70 for 70 at IRM (Part One)

July 2, 2023July 3, 2023David Sadowski 3 Comments

The North Shore Line Electroliner has come a long way since it came to IRM in 1982. After the interurban abandoned service in 1963, it went to the Red Arrow Lines (aka the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company), where it continued to operate for another dozen years as a “Liberty Liner.” It has certainly come a long way since its return. Here, we see it near IRM’s 50th Avenue “L” station, which came from the Douglas Park line.

This is the Illinois Railway Museum‘s 70th anniversary, and in that span, it has certainly become the largest such operation in the United States, and possibly the world. So it should be no surprise that IRM pulled out all the stops for this year’s Trolley Pageant, which featured at least 70 pieces of electric railway equipment in more than 30 consists.

There was a delay in getting started, as there had been a bit of rain in the morning, and in spite of a few hiccups (at one point the power went out, possibly because there were so many things using it), it was a remarkable and unique event that couldn’t have happened anywhere else but Union, Illinois.

We were there to document the event for all those who couldn’t be there in person. This is part one, because we took so many pictures and videos that it would simply be too much to put it all into a single post. This post will feature our still pictures, and part two will include the numerous videos we took.

Many thanks go out to all the hard working volunteers that have made the museum what it is today– a first class operation that is unrivaled, and just keeps getting better and better.

Enjoy!

-David Sadowski

PS- You might also like our Trolley Dodger Facebook auxiliary, a private group that now has 1,317 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).

The 2023 IRM Trolley Pageant

Chicago Aurora and Elgin wood car 308, at the head of a four-car train. Don’s Rail Photos (via archive.org): “308 was built by Niles Car & Mfg Co in 1906. It was modernized by unknown date and sold to Indiana Transportation Museum in 1962 and resold to Illinois Railway Museum in 1996.”

CA&E 309. Don’s Rail Photos (via archive.org): “309 was built by Hicks Locomotive Works in 1907. It was modernized in October 1941 and acquired by Illinois Railway Museum in 1962.”

CA&E 36. Don’s Rail Photos (via archive.org): 36 was built by Stephenson in 1903. It was acquired by Trolleyville in 1961 and was painted as Columbia & Southwestern 36. It was sold to Illinois Railway Museum in December 2009.”

CA&E 319. Don’s Rail Photos (via archive.org): “319 was built by Jewett Car Co in 1914. It was modernized at an unknown date and sold to Columbia Park & Southwestern in 1962. It was resold to IRM in December 2009.”

Sand Springs (Oklahoma) Railway car 68 was built by the Cincinnati Car Company in 1918. It was originally delivered to the Cincinnati Lawrenceburg & Aurora in Ohio, and came to IRM in 1967.

Chicago and West Towns Railways 141 was built by McGuire-Cummings in 1924. After streetcar service ended in 1948, the body was stored on a farm. The Electric Railway Historical Society (ERHS) rescued it in 1959, and donated it to IRM in 1973. After a lengthy restoration, it was returned to operating condition in 2014.

Open car 19 was built by the J. G. Brill company in 1914, and operated in Veracruz, Mexico until 1961. It then went to Trolleyville USA in Ohio. IRM acquired it in 2009.

Cleveland center-entrance car 18 was built by the G.C. Kuhlman Car Company in 1914, and ran on the Shaker Heights Rapid Transit line until 1961. It then went to Trolleyville USA, and IRM purchased it in 2013. Frank Hicks has worked to get this car back to operating condition, and this was the first time it ran at IRM.

Center-entrance streetcars had a brief vogue and the most successful of these were called Peter Witts. They were two-man cars, as there was a conductor who collected fares inside. Some systems used a “pay as you enter” system, and some preferred “pay as you pass.” In order to exit through the front door, you had to walk by the conductor and would then pay your fare. The idea was to speed up loading, as fares could be collected while the car was in motion.

SHRT car 18 backs up to get into position for the Trolley Pageant. The conductor is making sure the pole stays on the wire while it is reversed, while the motorman is at the controls over in the other end of the car. Although this may originally have been a double-ended car, it seems to have been converted to single-end at some point in Cleveland.

North Shore Line combine 251, at the head of a five-car train. Don’s Rail Photos (via archive.org): “251 was built by Jewett in 1917, It had its seating reduced from 40 to 24 on October 3, 1925, and it was converted to a Silverliner on June 19, 1953. It was acquired by Illinois Railway Museum in 1963.”

North Shore Line car 160 is now that interurban’s second oldest surviving car, following 162, which was delivered earlier. Don’s Rail Photos (via archive.org): “160 was built by Brill in 1915, (job) #19605. It was acquired by Illinois Railway Museum in 1963.”

North Shore Line coach 714. Don’s Rail Photos (via archive.org): “714 was built by Cincinnati Car Co in 1926, (job) #2890. It is modernized in 1939 and preserved in 1963 by the Illinois Railway Museum.”

North Shore Line car 757. Don’s Rail Photos (via archive.org): “757 was built by Standard Steel Car Co in 1930. It was modernized in 1949 and rebuilt as Silverline on March 16, 1956. It was sold to Wisconsin Electric Railway Historical Society in 1963 and resold to Illinois Railway Museum in 1988.”

North Shore Line coach 749. Don’s Rail Photos (via archive.org): “749 was built by Pullman in 1928. It was modernized in 1940 and acquired by Illinois Railway Museum in 1963.”

North Shore Line city streetcar 354. The late Don Ross, from Don’s Rail Photos (via archive.org): “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.”

Illinois Terminal interurban car 101. It ran between St. Louis and Alton. Don’s Rail Photos (via archive.org): “101 was built by American Car in 1917 as AG&StL 61. In 1926 the car became StL&ARy 61 and in 1930 it became IT 101. On March 9, 1956, it was sold to the Illinois Electric Railway Museum and is now at Union, IL.”

Two Chicago streetcars for the price of one, here. “Matchbox” 1374 was built by St. Louis Car Company (order #715) in 1905. The Chicago Transit Authority turned it into a salt spreader in 1947. It was purchased by the ERHS in 1958 and donated to IRM in 1973. The 3142 was built by J.G. Brill Company (order #21686) in 1923. It too was purchased by ERHS in 1958 and came to IRM in 1973. The white stripe indicates it was used as a one-man car, letting riders know they should board at the front instead of the back.

Chicago Pullman 144 was built in 1908 and ran in regular service until 1954. Until the end of streetcar service four years later, it was only used on fantrips. IRM purchased it in 1959.

CTA PCC streetcar 4391 is using the back-up controller to make its way to the parade staging area, as it is a single-ended car. Since the pole is reversed, the operator is trying to keep it from coming off the wire.

CTA PCC 4391 was built by the St. Louis Car Company in 1948 and ran in Chicago until 1958. ERHS purchased it the following year and it came to IRM in 1973. It is the only surviving car of its type. This is a two-man streetcar– you enter at the rear, pay the conductor, then exit via the middle or front.

Indiana Railroad high-speed lightweight car 65 was built in 1931 by Pullman and ran for a decade in Indiana before making its way to the CRANDIC (Cedar Rapids and Iowa City) in Iowa. It was purchased in 1953 as the first acquisition of the Illinois Electric Railway Museum, then located in North Chicago. The original ten founders each contributed $100 towards the cost. The last survivor of the ten was Malcolm D. McCarter, who died in 2016.

Indiana Railroad car 65 is similar to cars that were built around the same time for the Cincinnati and Lake Erie. After that line quit around 1938, several of those cars went to Lehigh Valley Transit in Pennsylvania, where they ran until 1951. Others made it to Iowa and ran on CRANDIC. The only other surviving Indiana Railroad high-speed car is 55, which was built by a different manufacturer. It survives at the Seashore Trolley Museum in Maine as LVT car 1030.

Two North Shore Line work cars (line car 604 and box motor 229) head west through the depot.

It was nice to see so many families with young children out at the museum for this event.

IRM’s North Shore Line Electroliner, built in 1941 by the St. Louis Car Company, is still undergoing interior restoration, but can operate. It was certainly a welcome addition to the Trolley Pageant.

One of the trolley poles on the Electroliner got snagged and had to be repositioned. Fortunately, no damage was done to the wire.

Where else but IRM could you see not one, but TWO four-car trains, made up of Chicago Aurora and Elgin interurban coaches, side by side? Over the years, the museum has put together a unique and unrivaled collection.

Although not yet numbered, this is either Chicago Aurora and Elgin car 451 or 453, built in 1945 by the St. Louis Car Company. Don’s Rail Photos (via archive.org): “451 was built by St Louis Car Co in September 1945, #1717. It was sold to Trolleyville in 1962 and lettered as Columbia Park & Southwestern. It was transferred as Lake Shore Electric Ry in 2006. It was sold to Illinois Railway Museum in December 2009.” 453 was purchased in 1962 by Trolleyville USA in Ohio, and went to the Electric City Trolley Museum in Scranton, PA in 2009. They considered turning it into an ersatz Laurel Line car, as none of those were saved. Having decided against that, it was acquired by IRM in 2019 and is undergoing restoration. Thus, all four surviving cars of this type are back in Illinois– three at IRM (451, 453, and 460) and 460 at the Fox River Trolley Museum. We recently posted pictures of that restoration. Spence Ziegler adds: “Dave, the unnumbered CA&E car is the 451, from what I understand it’s going to get the original “Futura” font lettering, which will look nice. That’s why the grey is darker also.”

A four-car train of Chicago wooden “L” cars, with 1754 at the rear. It was built by the Jewett Car Company in 1906 for the Northwestern Elevated. After the CTA stopped using wood cars in regular service in 1957, it was converted to a work car. IRM acquired it in 1971.

Broad Street Subway (Philadelphia) car 55 was built by the J.G. Brill Company (order #22488) in 1927. IRM purchased it in 1985, and this was the first time it operated at the museum in 20 years. Notice how it is both wider and longer than a Chicago “L” car, and has three sets of doors for faster service.

I don’t think any other museum besides IRM could field a seven-car Chicago “L” car train. This one consisted of two sets of married pairs and three single car units.

The “L” train makes its run-by, with car 41 in the lead. It was built in 1959 by the St. Louis Car Company and was designed to be operated as a single car for the Evanston line, where the CTA wanted to reduce operating expenses. For several years, riders would pay on the train at off-peak hours, and the train operator had a fare collection box. There was no conductor. Unfortunately, this really slowed down service, as the train could no proceed until everyone boarding had paid. Eventually, 41 was paired with car 28 but that car was eventually damaged and was not saved. 41 came to IRM in 1998.

A Commonwealth Edison diesel switcher came out at one point, probably to help move a disable railcar.

This rare Lake Shore Electric freight trailer was part of a train which included three electric locos, led by Commonwealth Edison 4, built in 1912 by Alco/General Electric (order #3514), which came to IRM in 1962.

