervisor. Oh, Oh! No one would admit who did it so the whole class got punished and had to pay for repairs to the streetcar and damages to the parking lot. What seemed like a great prank could have had serious consequences if that set of bars had hit someone.

My father told me that as kids they used to put these big firecrackers he called “Salutes” on the streetcar tracks and watch as the trucks went over them causing them to lift off the rails.

In the days prior to 1937, Rt 10 cars continued past the Harwood terminal and climbed the hill on the way out to the Muirdale Sanitorium. Streetcars carried a destination sign that read Rt 10 WAUCOBLDG. That was TM shorthand for Wauwatosa County Buildings.

TM 905, looking west at the Harwood Avenue terminal.

Same location ca. 1990’s. Larry Sakar photo

Looking east on Motor Avenue in Wauwautosa. Note evidence of tracks in the pavement.

A 900-series car (953?), eastbound entering Motor Avenue on Route 10. (Don Ross Photo)

An 800-series car near 71st and State, heading westbound on route 10.

Now Available On Compact Disc
CDLayout33p85
RRCNSLR
Railroad Record Club – North Shore Line Rarities 1955-1963
# of Discs – 1
Price: $15.99
Railroad Record Club – North Shore Line Rarities 1955-1963
Newly rediscovered and digitized after 60 years, most of these audio recordings of Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee interurban trains are previously unheard, and include on-train recordings, run-bys, and switching. Includes both Electroliners, standard cars, and locomotives. Recorded between 1955 and 1963 on the Skokie Valley Route and Mundelein branch. We are donating $5 from the sale of each disc to Kenneth Gear, who saved these and many other original Railroad Record Club master tapes from oblivion.
Total time – 73:14
[/caption]

Tape 4 switching at Roudout + Mundeline pic 3 Tape 3 Mundeline Run pic 2 Tape 3 Mundeline Run pic 1 Tape 2 Mundeline pic 3 Tape 2 Mundeline pic 2 Tape 2 Mundeline pic 1 Tape 1 Electroliner Tape 1 Electroliner pic 3 Tape 1 Electroliner pic 2 Notes from tape 4 Note from tape 2

RRC-OMTT
Railroad Record Club Traction Rarities – 1951-58
From the Original Master Tapes
# of Discs- 3
Price: $24.99

Railroad Record Club Traction Rarities – 1951-58
From the Original Master Tapes
Our friend Kenneth Gear recently acquired the original Railroad Record Club master tapes. These have been digitized, and we are now offering over three hours of 1950s traction audio recordings that have not been heard in 60 years.
Properties covered include:
Potomac Edison (Hagerstown & Frederick), Capital Transit, Altoona & Logan Valley, Shaker Heights Rapid Transit, Pennsylvania Railroad, Illinois Terminal, Baltimore Transit, Niagara St. Catharines & Toronto, St. Louis Public Transit, Queensboro Bridge, Third Avenue El, Southern Iowa Railway, IND Subway (NYC), Johnstown Traction, Cincinnati Street Railway, and the Toledo & Eastern
$5 from the sale of each set will go to Kenneth Gear, who has invested thousands of dollars to purchase all the remaining artifacts relating to William A. Steventon’s Railroad Record Club of Hawkins, WI. It is very unlikely that he will ever be able to recoup his investment, but we support his efforts at preserving this important history, and sharing it with railfans everywhere.
Disc One
Potomac Edison (Hagerstown & Frederick):
01. 3:45 Box motor #5
02. 3:32 Box motor #5, May 24, 1953
03. 4:53 Engine whistle signals, loco #12, January 17, 1954
04. 4:13 Loco #12
Capital Transit:
05. 0:56 PCC car 1557, Route 20 – Cabin John line, July 19, 1953
06. 1:43
Altoona & Logan Valley:
07. 4:00 Master Unit car #74, August 8, 1953
Shaker Heights Rapid Transit:
08. 4:17 Car 306 (ex-AE&FRE), September 27, 1953
09. 4:04
10. 1:39
Pennsylvania Railroad GG-1s:
11. 4:35 August 27, 1954
12. 4:51
Illinois Terminal:
13. 5:02 Streamliner #300, northward from Edwardsville, February 14, 1955
14. 12:40 Car #202 (ex-1202), between Springfield and Decatur, February 1955
Baltimore Transit:
15. 4:56 Car 5706, January 16, 1954
16. 4:45 Car 5727, January 16, 1954
Niagara, St. Catharines & Toronto:
17. 4:19 Interurbans #83 and #80, October 1954
18. 5:20 #80, October 1954
Total time: 79:30
Disc Two
St. Louis Public Service:
01. 4:34 PCCs #1708, 1752, 1727, 1739, December 6, 1953
Queensboro Bridge Company (New York City):
02. 5:37 Cars #606, 605, and 601, December 31, 1954
03. 5:17
Third Avenue El (New York City):
04. 5:07 December 31. 1954
05. 4:47 Cars #1797, 1759, and 1784 at 59th Street, December 31, 1954
Southern Iowa Railway:
06. 4:46 Loco #400, August 17, 1955
07. 5:09 Passenger interurban #9
IND Subway (New York City):
08. 8:40 Queens Plaza station, December 31, 1954
Last Run of the Hagerstown & Frederick:
09. 17:34 Car #172, February 20, 1954 – as broadcast on WJEJ, February 21, 1954, with host Carroll James, Sr.
Total time: 61:31
Disc Three
Altoona & Logan Valley/Johnstown Traction:
01. 29:34 (Johnstown Traction recordings were made August 9, 1953)
Cincinnati Street Railway:
02. 17:25 (Car 187, Brighton Car House, December 13, 1951– regular service abandoned April 29, 1951)
Toledo & Eastern:
03. 10:36 (recorded May 3-7, 1958– line abandoned July 1958)
Capital Transit:
04. 16:26 sounds recorded on board a PCC (early 1950s)
Total time: 74:02
Total time (3 discs) – 215:03