North Shore Line box motor 213 (aka a “Merchandise Despatch” car) was built in 1920 by the Cincinnati Car Company (order #2445), and was sold to the Chicago Hardware Foundry in 1955. That was also the original location of the Illinois Electric Railway Museum. When IRM moved to its current location in 1964, 213 went with it.

A Milwaukee Electric logo on a piece of freight equipment in the parade.

For a rather nondescript car, South Shore Line 504 has had an interesting life. It started out in 1925 on the Indiana Public Service as a baggage/coach car. This turned into the Indiana Railroad in 1931, and it became coach/RPO (railway post office) 377 for another decade before that interurban was abandoned. The South Shore Line purchased it, and used it until 1975 to haul newspapers and small packages. (It still has a sign on it advertising their “emergency package service.” IRM bought it in 1975.

South Shore Line line car 1100 was built in 1925 by the St. Louis Car Company for the Indiana Service Corporation, which became the Indiana Railroad in 1931. It began as baggage/coach car 376, and became a coach/RPO in 1935. After the Indiana Railroad abandonment in 1941, the South Shore Line purchased it, and it was converted to a line car in 1947. I actually rode on this car in 1988 on a fantrip for the George Krambles scholorship fund. GK had begun his storied career working for the Indiana Railroad in 1936. IRM acquired it in 2010.

Illinois Central cars 1198 (powered) and 1380 (unpowered) were built by Pullman in 1926 and were used in service until 1972 on the electric suburban service, which later became the Metra Electric. After their retirement, the pair came to IRM. These cars are somewhat similar to the Erie Lackawanna cars that were used in New Jersey.

The seven-car CTA “L” train stops briefly at the depot, before heading west to get into position for its run-by.

CTA “L” cars 30 (left) and 6655 (right). With the two paired, you can see how the position of the doors differed.

And there are still plenty of other cars that hopefully will run in future Trolley Pageants at IRM.

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, 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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Two Anniversaries

January 22, 2023January 22, 2023David Sadowski 7 Comments

Here is a photo taken by the late William C. Hoffman on July 1, 1957, from the 7th floor of the Builder’s Building in downtown Chicago. A southbound NSL train, led by car 178, crosses the Chicago River as it approaches the Loop, having just passed by the Merchandise Mart. This is one of those early Ektachromes that turned out to have unstable dyes– a problem that Kodak corrected by about 1964. I had to do a lot of restoration work to make it look like this. I will post the original as well for comparison.

As the song says, “What a difference a day makes… 24 little hours.” For fans of the Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad, aka the North Shore Line, January 21, 1963 is a date that will live in infamy, as that was the time of the final abandonment.

January 21 is also the eighth anniversary of the Trolley Dodger blog. I thought it was important to have new beginnings associated with that date as well as endings. We are now starting our ninth year.

Over the years, this date has also become a celebration the North Shore Line, especially at the Illinois Railway Museum, which has by far the most extensive collection of NSL equipment anywhere. This year, the museum (normally closed in the winter) held a special event, and brought out nearly everything they could muster to let visitors ride, or see.

We were glad to take part, and our photo essay follows a few classic images of this legendary interurban. As the years go by, IRM just gets better and better and is already the largest railway museum in the entire country. You could not ask for more dedicated stewards for much of the North Shore Line’s legacy.

January is traditionally the month when we ask our readers for donations to keep this site going. If you enjoy what you see here, we hope you will consider making a contribution via the link at the end of this post. The expenses we incur, in order to bring you the finest and most interesting traction pictures, are considerable and ongoing. Our research costs a lot, but you see the results here and in our four Arcadia Publishing books, which we hope make a modest contribution to society. If you have contributed to our efforts, we are most appreciative, and if you have not, we hope you will consider it.

To date, we have received $215 in contributions via our fundraiser.

We are pleased to report that our latest book The North Shore Line is now 100% complete and has gone to press. The publication date is February 20, 2023, and we are now taking pre-orders. You will find more information about that at the end of this post (and our Online Store). To date, we have received orders for 114 copies.

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 1,053 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.

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 in Dayton, OH (although not affiliated with the North American Transit Historical Society, which organizes that event).

A very early Leica M3.

Charles Fretzin sent me these amazing North Shore Line pictures he took 60 years ago. Some are from the final night. I spoke with him on the phone the other day.

While working on my book, I had been trying to find out who took the picture of the sailor and his girlfriend at the terminal without success. Imagine my surprise when the photographer contacted me, asking if I could post it to my blog!
He says that picture was taken with a Leica M3 and a 35mm f/2 lens, and he has another picture showing the same couple embracing in front of a juke box. It was his impression that he had just given her an engagement ring.

These pictures were shot on Kodak Tri-X film that was push-developed to 1200 ISO using either Acufine or Diafine developer.

One of the two Electroliners prepares to leave Milwaukee on the final trip to Chicago.
(Charles Fretzin Photo)

The North Shore Line’s Milwaukee Terminal on the final night. (Charles Fretzin Photo)

The lunch counter at the Milwaukee Terminal on the final night. Note the Electroliner image stenciled on the mirror. (Charles Fretzin Photo)

An NSL conductor punches a ticket. (Charles Fretzin Photo)

An Electroliner motorman in the cab of the 802 end. (Charles Fretzin Photo)

One of the Electroliners at the Highwood Shops after the abandonment in 1963.
(Charles Fretzin Photo)

A northbound North Shore Line Electroliner has just left Howard Street on June 10, 1956, descending into an open cut now used by CTA Yellow Line (Skokie Swift) trains. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

This looks red because the other dye layers have faded so badly… a process that will unfortunately continue as the years go by. But thanks to modern tools such as Photoshop, it was still possible to bring the colors back to normal.

North Shore Line Day 2023 at the Illinois Railway Museum

The Electroliner was the first thing visitors saw upon arriving at the museum.

Electroliner 801-802 was on display at the 50th Avenue “L” station, which was moved here from the Douglas Park branch in the late 1970s. The Liner has been undergoing a complete restoration that will ultimately cost more than a million dollars. Part of the interior is not finished, but there is still much work to be done. Visitors to the museum had an opportunity to see the remarkable progress that has been made.

Electroliner interior.

The way these seats have been reupholstered is truly beautiful.

The cab at the 802 end of the Electroliner. Compare this to the picture of the same cab taken in 1963 by Charles Fretzin, found elsewhere in this post.

Electroliner interior.

There are still a few vestiges left of the Electroliner’s second career as a Liberty Liner on the Red Arrow’s Norristown High-Speed Line.

The interior of 354.

The interior of 354. Note the sign lit indicating riders can exit at both ends of the car.

City streetcar 354 first ran in Waukegan, and later Milwaukee. It was once operated frequently at IRM, but this was my first chance to ride it in many years. Note the sign lit on the car, indicating that riders should board via the front entrance.

Line car 604.

IRM has by far the largest and most extensive collection of North Shore Line coaches, and these were operated in various combinations on the museum’s main line.

Numerically speaking car 160 has the lowest number of any that have survived, but car 162, now undergoing restoration in East Troy, WI was actually delivered slightly earlier in 1915. 154 managed to survive the 1963 abandonment, but eventually fell victim to many years of outdoor storage and neglect at another railway museum that has struggled over the years.

It was a chilly day, but fortunately there was plenty of heat available in the cars that were running.

The motorman’s cab in 749.

IRM has been gradually developing a main street with several new buildings.

You can purchase North Shore Line coffee, a recreation of the blend once used on the Electroliners.

This is a transfer stamp machine, once found at CTA “L” and subway stations. When leaving the station, you would stamp your paper transfer with the time, which would allow you to get on another bus or train without paying a full fare. With today’s electronic payment system, this is no longer needed.

The North Shore Commuters Association was a last-ditch effort to save the railroad. It failed, but did postpone the abandonment by four years. It also paved the way for later, more successful efforts to save much of Chicago’s commuter rail system.

Signs like this were once commonplace on CTA “L” and subway stations in off-peak hours. Conductors collected fares on many lines. Starting in 1961, off-peak Evanston branch trains used a single operator who drove the train and collected fares.

I spotted one of my books in the IRM gift shop.

The sun will never set on the North Shore Line, if the Illinois Railway Museum has anything to say about it.

IRM Souvenir Brochure

Our Latest Book, Now Available for Pre-Order:

The North Shore Line

Publication Date: February 20, 2023

FYI, my new Arcadia Publishing book The North Shore Line is now finished and has gone to press. 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 as soon as we receive them, on or before February 20, 2023.

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, Now Available:

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Catching Up

July 19, 2022September 10, 2022David Sadowski 7 Comments

The photographer (possibly Emery Gulash) had but one chance to press the shutter button at precisely the right moment, and he nailed it with this classic view of westbound Electroliner train 803 at Lake Bluff in January 1963. This is what noted photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson had in mind when he wrote about the “decisive moment.” Douglas Noble: “Northbound crossing Rockland Road / IL 176 in Lake Bluff.”

This is our first post in nearly two months. We have been hard at work on our next book, The North Shore Line. In addition, I worked 16 straight days as an election judge during the recent primary here.

Each of these posts involves a tremendous amount of hard work that may not be apparent to the causal observer. First, we have to scan the negatives, prints, and slides that you see here. Then, they have to be worked over in Photoshop to get the color and density right, and remove any scratches, crud, and other blemishes that have accumulated over the decades since these pictures were taken. This can take hours for just a single photograph, but we think the results are well worth it.

Our goal is to present definitive versions of these classic photos in an online archive for all to enjoy. We see our stuff showing up all over Facebook and other parts of the Internet all the time, and, recently, even in books and magazines put out by others.

It would be nice if, in all cases, we received some credit for our contributions. When people ask permission to use our work, it is freely granted, but all we ask is that we are properly credited, that the original photographer is credited, and that the small watermark we place on these images is not cropped out.

We don’t think this is too much to ask. Meanwhile, we hope you will enjoy this latest batch of classic photographs.

-David Sadowski

PS- You might also like our Trolley Dodger Facebook auxiliary, a private group that now has 862 members.

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

The Chicago Surface Lines had a collection of historic streetcars, starting in the 1920s.
These were used for parades and the opening of new lines. Some of the restoration work, such as this car, was more fanciful than authentic, as this car was never part of the West Chicago Street Railway, nor was it #4. Don’s Rail Photos: “4 was built by Pullman in 1895, #840, as North Chicago Street RR 922. It became Chicago Union Traction Co 4022 in 1899 and became Chicago Surface Lines 4022 in 1914. It was rebuilt as WCStRy 4 in 1933. It went to Illinois Railway Museum in 1985.” The CTA inherited this collection, and various cars were trotted out during shops tours in the 1950s. Once streetcar service ended in 1958, these cars were put into storage, and were finally donated to museums in the mid-1980s.

Brooklyn-Queens Transit PCC 1066 is signed for Coney Island in the early 1950s.

A train of CTA curved-door 6000s is at Howard Street in June 1977.

A southbound North Shore Line train, with 711 in the lead, is at Morse on the “L” in June 1959.

North Shore Line cars 157 and 252 are on a June 16, 1962 fantrip. Here, we see the train at the Root River bridge near Racine, Wisconsin. (Richard H. Young Photo)

This is a South Shore Line portable substation at Michigan City, Indiana on July 10, 1977.

Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company (aka Red Arrow) cars 16 and 20 in May 1965, signed for the Media line. Kenneth Achtert: “Appears to be outbound at Springfield Rd. I would assume this is on a fantrip from the number of random individuals around the right-of-way (most likely a run-by since they are scattered about); also, the Media destination would not be standard operating procedure for two-car trains. The trains were typically scheduled to Springfield (Woodland Ave.) with only single cars going all the way to Media.” Jeff Didlake says, “I agree with Ken Achtert’s thoughts that this is a fan trip, but I believe the location is the Scenic Rd. station on the Media Line. The track is on a slight curve and a hint of the red brick high rise Drexelline Apts. is in the background. I know this station well as I managed to ruin a good tire and wheel while pulling into the parking lot there on a poorly maintained Springfield Twp. sewer inlet grate.”

On June 11, 1962, a two-car North Shore Line train, headed by 731, is bound for Mundelein near Lake Bluff. (Richard H. Young Photo)

North Shore Line combine 251 is near Racine, Wisconsin on February 6, 1962.

The interior of Queensborough Bridge Railway car 601 in the mid-1950s. This was an Electromobile, built around 1929 by Osgood-Bradley.

North Shore Line car 733 awaiting scrapping at South Upton Junction on October 26, 1963, several months after abandonment.

North Shore Line Silverliner 758 is at Edison Court in Waukegan during the summer of 1958. This was an important station, where cars were routinely added and cut from trains.

Philadelphia PCC 2142 is signed for Route 6 on September 15, 1957. Mark A. Jones writes, “That picture is of the northbound terminus of route 6 across from Willow Grove Park. 2142 is headed south to Broad and Olney.” Kenneth Achtert adds, “2142 is at Willow Grove Park, the end of the Route 6. The amusement park is hidden behind the trees.”

North Shore Line loco 455 is working the Niles Gas Spur in the Weber Industrial District, Skokie, Illinois, probably in the late 1950s. (Bob Geis Photo)

Chicago Surface Lines one-man car 6241 is at the east end of Route 43 in the 1940s. You can see a pedestrian bridge leading to the nearby Illinois Central Electric commuter station behind the streetcar.

A North Shore Line train at Winnetka Road on the Skokie Valley Route. The business at left is John H. Davies and Son, general contractors.

A three-car North Shore Line train heads south over the 6th Street Bridge, probably in the 1940s.

North Shore Line cars 716 and 409 at Highwood, possibly in the early 1940s. 409 started out as a dining car motor before it was converted to coach in 1942.

North Shore Line loco 455 heads up a freight train that is crossing over to the northbound track near Oakton on the Skokie Valley Route.

A three-car train of North Shore Line Silverliners prepares to cross the North Shore Channel, probably in the 1950s.

To get a shot like this in the 1940s, a photographer had to be extremely lucky, patient, or both. While a two-car CRT Lake Street “L” train heads east, going up the ramp towards Laramie, it passes a westbound CSL Route 16 streetcar. Two conductors on the “L” are lowering the trolley poles, as this was the switchover point to third rail. Streetcar service on Lake Street ended in 1954, and the outer portion of the Lake Street “L” was shifted over to the nearby C&NW embankment in 1962.

CTA PCC 7148 is at 71st and Ashland in June 1953. (Vic Wagner Photo) Our resident south side expert M. E. notes, “I don’t doubt this photo is at 71st and Ashland. (The street sign says Ashland.) So this photo is near the 69th and Ashland carbarn. I think this streetcar had been heading south on Ashland to 71st, and here it is turning west on 71st St. for what would be a short distance. Then it will turn north and into the carbarn.”

CTA one-man streetcar 3228 is on 79th Street at the crossing with the Illinois Central in April 1951. (Vic Wagner Photo)

The view looking north along State Street at 63rd in April 1953. The PCCs are running on Route 36, while the red Pullman is eastbound on Route 63. This was near the end of streetcar service on 63rd Street, and older red cars had replaced newer PCCs, which were shifted to run on Route 4 – Cottage Grove. At right, you can see where some buildings were destroyed by fire on May 25, 1950, after a PCC collided with a gasoline truck. 34 people were killed. The photographer was standing on a railroad viaduct and probably wanted to document the intersection of two streetcar lines before one of them changed to buses. (Vic Wagner Photo)

About the image above, M. E. adds:

Your caption reads: “This was near the end of streetcar service on 63rd Street, and older red cars had replaced newer PCCs, which were shifted to run on Route 4 – Cottage Grove.” My hangup is with the term “newer PCCs”. Yes, they were newer than the red cars, but they were not newer than the PCCs on State St. in the photo. The PCCs that ran on 63rd St. were those that Chicago Surface Lines acquired in 1936 to run on Madison St. Those PCCs were also called “pre-war PCCs”. So perhaps your caption might better say “older red cars had replaced the pre-war PCCs, which were shifted …”

I give you credit for pointing out where a State St. PCC car collided with a gasoline truck. I remember that like it happened yesterday. I also credit the photographer for a terrific action photo.

Also, about this photo:

(1) In the distance is the State St. station on the Englewood L, situated south of 59th St. I spy two more State St. PCC cars at or near the L station. This illustrates how busy the north/south PCC car lines were. The Chicago Surface Lines, then the CTA, ordered a total of 600 post-war PCCs, and they were all needed on just five north/south lines — 36 Broadway/State, 22 Clark/Wentworth, 8 Halsted, 42 Halsted/Archer/Clark, and 49 Western. (The pre-war PCCs were still on 20 Madison.)

(2) You mentioned that the photographer was standing on a railroad viaduct. That viaduct spanned State St. just south of 63rd St. The photographer was at the eastern edge of a big freight yard paralleling the New York Central right of way. It is this same freight yard that was used, three blocks east, to deliver new PCC cars, then (later) L cars, to the CTA. The L cars were transferred to the CTA via the L track that ran from the southbound Jackson Park line south past 63rd St. and then down into a ground-level freight yard.

(3) That freight yard also spanned 63rd St., so the westbound red car shown in the photo is about to go underneath the freight yard until it emerges past the New York Central (and Nickel Plate) passenger train tracks, adjacent to the entrance to Englewood Union Station. Past the station, 63rd St. ran under more tracks, first the Rock Island, then the Pennsylvania, both of which also served Englewood Union Station. All told, the trip between State St. and almost to Wentworth Av. was mostly dark 24 hours a day.

(4) The billboard at the left in the photo advertises the ’53 Ford. Assuming this photo was taken in late spring or early summer of 1953 (judging by the clothing on pedestrians and the green foliage), I don’t see any ’53 Fords in the photo.

Buses replaced streetcars on 63rd Street on May 24, 1953, so the picture can’t be from after that, thanks.

The CTA off-street loop on Halsted Street, just south of 79th, in August 1953. Pullman PCC 4368 is operating on Route 8, while the red Pullman is signed for Halsted-Downtown (Route 42). By this stage, the Pullman PCCs, although no more than seven years old, were being retired and sent to St. Louis Car Company for scrapping and parts re-use in new PCC “L” cars. Service was being supplemented by older red cars. Streetcar service on Halsted ended in May 1954. (Vic Wagner Photo) Our resident south side expert M. E. adds, “Notice how busy this terminal was. I count at least four streetcars, and perhaps a fifth if I detect another trolley pole behind the last PCC car. This terminal also served South Halsted and Halsted / Vincennes / 111th St. buses, which used the paved lane in the terminal.”

CTA one-man streetcar 3261 is at the east end of Route 79, at 79th and Brandon near Chicago’s lakefront, in September 1951. (Vic Wagner Photo)

Milwaukee Electric (Speedrail) car 1121 operated on a North Shore Line fantrip on December 4, 1949. Here it is with one of the Electroliners near Racine, Wisconsin.

The pass for Central Electric Railfans’ Association fantrip #36, which used freight equipment on the Chicago Aurora and Elgin on August 10, 1941.

The Chicago and North Western station at Lake Forest in the early 1900s, from a real photo postcard. The Chicago and Milwaukee electric (which became the North Shore Line in 1916) ran just beyond those large trees, and had a handsome station of its own just out of view to the right.

This picture was taken during Fall 1962, in the waning days of the ground-level operation of the Lake Street “L”. The new elevated station on the nearby C&NW embankment has been built and the changeover took place on October 28th of that year. This view looks west along South Boulevard at Marion Street in Oak Park. Crossing gates were manually operated.

On February 19, 1956, a northbound Electroliner has stopped at Kenosha and is presumably on a fantrip. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

Speedrail curved-side car 61 is on Michigan at 6th Street in Milwaukee on September 2, 1950, passing by the north side of the North Shore Line’s Milwaukee Terminal. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

Milwaukee and Suburban Transport streetcar 954 is westbound on Route 10 at 68th and Fairview in August 1957.

The same location in 2015. The streetcar tracks were just to the right of this alley.

On June 12, 1955, Milwaukee and Suburban Transport streetcar 999 is on a bridge over the Chicago & North Western Railway at Howell Avenue. This was a Central Electric Railfans’ Association fantrip. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

North Shore Line Silverliner 766 is about to cross the Glencoe gauntlet, a short single-track section on the otherwise double-tracked Shore Line Route. The occasion was an August 9, 1953 fantrip. This short bridge over a ravine was not deemed strong enough to support the weight of two trains passing each other, so it was made single-tracked. This also permitted a tight curve to be straightened out a bit. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

North Shore Line car 155 is on the tail end of a fantrip train, turning onto Greenleaf Avenue in Wilmette, heading east on a July 24, 1955 Central Electric Railfans’ Association fantrip. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

North Shore Line freight loco 456 and caboose 1002 are at the scale house in Rondout during January 1963. (Photo attributed to Emery Gulash)

North Shore Line cars 157 and 252 are on a June 16, 1962 fantrip. We have posted pictures from this trip before. There is another in this post, taken by Richard H. Young, but this one may be by Emery Gulash.

Don’s Rail Photos: “1796 was built by American Car & Foundry in 1907 as NEWRy 287, #5098, as trailer. It was renumbered 1287 in 1913 and rebuilt as motor 1796. It became CRT 1796 in 1923 and was sold to Gaylord Container in Louisiana…” One side of this “L” car was removed, and it was used to transport large rolls of paper. Although Don’s says this car was scrapped in 1966, that is incorrect and the date was actually 1973. Parts were salvaged from this car to help restore sister car 1797 at the Illinois Railway Museum. 1796 could not be saved since the body was no longer structurally sound. I have July 1958 as the date when the CTA sold this car, and this picture was taken by William C. Hoffman in October 1963.