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 242nd 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 568,000 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

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At the Hop

June 11, 2018June 14, 2018David Sadowski 13 Comments

It has been 60 years now since Milwaukee had a streetcar line, but that will soon change as its new line, christened The Hop, is expected to begin operating this November. Milwaukee officials held an open house on June 8th at the new maintenance facility, where two new streetcars, built by Brookville Equipment Corporation were on display– and your roving reporter was there.

Ultimately, there will be five vehicles to start, and they are being delivered at the rate of about one per month. From the looks of things, it may be another month or so before testing begins along the line.

The day after the open house, we drove around, taking numerous pictures that we hope will gave you an idea of how track work is progressing. Not all portions of the route will use overhead wire, as modern streetcars have batteries too.

Finally, on Sunday the 10th, we journeyed to the East Troy Electric Railroad, where we were fortunate to ride Milwaukee streetcar #846 for the first time. While 60 years may separate the running of the old and the new, there’s nearly a century between lightweight “safety” car 846, built by St. Louis Car Company in 1920, and its modern equivalent.

That just goes to show how much our expectations of what a streetcar should be have changed and grown over the last 100 years. We expect better safety, performance, comfort, and accessibility than our grandparents and great-grandparents did.

When the new Milwaukee streetcar was first proposed, there were plenty of nay-sayers who thought it was a useless idea, didn’t go anywhere, was pointless, and that no one would ride it. But as the time draws near to actual operations, many of these same people have changed their tune. While modern streetcar lines may not work for all cities, or even some cities that have started them, I feel confidant that Milwaukee’s will be successful.

We hope these photos will give you the “flavor of the event.”

-David Sadowski

PS- Our congratulations go out to Russ Schultz, who has for some years been driving a bus for the Milwaukee public transit system. He will now cap off his career as one of The Hop’s new streetcar operators.

The East Troy Electric Railroad had a table at the open house.

Part of the East Troy Electric Railroad display.

The idea behind Milwaukee’s approximately two-mile-long first streetcar line is park your car, then hop on and off the streetcar as you make your way around the center city. Thanks to a generous donation from a local casino, fares will be free for the first year, and probably $1 after.

The inspection pit.

It’s not often you can get a close-up look at the pantograph on a streetcar. There were no wires in the maintenance facility, so in all likelihood, the cars will enter and leave by either using battery power, or being towed.

The new streetcar maintenance facility makes use of space underneath a highway.

Local news reporters interviewing Alderman Bob Bauman, a strong streetcar supporter.

Free “hop corn.”