Mystery Photo

This was scanned from an original North Shore Line 8x10" nitrate negative, taken circa 1930, and in the collections of Robert Heinlein. Determining the location presented many challenges, yet this has now been determined with the aid of other fans. The car is 714, and it is signed as a Chicago Local on the Shore Line Route. Since the North Shore tracks are not adjacent to the Chicago and North Western, we must be north of North Chicago Junction. We cannot be south of Highland Park, as there is freight present here. A sign on the high-level platform indicates that freight trains have to come to a stop, most likely to make sure part of the platform gets flipped up for the sake of clearances. A similar arrangement existed at high-level stations of the Chicago Aurora and Elgin. As all the Shore Line tracks in Waukegan ran on the street, that pretty much narrows it down to North Chicago. The Thomas J. Killian Plumbing Supply company building at left clinches it, and the location is between 16th and 17th Streets, looking north. The Chicago and North Western's tracks were a short distance east of here, to the right out of view of this photo. (Courtesy of Kevin Heinlein)

This was scanned from an original North Shore Line 8×10″ nitrate negative, taken circa 1930, and in the collections of Robert Heinlein. Determining the location presented many challenges, yet this has now been determined with the aid of other fans. The car is 714, and it is signed as a Chicago Local on the Shore Line Route. Since the North Shore tracks are not adjacent to the Chicago and North Western, we must be north of North Chicago Junction. We cannot be south of Highland Park, as there is freight present here. A sign on the high-level platform indicates that freight trains have to come to a stop, most likely to make sure part of the platform gets flipped up for the sake of clearances. A similar arrangement existed at high-level stations of the Chicago Aurora and Elgin. As all the Shore Line tracks in Waukegan ran on the street, that pretty much narrows it down to North Chicago. The Thomas J. Killian Plumbing Supply company building at left clinches it, and the location is between 16th and 17th Streets, looking north. The Chicago and North Western’s tracks were a short distance east of here, to the right out of view of this photo. (Courtesy of Kevin Heinlein)

A close-up view of car 714, which seems to be painted orange.

The freight siding for the Thomas J. Killian Plumbing Supply Company.

This was also scanned from an original North Shore Line 8x10" nitrate negative in the collections of Robert Heinlein, and was taken at the same time as the previous photo and shows a slightly different view of the same scene. (Courtesy of Kevin Heinlein)

This was also scanned from an original North Shore Line 8×10″ nitrate negative in the collections of Robert Heinlein, and was taken at the same time as the previous photo and shows a slightly different view of the same scene. (Courtesy of Kevin Heinlein)

Ray DeGroote Turns 92

Ray DeGroote celebrated his 92nd birthday on July 15th. Here he is about two weeks earlier, at our celebratory lunch.

I dedicated my last book Chicago’s Lost “L”s to my friend Raymond DeGroote, Jr., as the “Dean of Chicago Railfans.” He turned 92 recently. Ray has traveled the world, and has taken thousands of great photos, many of which have been used in books, magazines, and in his excellent slideshows over the years.

And he’s still at it– Ray recently returned from a trip to San Diego for the Electric Railroaders’ Association annual convention. Since returning, other friends have treated him to lunch, and he reports he is “well fed.”

Here are a few of Ray’s classic photos of the North Shore Line:

We are at Indian Hill on the Shore Line Route on July 24, 1955, just prior to abandonment. Cars 175 and 413 are in regular service, while 155 is on a Central Electric Railfans’ Association fantrip, and has temporarily been shunted to a siding. The tracks in this area were grade-separated circa 1938-43 by a project partially funded by the Federal government. (Raymond DeGroote, Jr. Photo)

A fantrip train made up of Silverliners is on Greenleaf Avenue in Wilmette on February 20, 1955. This trip was sponsored by the Illini Railroad Club. (Raymond DeGroote, Jr. Photo)

North Shore Line loco 459 and caboose 1006 are at Lake Bluff on January 19, 1963. (Raymond DeGroote, Jr. Photo)

The “KX” here most likely refers to Kodachrome X, first released by Kodak in 1962, with a film speed of 64. The original Kodachrome had a film speed of ASA/ISO 10, which was bumped up to 25 in 1961 with the release of Kodachrome II.

The unrestored interior of North Shore Line car 151 on September 4, 1961. (Raymond DeGroote, Jr. Photo)

The interior of North Shore Line car 160 on January 12, 1963. Interestingly, it had been refurbished in November 1962, even though abandonment was at hand. This car was purchased by the Illinois Railway Museum, where it remains today. (Raymond DeGroote, Jr. Photo)

North Shore Line car 714’s interior on June 17, 1962. This car is now at the Illinois Railway Museum. (Raymond DeGroote, Jr. Photo)

The interior of North Shore Line Silverliner 755 on September 4, 1961. After abandonment, this car went to the Seashore Trolley Museum in Maine. (Raymond DeGroote, Jr. Photo)

Recent Correspondence

Max Hensley sent us this scan of a 1890 specimen $1,000 bond for the West Chicago Street Railroad Tunnel Company. This cable car tunnel was built in 1893 and crossed the Chicago River near Van Buren Street. Like the other river tunnels, it was eventually enlarged and dug deeper around 1911 for streetcar use. But of the three such tunnels (the others being on Washington and LaSalle Streets), Van Buren was used the least, and does not seem to have seen much action after 1924, except for training use. These tunnels still exist but the approaches have been filled in.

The river tunnels are also discussed at length in my book Building Chicago’s Subways.

Milwaukee Streetcar

We were in Milwaukee on July 13th to help a friend move some things. We did stop by Burns Commons for a few minutes to catch a few pictures (and one video) of Milwaukee’s modern streetcar at its northern terminus:

Did Not Win

Try as we might, our resources are limited. Here are some interesting items that we were not able to purchase, but are still worth a second look:

This desktop ink blotter dates to circa 1919-20, as the North Shore Line is already running via the “L”, but had not yet opened their new Milwaukee Terminal. The line to Mundelein is shown, as it had been extended there as of 1905. But prior to 1925, it was called Rockefeller, and later, the area was known rather generically as “Area.” When using a fountain pen, you would wipe off excess ink on the backside of blotters such as this, which measured about 6″ wide.

This real photo postcard view of the Elgin and Belvedere Electric Company was most likely taken on its inaugural run in early 1907. Mike Franklin has identified the location as Belvedere, as that is the First M. E. Church at rear. Car 201 was built by the St. Louis Car Company in 1906. (Thanks to J. J. Sedelmaier for tweaking this image.)

Here is what the late Don Ross wrote about the Elgin and Belvedere:

This line was built in 1906 and opened in 1907 between Elgin and Belvidere, 36 miles, to connect the Rockford lines with the Chicago lines. It was under the management of Bion J. Arnold, who was the most distinguished expert in city transit between 1900 and 1925. In 1927 the Rockford to Belvidere segment of the Rockford & Interurban was merged to form the Elgin Belvidere & Rockford. Rockford lightweight interurbans were used, but this was not financially satisfactory. The cars were returned to Rockford Public Service, and the old E&B cars were remodeled for one man service. But it was too late. Competition from the parallel Chicago & North Western and from the automobile caused the line to quit service on March 9, 1930. Arnold purchased two Manhattan Elevated steam locomotives and scrapped the line by himself. It was not completed until the mid to late 1930s.

In 1956, I was checking on ownership of an abandoned C&NW right-of-way for the Illinois Railway Museum, and I stopped in the county clerk’s office in Woodstock. The clerk became curious and then suggested that we might be interested in a piece of property which was on the delinquent tax rolls. It was 50 feet wide and 7 miles long. After paying the taxes for two years, a quit claim was filed and this has become the home of the IRM at Union, IL.

We ran some Elgin and Belvedere photos in a previous post, taken in the mid-1930s by the late Edward Frank, Jr., showing the interurban’s rolling stock in dead storage, waiting for buyers that never materialized.

Keep those cards and letters coming in, folks!

-David Sadowski

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.

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Getting Warmer

April 16, 2021January 7, 2024David Sadowski 20 Comments

The conductor on this gate car, on a westbound Douglas Park train at Western Avenue, is waiting to receive the bell signal from the next car, so he can pass it along. Before “L” trains had door control wired up between cars, this is how the system worked. There were many more conductors– a three car train of wooden “L” cars had two conductors, plus the motorman. The date was February 9, 1954. (William C. Hoffman Photo) Andre Kristopans: “One detail – each train had one motorman and one conductor. Conductor worked between first two cars (or in only car if there was only one). The rest of the men were classified as “guards” and had a slightly lower pay rate. Motorman and conductor stayed together all day, guards worked dependent on train length that trip. They were apparently mostly part timers that only worked the longer rush trains, though for instance on North-South where trains were four cars midday at least one guard worked all day.”

Spring is finally here, and the temps are gradually getting warmer. But here at the Trolley Dodger, we feel we’re getting warmer in other ways as well– in the sense that we’re on to something.

After more than six years, we’re getting closer to what I hoped this site could be when it started. Maybe we’re finally realizing some of our true potential, I don’t know. I will leave such determinations to our readers.

But when I started my first transit blog (this is actually the second), someone opined it was long on potential, and short on execution. And I had to agree that this was so. Hey, nobody knows everything about a subject, and we learn as we go along.

And in six plus years, I feel we have improved both the content of this site (our image library) and the information that we provide. And it does seem to fill a need that was out there. I base that on how often our own articles and pictures come up when I do Internet searches on subjects, and the number of times we see our own pictures re-shared on Facebook.

When folks do share our images on Facebook, though, there are a few things that I would ask. First, do not crop out the watermark on our images that identifies them as having come from here. Second, please provide the correct caption information. Too many times, I have seen either partial, or sometimes even incorrect captions placed on our photos when shared.

Finally, please credit the original photographer, when the name of that person is known.

Today, we have a large number of outstanding classic photos for your consideration. Even better, all of them are from our own collections. Some we purchased, and others are scans of original 35mm slides taken by the late William C. Hoffman.

We recently received the Hoffman collection as part of an overall gift of photographs collected and shot by the late Jeffrey L. Wein, a friend for over 40 years. We thank him for his generosity.

You may have seen duplicate slides over the years from some of these Hoffman shots. Bill Hoffman was an avid photographer, and while not always the best from a technical standpoint, he got many shots that are unique and were either missed, or overlooked, by others.

Bill Hoffman’s strong suit was in documenting things that were fast disappearing, those scenes of everyday life that others took for granted. While many of his pictures are not tack-sharp, at least here, we are working with the “best evidence,” the original slides themselves, and not duplicates.

I don’t know what kind of camera equipment he used back in the day, but after he passed away in the late 1980s, a friend gave me Bill Hoffman’s last camera, which was a screw-mount Leica IIIg, a model from 1957.