We shook Milwaukee Alderman Bob Bauman’s hand and he graciously agreed to pose for pictures for us in front of one of the new streetcars.

The streetcar line makes a rather tight turn at this intersection.

This is the northern end of the line.

There are various obstacles blocking parts of the line, enough to make me think that it could be a month or so before the streetcars are tested out on the streets.

Brick surrounds the tracks at this intersection.

Some work still needs to be done on the various safety islands along the line.

This late 1950s Buick was new around the time streetcars last ran in Milwaukee.

Only eastbound car and truck traffic was allowed on this bridge over the Milwaukee River.

The streetcar will serve Milwaukee’s busy Public Market in the historic Third Ward.

Cement work was still being done on the bridge approach.

TMER&T 846 approaches the Elegant Farmer.

At the Elegant Farmer.

Rear taillights were being added to autos in the 1920s, so it should not be too surprising they began to appear on streetcars of the same era.

The former East Troy substation, now the museum’s depot.

At the East Troy depot.

Tributes.

Not sure if this sign is original to the trolley or was added in museum service.

Unloading at the Elegant Farmer in Muckwonago.

Handouts from the Open House:

Chicago Trolleys

On the Cover: Car 1747 was built between 1885 and 1893 by the Chicago City Railway, which operated lines on the South Side starting in April 1859. This is a single-truck (one set of wheels) open electric car; most likely a cable car, retrofitted with a trolley and traction motor. The man at right is conductor William Stevely Atchison (1861-1921), and this image came from his granddaughter. (Courtesy of Debbie Becker.)

Check out our new book Chicago Trolleys. Signed copies are available through our Online Store.

This book makes an excellent gift and costs just $17.99 plus shipping. That’s $4.00 off the list price.

Help Support The Trolley Dodger

This is our 213th 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 411,000 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.

Badgered

June 12, 2017June 13, 2017David Sadowski 7 Comments

Chicago, South Shore & South Bend car 30 was built in 1926 by Pullman, and retired in the early 1980s. It, and several of its sister cars, are an important part of East Troy’s fleet.

There’s plenty of traction action going on nowadays in Wisconsin, the Badger State. We just spent an eventful weekend checking it out.

On Friday, we stopped by Kenosha for a ride on their two-mile streetcar loop. 4616, the Cincinnati tribute car, was out on the line that day.

On Saturday, I spent some time in Milwaukee, where track construction on Phase 1 of their new modern streetcar line is well underway. A few blocks of track are already in place on St. Paul Street.

The 2.5 mile-long line begins near the Milwaukee Intermodal Station (Amtrak), and heads east into the historic Third Ward. It will cross the Milwaukee River, but as of this writing no work has been done to add tracks to the existing bridge on St. Paul.

From the Third Ward, home of the Milwaukee Public Market, the line heads north into the Lower East Side, via two one-way routes, before turning north and east to its initial terminus at Burns Commons.

Here is a map showing the planned lines. Cars will be stored underneath nearby highway 94.

This is the first time I have seen new streetcar construction. I’m used to seeing decades-old tracks, long buried under asphalt, being torn out. The idea that this line will be completed sometime within the next two years is an exciting prospect.

Here is a recently discovered video, showing the final day of service on Route 10, Milwaukee’s last streetcar line, on March 1, 1958:

On Sunday, we headed out to the East Troy Electric Railroad, to ride on the last remaining original interurban trackage in Wisconsin.

South Shore Line car 30, which is one that was never lengthened and modernized, was out that day, as was Twin cities Rapid Transit 1583. The two 4000s are out of service and being worked on, as are the two Milwaukee cars.

We rode 1583 last year (see our previous post Badger Traction, 2016).

This was our first time riding a South Shore Line car at East Troy, and they seem to do quite well there. The South Shore cars, which were capable of high speeds, used 1500 volt DC current on their home tracks, but now have to make do with just 600. This is not a problem, as top speed on this demonstration railroad is about 15-20 mph.

The South Shore cars are wider than the line was designed for, which means tighter clearances with the line poles. If you do travel there, be sure not to stick anything out the windows.

While tourist trolleys and railroad museums are important and deserve your support, I for one will be glad when Wisconsonites will be able to use a streetcar for its original intended purpose, which is to get from one place to another.

-David Sadowski

Don’s Rail Photos: “4616 was built by St Louis Car Co in 1950, #1674, and completed by Canadian Car & Foundry in 1951, #1912, as TTC 4515, Class A8. It was rebuilt in 1991 as 4616, Class A15. It was sold to Vintage Electric Streetcar Co in 1996 and sold to KTL as 4616. It was painted in a Cincinnati Street Ry scheme.”

At left, the Milwaukee Intermodal Station.

This was originally a smoking compartment.

Car 30 still has its original mahogany wood, unlike the South Shore cars that were lengthened and modernized in the 1940s.

Recent Finds

This August marks 50 years since my first trip to Boston. This picture of MBTA 3295 was taken on Beacon Street on August 31, 1967, and shows the PCCs just as I remember them from that time. (Frederick F. Marder Photo)

Chicago Missouri & Western GP 40 3025, as it looked on September 5, 1987. If the CM&W logo looks surprisingly familiar, that’s because it was copied from the CA&E. All of which should be no surprise, as the Venango River folks, who owned the South shore Line at that time, were involved. In fact, it was taking on this railroad that proved their undoing. (Bruno Berzins Photo)

Here is a very interesting streetscape. It shows one of the old Third Avenue El stations in the Bowery, Manhattan in 1955, possibly after the line closed on May 12. Those two convertibles are Fords.

This is indeed a rare and historic photo. By comparison with a postcard view on Don Ross’ web site, taken at exactly the same time, we can say with certainty that this shows Chicago, Ottawa & Peoria freight loco 25 pulling some coaches into Princeton, Illinois on July 31, 1908. This was the first CO&P train to this area.

Interior shots from long ago are fairly rare. This one shows Shaker Heights Rapid Transit PCC 42 in May 1967. Don’s Rail Photos says, “42 was built by St. Louis Car in 1946, #1655, as SLPS 1767. It was sold as SHRT 42 in 1959 and converted to MU operation after purchase.”

Old-time railfanning was, unfortunately, often a series of “lasts.” Here we see DC Transit 1101 at the Peace Monument in front of the Capitol building on January 27, 1962, the last day of service. Streetcars have since returned to Washington, D. C.

Here is a northbound five-car North Shore Line train at Great Lakes on December 30, 1951, with 706 at the rear.

Chicago, Aurora & Elgin woods 317 and 316 went to the end of the line on the Batavia branch on an Illini Railroad Club fantrip on October 16, 1955.

North Shore Line 733 is at Chicago Avenue on the “L” in June 1953.

CA&E caboose 1001 at Wheaton, February 21, 1959. This was just prior to the end of freight service on the railroad. Passenger service ended on July 3, 1957, except for a few charters.

CTA trolley bus 9440, northbound on Lake Park at 56th, in October 1958. Trolley bus service ended on the 51st-55th route on June 21, 1959, exactly one year after the last Chicago streetcar ran. This was the beginning of a 14-year phase out of electric bus service.

Recent Correspondence

Jack Bejna writes:

The Chicago Aurora & Elgin Railway started operations with 8 motors and 2 trailers built by the Niles Car Company in 1902, and 16 motors and 5 trailers built by the John Stephenson Car Company, also in 1902. Here are images of the Stephenson cars except for: CA&E 32 (rebuilt to flat car 1936), CA&E 40 (retired 1911), CA&E 50 (no image found), CA&E 58 (burned 1911).

Thanks for the CA&E photos!

Great stuff, as always.

Jack replies:

My plan is to eventually provide you with as complete a photographic record of the CA&E roster that you may use as you see fit. As I find new images that are worthy of your wonderful site I will provide them to you. The latest group of the original Stephenson order is missing a few of the cars that either were off the roster early or were not photographed much. Car 38 is, of course, the only car that was converted to rectangular end windows so I created an image that highlights the windows.

Thanks for the last two posts of The Trolley Dodger; both of them present a huge amount of information, images, etc., of properties that disappeared many years ago but still live thanks to your continuing efforts!

Good job!!

Chicago Trolleys

Work continues on our upcoming book Chicago Trolleys, which is now in the layout and proofreading stage. The expected publication date is September 25th of this year. We will keep you advised as things progress.

Help Support The Trolley Dodger

This is our 185th 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 293,000 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.