Meanwhile, after taking a pause due to the pandemic, work will soon resume on our next book Chicago’s Lost “L”s, scheduled to appear on July 12. It has now reached the proofing stage, and there are still a few changes that need to be made.

Arcadia Publishing has priced this at $23.99, and we are doing our best to make sure that you, the reader, will get an excellent value for your money. We will begin our pre-sale at the beginning of June, and each copy purchased from our Online Store will also include a bonus item, as well as being autographed.

Enjoy!

-David Sadowski

PS- If you want to see even more transit-related content than we can share here, check out our Trolley Dodger Facebook group, which currently has 242 members.

Recent Finds

CTA 3156, seen here on the Stock Yards branch in the early 1950s, was built by Brill in 1909 for the Lake Street “L”. After it was no longer needed there, it was used on this shuttle operation in the early-to-mid 1950s, still sporting at least one trolley pole. I am not sure of the exact location here, but it is nearby Agar’s Meats and on a section of “L” that was double-tracked. The men in the foreground were either on the roof of a nearby building, or perhaps on the Chicago Junction Railway embankment, if that was close by. (Wendell E. Grove Photo)

On June 6, 1954, the National Railway Historical Society held a fantrip to say goodbye to trolley service on the Red Arrow interurban to West Chester, PA. Cars 14, 20, and 68 were used, and after 20 broke down, it was towed by 68. This was a photo stop, and the slide identifies the location as either “Milltown” or “Mill farm,” the handwriting is hard to make out.

We actually ran another picture from the same photo stop in a previous post:

Cars 14, 20 and 68 at a photo stop along the West Chester line on the June 6, 1954 NRHS fantrip.

Red Arrow Brill-built “Master Unit” 77, signed for the Sharon Hill line, in the early 1950s. This car, built in 1932, has been preserved, but the last report I have is that it is stored inoperable by the Middletown and Hummelstown Railroad.

Ardmore junction was a favorite spot for photographers on the Red Arrow Lines, as the Norristown High-Speed Line crossed over the trolley line to Ardmore. Many photos such as this were posed on fantrips, up until the end of 1966, when buses replaced rail on the Ardmore branch. The date and circumstances of this photo are not known, other than that it was taken in 1961. Car 66 was built by Brill in 1927, and has been preserved at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum since 1970.

Over the years, Boston has phased out nearly all the street running on its Green Line trolley system, except for a bit of the E line, which now terminates at Heath. Here, on October 30, 1982, Clark Frazier captured this view of MBTA “picture window” PCC 3314, built by Pullman-Standard in 1951, on Huntington Avenue, going by Mission Park on its way to Arborway as part of a two-car train. Although service on the E line was truncated to Heath, trolleys still run at this location today.

Here is a view of the Lake Street “L” looking north from Garfield Park in September 1963. This was a time between the elevation of the west portion of the line in 1962, and the arrival of the new 2000-series “L” cars in 1964. The line was operated using 4000s, which by then had their trolley poles removed, as Lake was now operated with third rail only. These cars are in mid-day storage on a third track. The following year, a new yard opened in Forest Park, making this kind of storage unnecessary.

Johnstown, PA was the smallest city to operate PCC cars, and was a favorite of photographers, but I don’t recall seeing a lot of winter pictures. Here, Johnstown Traction 412, with its distinctive Pepsi bottlecap advertising on the front, is at the Roxbury Loop on March 14, 1959. Streetcar service ended the following year. (Bill Volkmer Photo)

Officials from Skokie and the CTA cut the ribbon at Dempster Street on April 20, 1964, inaugurating Skokie Swift service on file miles of trackage formerly owned by the North Shore Line interurban, which had quit service just over a year before. This is today’s Yellow Line and is now operated using third rail power rather than overhead wire.

We ran a different picture from this event in a previous post:

On April 20, 1964, CTA and local officials cut the ribbon at Dempster, commencing service on the new five-mile-long Skokie Swift line. This represented but a small portion of the Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee interurban that abandoned service on January 21, 1963. The Chicago Transit Authority had to purchase about half of the Swift route anyway, as their connection to Skokie Shops went over NSL tracks. The CTA decided to offer an express service between Dempster and Howard stations, and put in a large parking lot. Service was put into place using existing equipment at the lowest possible cost. The late George Krambles was put in charge of this project, which received some federal funding as a “demonstration” service, at a time when that was still somewhat unusual. But CTA officials at the time indicated that they would still have started the Swift, even without federal funds. I was nine years old at the time, and rode these trains on the very first day. I can assure you they went 65 miles per hour, as I was watching the speedometer. Needless to say, the experiment was quite successful, and service continues on what is now the Yellow Line today, with the addition of one more stop at Oakton. (Richard Hofer Photo, David Stanley Collection)

A two-car South Shore Line train, made up of cars 103 and 24, has made it to downtown Chicago during a blizzard in January 1979.

This is the back end of a westbound two-car train of 2000s on the Douglas Park “L” in July 1966, approaching the Laramie Avenue station in Cicero. Laramie was closed in 1992, but was reopened in 2002-2003, while the nearby 54th Avenue station was being redone. The station house at Laramie has been declared historic and is the last remaining one of its type, and has been preserved, although no longer used.

A close-up of the previous picture, giving a better view of the Laramie Avenue station, with 54th Avenue off in the distance.

A remnant of the Laramie station, as it looks today.

Pittsburgh PCC 1646 on Arlington Avenue in Pittsburgh on April 25, 1974. This trackage serves as a bypass route for a nearby transit tunnel, and I actually have rode on it twice– the first time was in 1985, when for a short time, it became an actual route, and then again in 2014, on a fantrip. (Joseph Saitta Photo)

North Shore Line combine car 255 on June 1, 1962. Note the variations in paint color on this car, ranging from a dark green to a bluish green. That should be enough to drive would-be modelers crazy in their quest for authenticity. Don’s Rail Photos: “255 was built by Jewett in 1917. It had all of the seats removed in the 1920s to provide a full length baggage car which ran in passenger trains. It was used for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to move equipment to Ravinia. On July 2, 1942, the 40 seats were replaced. Then on December 1, 1946, the seats were again removed. In addition to the Symphony, the car was used for sailors’ baggage from Great Lakes.”

A train of CTA 2000s on the then-new Dan Ryan line in November 1969 at 79th Street. (Rick Burn Photo)

A South Shore Line train at 130th and the under construction Calumet Superhighway in April 1952. (James P. Shuman Photo)

Since this shows a Logan Square “L” train on the Met main line, just west of the Loop, it must have been taken between August 1950 (when the 6000s were introduced) and February 1951 (when the Dearborn-Milwaukee Subway opened).

This June 1975 photo of a pair of derelict CTA 4000s was, and remains, somewhat of a mystery. The location is marked as “Forest Glen Yard,” which is actually the name of a bus yard on Chicago’s northwest side. I posted this to our Facebook group, in hopes someone might help identify the location. Three possibilities were suggested: CTA Skokie Shops, Michigan City on the South Shore Line, and Joliet. The nearby freight yard and the orange caboose are clues. According to Andre Kristopans, that’s Chuck Tauscher at right. In his prime, he was an excellent photographer. (S. Downey Photo)

A close-up of the late Charles Tauscher, from the previous photo.

I really have no information about this photo, other than that it might be Mexico City. If I had to guess a date, I would say the early 1960s. What attracted me to it is that you don’t see a lot of photos showing a streetcar and a trolley bus together.

In a previous post, we ran a photo of the Logan Square interlocking tower, taken by the late Roger Puta on April 9, 1966, shortly before this tower was replaced by a new one that continued in use until the line was extended in 1970. Another, similar photo turned up recently, and I bought it. Imagine my surprise when it turns out to have been taken mere minutes after the first one! Although I cannot say for certain, this one may also have been taken by Roger Puta. I believe the man at left is his friend Rick Burn, whose name is written on the back of the slide. However, if that is him, he could hardly have taken the picture, and due to the great similarity with the other shot, it’s entirely possible that Roger Puta took this one as well.

Here is the other photo by Roger Puta:

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

South Shore Line trains at the Randolph Street Terminal in August 1965. This terminal has since been completely redone and is now underground, beneath Millennium Park.

On May 25, 1958 there was a fantrip on Chicago’s last remaining streetcar line (Wentworth), less than a month before the final run. This included a tour of South Shops at 77th and Vincennes, and the CTA Historical Collection was trotted out one last time for photos, of which there are many circulating. This batch was taken by J. W. Vigrass. The collection was eventually moved to the Lawndale car barn, where it languished until the 1980s, when it was parsed out to various museums.

CTA PCC 7207 is on Ravenswood near Devon Station (car barn) in the 1950s.

This is the third “L” photo I have, taken at this location, which at first was a mystery, but eventually turned out to be an annex (since demolished) just north of the Merchandise Mart. All three photos may have been taken at the same time, and by the same photographer, in the 1930s. This one shows North Shore Line cars 768 and 769.

This is a Brooklyn PCC car, one of a hundred in use from 1936 to 1956. It is signed for Route 68 and could be heading to the Brooklyn Bridge. Other than that, I have no information.

Stereo images were popular around 1900, and when placed in the proper viewer (sometimes called a “stereopticon”) provided a 3-D effect. This is the left picture from a stereo pair, showing cable cars on Madison Street in downtown Chicago. Some say that the Loop got its name from the paths taken by downtown cable cars, but research has shown the term came into popular use because of the “L’ and the Union Loop, completed in 1897. There are no overhead wires in view here, and none were permitted downtown until 1906. The tracks at left may have been used by horse car lines, since there is no trough for a cable.

The right image of the stereo pair.

This picture shows a Chicago PCC at the Pullman plant in Massachusetts. Chances are excellent that this is car 4062, the first of 310 that Pullman would build for Chicago, starting in 1946.

This is a rare agent’s stub for what is known as an “Interline ticket,” used for one trip involving two different railroads. In this case, it seems the trip involved the Monon Railroad and the Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee, aka the North Shore Line. The passenger may have been a new recruit during World War II, as this ticket was apparently requested by the US government.

CRT 4096 is part of a Normal Park Express. This picture may have been taken on the south side. This car was part of the original order of 4000s, which came with a center door that was never actually used in service. It was closed off to provide more seating. These cars were known as “Baldies,” as opposed to the second 4000s order, the “Plushies.”
Our resident south side expert M.E. writes: “This picture must have been taken underneath the pedestrian bridge at the Indiana Ave. station when the shoppers’ specials were running express from 43rd St. into the Loop. The shoppers’ specials ran only northbound. Returning southbound, they were local trains using the local southbound track, which is the track next to the platform at Indiana Ave.. This is the only circumstance I can think of in which a sign would say “Express Normal Pk”. Notice that the Normal Park car is the last car in the train. West of the Harvard station on the Englewood line, Normal Park cars were always attached as the last car of northbound mainline Englewood trains and detached from being the last car on southbound mainline Englewood trains. That arrangement lasted until 1949.”