Recent Finds, Part 2

December 12, 2016April 17, 2017David Sadowski 9 Comments

CTA pre-war PCCs 4016 and 4050 at Western and 79th, southern terminal of route 49. This picture was taken seconds after a similar one on page 363 of CERA Bulletin 146. That picture is dated May 1956 and is attributed to William C. Janssen.

The CTA terminal at Western and 79th today.

Here are more classic traction photos we recently acquired. While many are from Chicago, our trip this time takes us all around the country, and even across our northern border.

As always, if you have interesting tidbits of information to add, you can either post a Comment here, or drop us a line directly aat:

thetrolleydodger@gmail.com

Don’t forget, if you click on each picture with your mouse, you can bring up a larger version in your browser, and zoom in on that one too for closer inspection.

Thanks.

-David Sadowski

Chicago Area

When I got this slide, it was identified as being a station on the Garfield Park “L”. However, I did some further research, and it is actually the old Austin Boulevard stop on the Douglas Park line. The house and apartment buildings in the background are still there. The Douglas branch was cut back to 54th Avenue in 1952 and the former right-of-way is now used for parking. Locals still call it the “L” Strip.

The same view today.

CTA 2163-2164, then brand new, in the 54th Avenue Yard, west end of the Douglas Park “L” (now the Pink Line) in 1964. The roadway at left is where the line continued before it was cut back in 1952. (Walter Broschart Photo)

CTA 4002 is shown heading north on route 49 – Western on July 14, 1953. The photographer was up on the Logan Square “L” platform. The people at right are waiting for a southbound car at a safety island. In the distance, we see what was then the Bloomingdale freight spur of the Milwaukee Road, but is now part of the 606 Trail. Jim Huffman adds, “Photo #525. “CTA 4002 is shown heading north on route 49 – Western on July 14, 1953”, I feel is incorrect.
1. There is a 1955 Chevrolet on the left, precludes 1953.
2. 1-Man, Pre-War PCC were assigned in June 1955 (as well as 1-Man Post-Wars), prior to that Western used 2-Man Post-War PCCs only. Went Bus in June 1956.
3. People standing on the safety island are waiting at the end for the front door boarding of an 1-man car. Prior to 1-Man cars, they waited at the other end for the rear doors.
4. Although there is no proof, the 55 Chev looks somewhat used, I would say this is a 1956 photo.”

CSL single-truck mail car H2, apparently still operational, is shown years after streetcar RPO (Railway Post Office) service ended in 1915. It was scrapped on October 2, 1942. From the looks of the autos in the background, this picture may date to the 1920s.

CTA red Pullman 225 is shown here on a mid-1950s fantrip at the 77th Street Shops. The big man at front is Maurice Klebolt (1930-1988), who organized many such trips for the Illini Railroad Club. He later moved to San Francisco and helped start the historic trolley festival there. Car 225 is preserved at the Seashore Trolley Museum in Maine. (Chuck Wlodarczyk Photo)

On this fantrip, Maury is calling the shots. Looks like he’s wearing a tie with various railroad insignias.

Car 225 under makeshift cover at Seashore (Kennebunkport, Maine) in the late 1950s. (Walter Broschart Photo)

CSL 2601 is shown running on the last day of streetcar service on route 111 (111th Street), September 22, 1945. As for the exact location, Andre Kristopans says this is “probably just west of Indiana Av., looks like the school campus in background that is between King and Indiana to this day.”

CSL 4033 passes the Garfield Park field house on Madison in 1938.

CSL Pullman 318 is heading west on Fullerton in the mid-1930s picture. At right, you can just make out the marquee of the old Liberty Theatre, which opened in 1911 and closed in 1951. The building is now a banquet hall. Will Rogers’ name is on the marquee. The photo date is given as September 8, 1937 and I guess that is possible although Rogers died in August 1935.

The same area today.

The former Liberty Theatre at 3705 W. Fullerton.

CSL 7024 is westbound on Madison just west of the Chicago River in this September 8, 1937 view. The photo caption describes this as a “noiseless streetcar,” with magnetic air brakes and rubber cushioned wheels.

The view from 400 W. Madison today. We are looking to the southeast.