CRT wood car 1136 is part of a Howard Street Express. The location might be the same as the previous picture.

CRT 4415, a “Plushie,” is part of a Howard Street Express. The nickname came from the plush seats used on these cars. “L” cars wore flags on certain holidays such as the 4th of July.

North Shore Line Electroliner set 801-802 is heading northbound at Loyola on Chicago’s north side “L”. If the train had been southbound, there would be overhead wire, then in use by freight locomotives. This Electroliner set is currently undergoing restoration at the Illinois Railway Museum.

North Shore Line 743 in a pocket track at Edison Court.

Photos showing North Shore Line trains being scrapped after the 1963 abandonment are rare– and this is not one of them. This is car 416, built in 1916 by Cincinnati Car Company, and rebuilt in 1942. It was scrapped shortly after this picture was taken at North Chicago on January 21, 1956, after the car had been damaged in a fire.

Atlantic City once had an interurban known as the Shore Fast Line. Interestingly, it inspired one of the four railroad names in the game Monopoly, the “Short Line.” In the early 1930s, Charles Todd, an early Monopoly player, got tired of trying to fit Shore Fast Line on his handmade Monopoly board, and “shortened” it as a joke. Charles Darrow copied it verbatim, and began to market this version of Atlantic City Monopoly commercially, and the rest is history.

South Shore Line car 100 wore patriotic colors during World War II, and helped promote the sale of War Bonds. A different picture of this car appeared in my 2017 book Chicago Trolleys.

CRT Shopper’s Specials Timetables, 1923-24

Chicago’s “L” system started out as four separate companies, that gradually came together as a single system. This evolution reached its fruition in 1924, when all four entities were combined into the Chicago Rapid Transit Company as part of the Samuel Insull empire.

From about 1913 on, the “L” had been operated more or less as a single unit, but the four underlying companies were still there. As part of this unification process, new all-steel state of the art rapid transit cars were ordered, the 4000-series, in two distinct batches. These were the first “L” cars intended for use on all lines– previously, all cars had been at least partially made from wood, and were ordered for use on one of the four independent “L” lines.

The first 4000s were built circa 1913-15, and the second group from 1923-24. When the later 4000s were put into service, the Insull interests instituted a mid-day “Shopper’s Special” express service on five lines in time for the 1923 Christmas season.

We were fortunate recently to be able to purchase three rare 1923-24 timetables for this service. This type of service was most successful on the Evanston line over the years. The Chicago Transit Authority re-introduced a “Shopper’s Special” as a mid-day Evanston Express in the late 1950s, and this lasted into the early 1990s.

Photos by William C. Hoffman

Bill Hoffman used a Leica iiig camera similar to this for many years.

On October 22, 1953, work was far along on dismantling the former CTA Garfield Park “L” station at Western and Congress. Remarkably, trains ran on this line less than a month before this picture was taken. The tracks at ground level were a bypass route for Western Avenue streetcars, to facilitate construction of a new bridge over the eventual Congress (now Eisenhower) expressway. The view looks to the north. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

An interior view of CTA wood car 1813, built by ACF in 1907. This picture was taken on a May 1, 1955 fantrip, while the train was on the Van Buren Street temporary ground level trackage, where the Garfield Park “L” ran from 1953 to 1958 during construction of the nearby Congress rapid transit line. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

In a previous post, we ran a picture of car 1813 (not by Bill Hoffman), probably taken on the same May 1, 1955 fantrip:

CRT 1813 is part of a two-car train at Sedgwick. The flags may indicate this was a fantrip. (George Trapp Collection)

Bill Hoffman took this picture on July 8, 1954, to compare “old” (left) and “new” types of third rail collection shoes on CTA 6000-series “L” cars. This photo was taken at 43rd Street.

Steel wheels, trolley poles, and coupling detail of CTA high performance cars 6129-6130 at Sedgwick on December 11, 1955. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

On July 21, 1950, a CTA Grafield Park “L” train approaches Marshfield from the west, while a westbound Chicago Aurora & Elgin train is at the station. The tracks curving off to the left are for the Douglas Park branch (today’s Pink Line), (William C. Hoffman Photo)

Chicago Rapid Transit 3023 is southbound at Chicago Avenue on April 6, 1946. Note the tower behind the train, which controlled switching. North of here there were four tracks instead of two. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

On December 2, 1946, Chicago Rapid Transit car 3024 heads up a southbound two-car train at Chicago Avenue. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

This is the view looking east at the CTA 40th and Indiana Avenue station on November 10, 1957. There is a single car Kenwood shuttle train in the pocket track, and Kenwood had less than three weeks to go before abandonment. The sign shows the routing of lines at this station, and there is a sticker over where the Stock Yards line had been, as that branch had already been abandoned not long before (October 6, 1957). (William C. Hoffman Photo)

A close-up of the sign, and an early example of “cancel culture.” The replacement bus was a new #43 Stock Yards Limited, which continued in service until March 26, 1962. Both “L” and bus did not last due to the Stock Yards being in an irreversible decline, and this Chicago landmark closed for good in 1971. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

This is the view looking west along the Congress expressway construction site on December 30, 1954, showing an eastbound four-car Garfield Park “L” train on temporary trackage in Van Buren Street. The highway opened in this area the following year. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

A southbound 6-car train of CTA woods is at 18th Street on the Douglas Park “L” on March 7, 1955. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

The Chicago Transit Authority logo on a new substation under the Harvard “L” station on April 23, 1962. This Englewood branch station closed in 1992, and was demolished during the 1994-96 Green Line reconstruction. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

On August 15, 1954, a four-car CTA train of 6000s heads northbound into the State Street Subway at the south portal at 13th and State. The section of “L” to the left was then not being used by CTA trains on a regular basis. Now the situation is reversed– the “L” is used by regular trains, but the subway portal is not, since Howard trains are connected to the Dan Ryan line via a different tunnel. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

A two car CTA train of 6000s descends into the south portal of the State Street Subway on April 1, 1956. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

Here. we see the tail end of a northbound four-car train of CTA 6000s on the Douglas Park “L” at 18th Street. The date was March 7, 1955. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

On September 15, 1957, a southbound CTA train on the north-south “L” passes by a North Shore Line train (lead car 420) on a fantrip. The lower level tracks were an interchange connection between the “L” and the Milwaukee Road, and were used for freight until 1973. They had once been part of a commuter rail line that the “L” took over north of Wilson Avenue that originally ran at ground level to Evanston. The lower level area is now occupied by Challenger Park. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

When the Lake Street “L” ran at ground level west of Laramie, it ran parallel with the Lake Street streetcar line for a few blocks, before the latter crossed over to the north side of the railroad embankment at Pine Avenue. On May 8, 1954, about three weeks before buses replaced streetcars on CTA Route 16, westbound car 3163 passes an eastbound “L” train made up of 4000s. Note the trolley wires for both used a common support. The “L” was relocated onto the embankment on October 28, 1962. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

An eastbound CTA three-car train of woods passes a westbound CA&E train near Western Avenue on August 9, 1950. This is approximately the same view as a different photo in this post, taken on October 19, 1953, by which time the “L” structure here was being demolished to make way for the Congress expressway. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

On October 19, 1953, we are looking west along the old Garfield Park “L” at Western Avenue, as it was being demolished as part of the Congress expressway construction project. Behind the photographer, the Western Avenue “L” station was already being dismantled, which you can see in a different photo in this post. Remarkably, trains ran on these tracks as late as September 27 in one direction, only about three weeks before this picture was taken by William C. Hoffman. Soon, the Western Avenue streetcar tracks were re-routed in this area, so it could be excavated and the bridge that now goes over the expressway could be built.

When Bill Hoffman tool this picture on August 7, 1954, looking east along Randolph Street at the “L” station on Wabash, it was about to be renovated with, among other things, a large metal CTA logo and a new waiting room. The new station opened in 1957 and included a direct entrance to the second floor of Marshall Field’s. Randolph and Wabash was replaced by a new station at Washington and Wabash (which also replaced Madison) in 2017. This picture is a bit blurry, probably because Hoffman had only a few seconds to take it before getting out of the way from oncoming traffic. I guess you could call it a “grabshot.”

I used a black-and-white version of this image, made from a duplicate slide, in my 2018 book Building Chicago’s Subways. I had tried to borrow the original from Jeff, but he said he had no idea where to find it. So I had to guess at the date, and assumed it was from 1954. But actually, the date was October 19, 1953. Apparently, they were in a rush to get the old Garfield Park “L” structure out of the way here at Western Avenue, so expressway work could proceed. The view looks to the northeast on Western at Congress. Since this was scanned from the original slide, now I can make out that the PCC streetcar at left is 4390, which was still in service in June 1958, when the last Chicago streetcar ran on Wentworth. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

Now here is an amazing photograph. To catch both an eastbound CTA Jackson Park “L” train on the bridge, and a southbound Illinois Central Electric commuter train, is nothing short of fortuitous. But that’s exactly what Bill Hoffman did on August 3, 1958. The bridge is now gone, as CTA “L” service has been cut back to Cottage Grove, and the IC is now Metra Electric.