CTA 7093 is southbound on State Street near Lake, as a route 36 Broadway-State car. The film Scaramouche, playing at the State-Lake, was released on June 27, 1952, so that is the approximate date of this picture. Note a Chicago Motor Coach Company bus at left. The State-Lake opened in 1919 and closed in 1985. It was taken over by WLS-TV for use as a studio. (Walter Hulseweder Photo)

State and Lake today.

CTA 7051 is northbound at State and Delaware as a route 36 Broadway-State car in the early 1950s. (Walter Hulseweder Photo)

State and Delaware today, looking south.

CTA 1784, on route 16, has just turned from eastbound Lake Street south on Dearborn, and is passing the Selwyn Theater. A poster advertises Joan Bennett and Zachary Scott in the play Bell, Book and Candle. They took over those parts on May 9, 1952, which is the approximate date of this picture. Bell, Book and Candle was later made into a movie in 1958, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak. Michael Todd eventually bought the Harris and Selwyn later in the 1950s and they were converted into movie theaters. The facades of those two buildings have been saved and are now part of the Goodman Theater complex. (Walter Hulsweder Photo)

Dearborn and Lake today.

Joan Bennett and Zachary Scott in the 1952 off-Broadway version of Bell, Book and Candle.

Bell, Book and Candle helped inspire the later TV series Bewitched.

This undated photo shows the station (car house) at Cottage Grove and 38th. It is undated, but the newest car shown here was built in 1912. So a good guess would be sometime between 1912 and the early 1920s, when streetcars were painted red to make them more visible to motorists. Several cars can be identified in this picture. From left to right, I see 5368, 5357, 5364, 5378, 5707, 5802, 5782, 5743, 5759, 5736, 5386, 5706, and 5348. All are either Brill-American-Kuhlman cars, or Nearsides. Streetcars last ran out of Cottage Grove in 1955, after which the building was demolished.

A close-up of four unidentified men in the photo. Presumably, all worked out of the Cottage Grove station.

It’s April 23, 1939, and Chicago & West Towns cars 140 and 141 are operating on an early Central Electric Railfans’ Association fantrip. Car 141, the lone survivor of the fleet, is now restored to operable condition at the Illinois Railway Museum.

New Site Additions

FYI, these Birney car pictures have been added to Our 150th Post (August 6, 2016):

Fort Collins Municipal Railway “Birney” car 21, at the intersection of Johnson and Mountain Avenues. (Ward Photo)

Restored FCMR 21 as it appeared on May 14, 1995. (Mark D. Meyer Photo)

FCMR 22 on October 26, 1949. Its paint scheme is described as green, red, and aluminum.

FCMR 25 at the car barn. (Ward Photo)

Many other cities had Birneys, of course. Here, we see Brantford (Ontario) Municipal Railway car 137 on July 1, 1935. This was ex-Lock Haven, Pa. Electric Railway car #2. (George Slyford Photo)

This picture has been added to our post Badger Traction, 2016 (June 14, 2016):

In this mid-1950s view, Village of East Troy Railway freight motor M-15 is shown here in East Troy, Wisconsin, near the power station which now serves as the waiting room for the East Troy Electric Railroad museum operation. It was built by TMER&L in 1920 and is now preserved at the Illinois Railway Museum. (Walter Broschart Photo)

We have added this one to The “Other” Penn Central (May 29, 2016):

Montreal Tramways had four of these unique observation cars in their fleet, which were used for sightseeing tours. Here, car #3 is at St. Joseph’s Shrine on August 14, 1948. All four cars have been preserved, and car 3 is now at Exporail, the Canadian Railway Museum. A few years ago, I rode the very similar car #2 at the Seashore Trolley Museum.

These pictures have been added to Red Arrow in West Chester (September 13, 2016):

This picture shows Red Arrow Brilliner 8 and an older car at the end of the Ardmore branch on May 15, 1949. It looks like the older car is in fantrip service, while the Brilliner is the regular service car ahead of it. The Ardmore branch was replaced by buses in 1966.

Here, Red Arrow Brill Master Unit 86 is the regular service car at the end of the line in West Chester, with the older fantrip car behind it. Again, the date is May 15, 1949.

The photo caption reads, “Two car streamline train arriving at Norristown, looking up from R. R. tracks.” The date is May 12, 1935, meaning these “Bullet” cars were just a few years old.