Bill Hoffman’s notes: “October 25, 1954. View northwest – Halsted Street station – Englewood “L” line – (63rd Place). Old Chicago & Interurban Traction terminal in foreground.”
Our resident south side expert M.E. adds: “Lots of things to say about this picture.
(1) The first car has the old Rapid Transit System paint job. It seems to me that, when the CTA formed married pairs of L cars, they would have repainted the CRT car in current CTA livery. So I think the cars on this train were not married pairs.
(2) Notice the eastbound train, which is stopped, extends past the platform. I think the rear of the train also extends past the rear of the platform. Why? Until 1949, Normal Park L cars were attached or detached from mainline Englewood trains at Harvard. Therefore, Englewood trains west of Harvard had one less car than trains had east of Harvard. But after 1949, when Normal Park service became a shuttle to and from Harvard, all Englewood trains had the same number of cars both west and east of Harvard.
I think the train shown has 7 cars. One reason, of course, is the CRT paint on only one car. A second reason is that, as I recall, platform lengths back then accommodated 6 cars. Therefore the first and seventh cars would extend past the platform. A third factor would be if there were still multiple conductors who stood between cars to open and close entry and exit doors. There would be no conductor at the rear of the train, and no conductor at the front. So the train could extend past the platform at both ends. But if, by then, there were indeed married pairs and only one conductor who controlled all the doors, then why is only the first car still painted in CRT colors? Too bad we can’t count the cars.
(3) The bus shown belonged to the South Suburban Safeway Lines, which
essentially replaced the Chicago & Interurban Traction Co. and kept the same route along Halsted St. into Chicago, ending on the south side of the 63rd and
Halsted L station. But in the meantime, the bus company started a second route north of Harvey that used Dixie Highway, Western Ave., and 63rd St., and ended at the 63rd/Halsted L. So the SSL bus shown could be on either the Halsted line or the Western line. The other bus line that served 63rd/Halsted was the Suburban Transit System, based in Oak Lawn. All this bus service came to Englewood because the shopping district centered around 63rd and Halsted was the largest outside the Loop.
(4) Landmark buildings in the picture: (a) The Sears store was on the northeast corner of 63rd and Halsted. (b) The tower at the far left was atop the Wieboldt store on the southwest corner of 63rd and Green (a half-block west of Halsted).
(5) West of the interurban building, and just past the tree, is the Rapid Transit station entrance from 63rd Place. There was also an entrance on Halsted St.
(6) The red neon sign at the left seems to say “Ambulances”. I don’t know what that was about.
(7) This picture was made possible because the buildings on the south side of 63rd Place had been razed, leaving a mound of dirt and rocks.”
Andre Kristopans adds: “You are correct the shot at 63/Halsted has odd number of cars, and therefore can’t be consecutive numbers. As I understand, the plushies were paired up starting in 1950s, but baldies never really were. There was an effort made circa 1949, but until the end there were mismates. It was only after the plushies came off Lake and went to Ravenswood 1964 was there really an effort to keep pairs together. Remember there were trailers around until about 1960, so you had to pair a trailer with a motor both on Lake and Evanston.
Also, “CTA”ing 4000s was a multi-part process. Install MUDC, convert from line to battery control, add permanent markers, add headlights, repaint. Not all at same time. Have seen photos of cars in brown with marker boxes and headlights and cars in green without. Another item – how were train splits handled? There were at least three locations where in-service trains were split. Harvard on Englewood, Laramie on Garfield, Damen on Logan Square. I assume a fresh crew of two handled the cut section, shuttling Harvard to 69, Laramie to 22/Mannheim (or Roosevelt) and Damen to Lawndale, with one guard going off duty at the cut location and going back on aboard the next inbound train. Also there were cuts and adds at midroute yards, but that was simply the guards on the cut or add ending there. Finally, there were thru Jackson Park trains to Linden rush hours until the reorganization. Probably only part of train went thru, with rest being added to a southbound at Howard? Howard was not a major yard until 1950s apparently, Wilson was.”

From September 20, 1953, until July 3, 1957, Chicago Aurora & Elgin interurban train service terminated in Forest Park, and commuters had to change trains to ride the CTA Garfield Park “L” if they wanted to continue downtown. They had to pay a regular CTA fare (packs of tokens were available at a discount) and portions of the ride were slow, at least on the 2.3 miles where Garfield was temporarily running on surface trackage in Van Buren street. The CTA and CA&E did their best to coordinate service, however, as evidenced by these signs lined up at Laramie Avenue on August 7, 1955. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

While this is not the greatest picture, from a technical standpoint (it is blurred), it does show CTA streetcar 1749, one of a few that had been painted green, running under the Lake Street “L”. The view looks east at Central Park Boulevard, by Garfield Park. I am not sure why the streetcar is signed for Route 21, which was Cermak Road. The “L” cars up top are midday storage on a third track. The Lake “L” did not have a proper storage yard until 1964, when a new one opened west of Harlem Avenue in Forest Park. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

In the Red

Bill Hoffman didn’t just shoot Kodachrome slide film. Sometimes he used Ektachrome, and occasionally, Agfachrome. Ektachrome had a higher film speed than Kodachrome (32 vs. 10) in the 1950s. Unfortunately, time has proven that the dyes used in early Ektachrome film were unstable and subject to fading.

I scanned some of these faded slides, and took a stab at color correcting them. They appear almost entirely red, due to the extreme fading of the other color layers. Years ago, it was felt there was little that could be done with these images, except convert them to black-and-white.

With computers, it is now possible to do a better job at repairing some of these images.

So, first here are the red versions, and then the versions that are not so red. Unfortunately, only one of them really looks “right.” Sometimes, there is only so much you can do.

The view looking west at 41st Street on the “L” as of June 28, 1962. The freight cars are on Chicago Junction Railway tracks. The old Stock Yards “L” branch would have run to the west just south of the CTA main line. East of here, the former Kenwood branch ran on CJR’s embankment. The “L” turned north here via “Powerhouse Curve.” (William C. Hoffman Photo)

CTA riders enter the “L” station at 63rd and Loomis after a snow storm on April 17, 1961. This station was built in 1907, and was the terminal for the Englewood branch until it was extended about two blocks west to Ashland Avenue in 1969. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

On September 13, 1959, the Chicago White Sox were in first place in the American League, but had not yet clinched the pennant. That happened on September 22 in Cleveland, after which Fire Commissioner Robert Quinn ordered the air raid sirens to blow here for five minutes. But the CTA was already encouraging baseball fans to take the “L” to Comiskey Park for the upcoming World Series, which the pale hose lost in six games to the Los Angeles Dodgers. This is the north face of the CTA “L” station at State and Van Buren, which appears largely unchanged since it was built in 1897. This station closed in 1973 and was removed two years later. It was replaced by a new station serving the Harold Washington Library in 1997. (William C. Hoffman Photo)
Our resident south side expert M.E. adds: “My eagle eye says the destination sign on the bus reads “42 Halsted- Downtown”, which ran along State St. north of Archer Ave. Also: The US flag in the picture is a brand-new, 50-state flag that took effect on 20 August 1959 when Hawaii became the 50th state. The tall building at the left would be the Sears store on the southeast corner of State and Van Buren.”

On August 24, 1958, we are looking to the southeast at the State Street Subway’s south portal at 13th and State. A northbound CTA train heads into the tunnel, while North Shore Line cars are sitting up on the nearby “L”. Between 1949 and the 1963 abandonment, NSL trains had exclusive use of the Roosevelt Road “L” station, just north of here, and used the nearby tracks for storage. Now, those tracks are used by the CTA Green Line, while this subway portal only sees use when Red Line trains are diverted to the “L”. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

On June 15, 1956, just two days before streetcars were replaced by buses on Western Avenue, two CTA PCCs meet a Garfield Park “L” train running on temporary trackage on Van Buren Street. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

On March 25, 1962, a Central Electric Railfans’ Association fantrip used North Shore Line cars 771-415-753-251 on the Evanston branch, where NSL cars had last run in 1955 (when the Shore Line Route was abandoned). Here, the train is at Isabella. This lightly used station closed in 1973 and was removed soon after. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

A CTA rapid transit sign at Randolph and Wells on May 12, 1961. This was a difficult one to correct, as I really have no idea what color this sign was. (William C. Hoffman Photo)

Mom wrote: "May 1944. My new outfit-- navy overalls and red jacket and beret. Mama likes to dress me in red-- the better to keep her eyes on me."

The late Jeffrey L. Wien would have celebrated his 80th birthday on April 3rd. We were all young once. Somehow I ended up with photos of him as a child. I will try to get them to his sister.
Mom wrote: “May 1944. My new outfit– navy overalls and red jacket and beret. Mama likes to dress me in red– the better to keep her eyes on me.”

Keep those cards and letters coming in, folks!

-David Sadowski

New Steam Audio CD:

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

STEAM CDs:

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

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

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

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

Total time – 45:49

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

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

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

For Shipping to Canada:

For Shipping Elsewhere:

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

This is our 265th 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 752,000 page views, for which we are very grateful.
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Our 250th Post

May 14, 2020January 15, 2025David Sadowski 15 Comments

In the early morning hours of a very cold January 21, 1963, motorman Bill Livings removes the headlight from the final North Shore Line interurban train, after it reached the end of the line at Roosevelt Road in Chicago. This was the end of the line for the fabled interurban in a very literal sense.

This is our 250th Trolley Dodger post, and we figured on making it something special. This time, we have a bevy of historical traction photos for your enjoyment.

If you have been along for the ride with us since this blog started, we salute you, but if you have just recently discovered us, we hope you will find much here to appreciate.

When we first started, one of our critics said this was a “good idea, but lacking in execution.” We hope to have gotten better at this, but freely admit to not knowing everything about anything. We have learned as much from our readers as they have probably learned from us, and the more we have shared with you, the more you have shared with us in turn. It’s very much a two-way street.

If we get something wrong, we can count on our readers to help set us right, so the Trolley Dodger becomes a “self-correcting mechanism” by which we all learn things together, creating an archive of information, and a resource for the future.

It seems that a lot of photos that interest me do not fit into the classic railfan photo mode. By which I mean a 3/4 Kodachrome view of the front of a railcar, taken only in bright sunlight, without a person anywhere in sight. I know photographers who won’t take anything other than this sort of picture.

I mean, I am interested in those types of photos too, and I certainly have taken some myself. But there are other things that interest me, and these include scenes of everyday life, pictures that have historical details, black-and-white photos, photos that are not technically perfect but still grab me somehow. Pictures that have people in them, that show how we lived at a moment in time.

Today’s post has all those kinds of photos. Some of the 35mm black-and-white images were obviously taken by a press photographer. I acquired the original negatives, but have no clue who took them. But there are unique photos of a former Chicago mayor, and various derailments. It might even be possible to determine the date when some of these pictures were taken, based on what you see in the picture.

It might surprise you to know that ‘L’ trains have actually fallen off the structure from time to time. Yes, there was the fateful 1977 accident at Wabash and Lake. But there were other such incidents, one of which is covered here.

There are also several color images taken around 1970, showing people riding an ‘L’ train, standing on subway platforms, and such. These offer a ‘slice of life,’ and if you want to know what the experience was of riding the trains half a century ago, this is a pretty good place to start. The great majority of fans did not take such pictures, but we can be glad that someone did.

We are currently working on a new book that we hope to complete in the near future. As you might expect, some of our research materials cost money. a lot has already been spent on this effort.

More details about that will be forthcoming, but if you would like to contribute financially, there is a link at the end of this post so that you may do so. If your contributions, in any amount, are intended to help with this book project, we will thank you by name in the book.

This is an offer we made for our last book Building Chicago’s Subways, and a number of our readers did help out, and were so thanked.

Enjoy!

-David Sadowski

Recent Finds

I recently purchased this unusual single-sided token. I had to look up what a “lamp check” is. It seems that before heading out on a run, a motorman would exchange one of these tokens for a portable headlamp. At the end of the day, it would be exchanged for the token. (For a picture of just such a headlamp, see the North Shore Line photo at the beginning of this post.)

The Jackson station on the Dearborn Street Subway on August 8, 1974.