This picture was added to Chicago’s Pre-PCCs (May 5, 2015):

Baltimore Transit Company car 6105, shown here on route 15 – Ostend St., is one of the last modern streetcars built before PCCs took over the market. The sign on front says that September 7 will be the last day for 6 hour local rides. Perhaps that can help date the picture.

Bonus Pictures

The Lackawanna & Wyoming Valley (aka the Laurel Line) was a Scranton-area interurban powered by third rail, much as the Chicago, Aurora & Elgin was. Here, we see coach #37 in Scranton on September 9, 1950. The line quit at the end of 1952. There were no takers for these cars and all were scrapped. It has been suggested that perhaps CA&E might have benefited from buying some of these cars, although it does seem they were too long for tight turns on the Chicago “L”. However, I do not know if this would have prevented them from running on the CA&E after the system was cut back to Forest Park. In any case, CA&E had previously reduced the length of other cars purchased from the Baltimore & Annapolis in 1938. What was missing in 1953, apparently, was a willingness to continue trying to operate.

The Hagerstown & Frederick was a Maryland interurban in sparsely populated rural areas, a veritable real-life “Toonerville Trolley.” Despite having practically no ridership, it subsisted on freight and somehow managed to survive into the mid-1950s. Here, we see freight motor #5 in Frederick, Maryland on April 11, 1954. (Gene Connelly Photo)

In some sense, the Charles City Western in Iowa was comparable to the Hagerstown & Frederick, in that it had sparse ridership, yet managed to survive into the 1950s with freight. Here we see combine 50 in March 1937. Don’s Rail Photos notes, “50 was built by McGuire-Cummings in 1915. It became Iowa Terminal 101 in December 1964. It was sent to Mount Pleasant and restored as CCW 50. It was then sent to Boone & Scenic Valley RR.” Vintage audio of the Charles City Western in operation can be heard on Railroad Record Club disc #28, which is available on compact disc via our Online Store.

The Omaha & Council Bluffs Street Railway operated between Nebraska and Iowa. Here, car 814 is shown in Council Bluffs in September 1936, unloading passengers next to a natty-looking 1935 V8 Ford Sedan Delivery, advertising Old gold cigarettes. I assume this car was built by O&CB in 1908 and was rebuilt in 1932, possibly to convert it to one-man service. If so, riders would board at the rear and pay as they left through the front. Note the “people catcher” device at front.

Recent Correspondence

Virginia Sammis writes:

I wrote you once before, and I was hoping you might be able to help me again. I am still trying to find CSL employee photos. I had a researcher in Chicago spend some hours looking at the CHM archives of the CSL newsletter and she did find Gustav Johnson’s brief obituary in there for 1946. But very few photos. Do you know of any other place I might find photos of employees of CSL?

(She had written some months ago, looking for information on Gustav Johnson, who emigrated to America around 1880, worked for the Chicago Surface Lines, and died in 1946.)

The employee newsletter would have been the best bet. However, I do know a genealogist, and I can ask her to see what she can find out.

In the CTA era, which started in October 1947, the newsletter ran more pictures of retirees, of which there were many. However, we are talking about several thousands of people working there at any one given time, so the odds of finding one person are not good.

If you know which routes, or which car houses (aka “stations”) he might have worked at, that would help.

I just got a picture (see elsewhere in this post) showing four guys standing outside the car barn at Cottage Grove and 38th, taken in the early 20th century, but have no way of knowing who the people in the picture are.

I will run your request in my blog, and see what other people might suggest.

Ms. Sammis replied:

This is what his obituary said:
“Gustave Johnsen, 84, motorman from Devon, died 11-22-46, after along illness. He had been with the company for 35 years.”

It was actually spelled Gustav Johnson. Does that mean that he would have reported to work every day at the Devon Station at 6454 N. Clark St/Devon St.? Also, can you confirm that a “motorman” was the engineer on the trolley and the “conductor” collected the fares?

Thank you for your help David. I am determined to find a photograph of Gustav SOMEWHERE!

Yes, that means he worked out of the Devon station, or car house. And yes, the motorman operated the streetcar, while the conductor collected the fares. We have run lots of pictures in previous posts showing streetcars at or near Devon station. You can find those by typing Devon into the search window at the top of this page.

Thanks.

-David Sadowski

Our resident South Side expert M. E. writes:

Your latest post, Recent Finds Part 2, includes a photo of the carbarn at 38th and Cottage Grove. This photo obviates my wild guess that perhaps the photo ostensibly of the 69th and Ashland carbarn instead might have been the 38th & Cottage barn. (See our previous post Recent Finds, December 2, 2016.)

In the new photo, https://thetrolleydodger.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/dave511.jpg , the bay numbers under the Chicago City Railway logo are 7 and 6. In the previous photo, https://thetrolleydodger.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/dave4891.jpg , the bay number under the logo is 4.

This observation, together with the Campbell barn label (Campbell is nowhere near Cottage Grove), cements my opinion that you are correct saying the previous photo is of the 69th and Ashland carbarn.

None of which solves the mysteries of why there are so many 4 Cottage Grove cars at the 69th and Ashland barn, and how they got there from Cottage Grove.

It’s a mystery, alright… hopefully one we will eventually clear up, thanks!

Kenneth Gear writes:

Hi David. I’ve been falling behind on my reading lately and just today read the latest Trolley Dodger “Recent Finds 2”.

I was very interested in the photo of Hagerstown & Frederick Railway freight motor # 5.

Back in 2008 while chasing and photographing the Maryland Midland RR train UBHF from Union Bridge to Highfield, I was surprised to find H&F freight motor #5 displayed at the former site of the H&F Thurmont Station along Main Street.

It was apparently under going restoration at the time. The building in the background is a former H&F electric sub station. I’m not sure how this restoration has progressed in the ensuing years, but here is the photo I took back on March 9, 2008:

Thanks! Good to know this car was saved. Here’s what Don’s Rail Photos says: “5 was built by H&F in 1920. It was retired in 1955 and went to Shade Gap Electric Ry. It then was returned to home by H&F Ry Historical Society.”

About the line in general, Don Ross adds:

“It’s hard to describe the H&F since it seems to be more of a country trolley than an interurban line. Yet they did operate freight service and covered some 76 miles of line in western Maryland. It was the last passenger interurban east of Chicago. The H&F was a consolidation of several lines dating back to 1902. They joined together in 1913. Abandonments began in 1932. In 1938 the main line was cut so that there were two separate sections, one at Hagerstown, and the other at Frederick. The Hagerstown line finally quit in 1947, but the Frederick to Thurmont passenger service lasted until February 20, 1954. Freight service was later dieselized but lasted only until 1958.”

I checked and it looks like the car went from the Rockhill Trolley Museum to Thurmont in 2006. The car is now owned by the City and there are trucks under the body.

As for the Shade Gap name, here is how the Wikipedia explains it:

The museum operates what has been historically referred to as the Shade Gap Electric Railway to demonstrate the operable pieces in its collection. “Shade Gap” refers to the name of a branch of the East Broad Top Railroad, from whom the museum leases it property.

-David Sadowski

Charles Turek writes:

re: Recent Finds, Part 2 – image dave513.jpg

Having grown up at 27th & Harvey in Berwyn, IL, effective walking distance from Austin/Cermak in the 1950s, I can confirm the station is, indeed, Austin on the Douglas Park line. The distinctive chain gate, which was atypical for the line, was my first clue. I used to find this gate fascinating to watch and enjoyed hearing the pulleys (in the towers on each side of Austin) crank it up and down. This was a very busy area in those days and the chain gate was effective in stopping traffic in both lanes that would otherwise attempt to get past standard gates to make the signals at Cermak Road. Nonetheless, the gateman who holed up in the little house in front of the station was still necessary.

Love your web pages and visit them often.

Stained Glass from New York’s Third Avenue El

FYI, to raise money to help fund the original research we do on this site, we are selling two unique artifacts— decorative stained glass, circa 1878, from stations on the old IRT Third Avenue El in New York, which was torn down in 1955. We purchased these several years ago from a noted New York collector.

You can check out our eBay auction here. This may be your only opportunity to own a true piece of history from that fabled line, which has yet to be replaced more than 60 years after it was abandoned.

Thanks.

New Book Project

We are now working on a new paperback book Chicago Trolleys, that we expect will be published in 2017. Original research does cost money, so please consider making a donation to cover our costs. We will keep you updated as we progress, and thank you in advance for your help.

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