A six-car train of CTA 6000s, including two different color schemes, nears Armitage in May 1981. To the right is the ramp leading to the State Street Subway. (Mark Llanuza Photo)

A train of CTA 6000s is at Jefferson Park on April 21, 1980. This was, at that time, the end of the line. A few years later, service was extended to O’Hare Airport. (Clark Frazier Photo)

Those CTA 4000s sure did get around! Here we see a pair at the South Shore Line’s yard in Michigan City, Indiana in September 1976, surely on their way to a railway museum. (Mark Llanuza Photo)

An eastbound Chicago & North Western commuter train is seen from the Harlem Avenue Station on the Lake Street ‘L’ on January 12, 1963, a few months after the CTA line was relocated onto the embankment. (J. W. Vigrass Photo)

A close-up of the previous photo. This shows part of the former Wieboldt’s department store in River Forest, which opened in the 1930s. There was a double-decker parking garage, complete with control tower (which I assume was hardly ever used) and if you parked on the upper level, there was a second floor entrance that let you in near the Boy Scouts department. In the back, you can see the type of warehouse building that was prevalent in this area. Both buildings have been torn down and replaced with a more contemporary shopping center. Emerson Wakefield Sr., my grandfather, worked as an electrician for Wieboldt’s during the 1930s.

CA&E 434 heads up an eastbound Chicago Express at Western Avenue in September 1948.

Chicago Aurora & Elgin trains at the Wells Street Terminal in July 1953, just a few months before the interurban cut back service to Forest Park. I believe that is car 46 at the front of a train of woods. Don’s Rail Photos adds, “46 was built by Stephenson in 1903. It was modernized in December 1940 and retired in 1959.” The terminal did not connect directly with the Loop. Met ‘L’ cars turned off to the right and went to the Loop via structure on Van Buren Street. In 1955, due to construction of Lower Wacker Drive, that segment of ‘L’ was torn down, and CTA trains connected to the Loop via new trackage through the former Wells Street Terminal, which was no longer in use.

A close-up of the last picture, showing Wells Street Terminal.

A southbound Jackson Park “B” train approaches the Belmont station on July 3, 1961. At left is the Vic Theater. Notice a Ravenswood train is also entering the station on the outer track.

One of the two North Shore Line Electroliners heads south from the CTA’s Belmont station on the North-South main line on July 3, 1961. The station has been rebuilt, and instead of an overhead transfer bridge, you cross at mezzanine level now.

A South Shore Line train, including car 102, is at the Randolph Street Terminal on July 2, 1961. This area has been completely transformed. The station is now underground, underneath Millennium Park.

A South Shore Line train, including car 8, is at Central Station on July 2, 1961.

We are looking west along Washington Street at about 77 East on July 2, 1961. That is the Wabash leg of the Loop ‘L’. Just out of view to the right would be the old main Chicago Public Library building, now the Cultural Center.

The same location today.

A CTA two-car RAvenswood “A” train at Madison and Wells on July 3, 1961. Note the fire extinguisher at the front of the train.

A Chicago & North Western commuter train at Oak Park, Illinois on July 2, 1961. The train is moving away from us, as these trains use left-hand running. Also to the left you can see the ground-level tracks of the CTA Lake Street ‘L’. Just over a year later, those trains were relocated to the C&NW embankment. I assume the location is Marion Street here.

A North Shore Line train on the bridge over the Chicago River on Wells Street on July 2, 1961.

A South Shore Line train near the Art Institute of Chicago on July 3, 1961.

South Shore Line car 7 at the Fox River Trolley Museum on June 20, 1992.

CTA 4451 at the Fox River Trolley Museum on June 20, 1992.

North Shore Line car 756 at the Fox River Trolley Museum on June 20, 1992.

SF Muni PCC 1030 at the Fox River Trolley Museum on June 20, 1992.

CTA 2600s at O’Hare Airport on June 25, 1992.

A South Shore Line train at the old Randolph Street Terminal in Chicago on May 26, 1993.

South Shore Line cars near the Art Institute on June 24, 1992.

A South Shore Line train at Randolph on May 26, 1993.

CTA trains are run by one person nowadays, but when this picture was taken (circa 1970) the doors were operated by conductors, and each train had a two-person crew.

This shows the conductor’s station in car 2057. Once a key was inserted, the conductor would look out the window and used buttons to control the doors to either their left or right. There was also a button to signal the motorman.

The State Street Subway.

6003 was one of the very first 6000s and would have been delivered in 1950.

The woman with the sunglasses has an interesting hairdo.

This, and the next few pictures that follow, show Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley (1902-1976) taking part in the ceremonial introduction of the then-new CTA 2400-series rapid transit cars. The man behind the door is George Krambles, who eventually became general manager of the CTA. I am wondering if the man with the folder is Milton Pikarsky, then head of the RTA. Daley was then 74 years old and had been mayor for 21 years. He doesn’t look particularly well, and in fact died from a massive heart attack later in the year, while he was at his doctor’s office for a check-up. This series of cars was retired a few years ago, although some have been retained for work service, and for the CTA’s historic collection. They are available for charters.

In this, and in the pictures that follow, it looks like demolition work is taking place at State and Lake, in conjunction with renovations at this station. Not sure of the date, but with 2400s in the picture, it can’t be earlier than 1976.

CA&E 436. I am wondering if this might be at Laramie Yards in Chicago. Don’s Rail Photos adds, “305 was built by Niles Car & Mfg Co in 1906. It was wrecked and rebuilt in 1923 as 600, a buffet-parlor car. It was again rebuilt in 1929 as a coach to match the other 400s and numbered 436. It was scrapped in 1954.”

CA&E 423, signed as an Elgin Local. Don’s Rail Photos: “423 was built by Cincinnati Car Co in 1927, (order) #2055.”

I am not sure of the location of this CA&E car. Could this possibly be on the Batavia branch?

This picture needed a lot of work… this is the “before.”

This is the “after,” although I am still not done with it yet. CA&E 433 and 404 are westbound at Oak Park Avenue in suburban Oak Park. The building at left is still there today, but I-290 goes through here now, below grade.

Recent Correspondence

Jon Roma writes:

David, here are photos about the two towers associated with the CRT State Street subway. The negatives 95-C-223 and 95-C-224 are of the south tower, which appears to have been on the west side of the track according to the model board in the picture. Negatives 95-C-243 and 95-C-244 are of the north tower (Armitage).

The images were taken by the equipment manufacturer and are in a private collection. I have the collection owner’s permission to share, provided that there’s a credit such as “Union Switch & Signal (Zachary C. Gillihan collection)”.

These are fascinating, rare glimpses into Chicago history, and I am sure our readers are just as appreciative of you sharing them as I am.

Keep those cards and letters coming in, folks.

-David Sadowski

The interior of the State Street Subway tower at the south portal, taken on October 12, 1943. (Union Switch & Signal Photo, Zachary C. Gillihan Collection)

The interior of the State Street Subway tower at the north portal, taken on October 13, 1943. (Union Switch & Signal Photo, Zachary C. Gillihan Collection)

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

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

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

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

Help Support The Trolley Dodger

This is our 250th 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 624,000 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.

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Our Third Anniversary

January 21, 2018January 29, 2018David Sadowski 16 Comments

One of the two brand-new North Shore Line Electroliners at the Milwaukee terminal in June 1941.

For the longest time, January 21 has been a dark day in the railfan hobby as this was when the Chicago, North Shore & Milwaukee ceased operations in 1963. That was 55 years ago today.

We run North Shore Line pictures all the time, all through the year. Every day is a day to celebrate that storied interurban.

But January 21st is also the anniversary of when we started this blog. We have been here now for three whole years, with 206 posts and 362,000 page views to date. We hope to be here for a long time to come. That is another reason to celebrate.

Here are some more great traction photos for your enjoyment. We thank our readers for sharing them.

-David Sadowski

Annual Fundraiser

In about 10 day’s time, our annual bill to fund this site and its web domain comes due. That comes to $400, or just over $1 per day for the entire year. So far, we have collected $370 of the required amount. If you have already contributed, we are particularly grateful.

Any additional funds collected over this amount will be used to pay for research materials for our next book, which we are currently hard at work on. We currently have a unique opportunity to purchase some rare images that would be wonderful additions to the book. This opportunity is fleeting, however.

If you make a donation towards research, we will make note of this in the book itself as our way of saying “thank you.” We expect the book will be published later this year.

If you enjoy reading this blog, and want to see it continue, we hope you will consider supporting it via a donation. You can also purchase items from our Online Store. With your help, we cannot fail.

Recent Finds

“Former North Shore derrick car 607 and car 237, both now owned by Chicago Hardware Foundry Co., at North Chicago, Illinois, November 14, 1953.” Don’s Rail Photos adds: “237 was built by Cincinnati in May 1924, #2720, as a merchandise dispatch car. It was rebuilt with 2 motors and later as a sleet cutter,” and “607 was built by Cincinnati in November 1924, #2730. It was retired in 1949 and sold to Chicago Hardware Foundry in 1950 and renumbered 239.” North Chicago was also the original home of the Illinois Electric Railway Museum. (Photo by Robert Selle)

“Views of North Shore Line #189 and 150 at Highwood Shops, Saturday noon, August 7, 1955.” (Robert Selle Photo)

Chicago Aurora & Elgin car 403 “coming into Aurora from Wheaton (stopped to let off passengers).” This picture was taken on Wednesday afternoon, July 14, 1954. (Robert Selle Photo)

“CA&E freight train headed by loco 2001, to Wheaton from Aurora (taken at Batavia Junction), Saturday noon, April 25, 1953.” Notice all the platform extensions here have been turned up to provide the train with enough clearance to pass. They were flipped down for use by passenger trains. (Robert Selle Photo)

“CTA 1-man arched roof 3162 (in green and cream) on Lake Street, just west of Kostner (4400W), Saturday noon, November 28, 1953.” This was one of a handful of older streetcars that were repainted into a dark green by the CTA circa 195-54. (Robert Selle Photo)

Chicago Transit Authority PCCs 7229 and 7090 at 77th and Vincennes, along with salt spreader AA46. The date was May 16, 1954, when Central Electric Railfans’ Association held a red car fantrip. Don’s Rail Photos: “AA46, salt car, was built by St Louis Car Co in 1903 as CUTCo 4779. It was renumbered 1250 in 1913 and became CSL 1250 in 1914. It was rebuilt as salt car in 1931 and renumbered AA46 on April 15, 1948. It was retired on December 27, 1955.” (James C. Barrick Photo)

CTA 3093 encounters a flock of pigs at the Stock Yards on March 13, 1948. The streetcar is southbound on Throop at Hilleck Street on the Morgan-Racine line, which was abandoned on July 24 of that year. (Malcolm D. McCarter Collection)

“3 CTA Big Pullmans: #400, 295 and 374, in the yards at the end of the Kedzie barn (5th and Kedzie), August 9, 1953.” (Robert Selle Photo)

“8:05 am, Thursday morning, March 31, 1955: Chicago & North Western loco 654 (4-6-2), with commuter train, coming east toward camera at high speed at Oak Park Avenue, Oak Park, Il.” (Robert Selle Photo)

“Saturday afternoon, May 24, 1958: eastbound South Shore Line passenger train #109 at head end; has a silver roof. Michigan City, Ind.” The occasion was a Central Electric Railfans’ Association fantrip, using Illinois Central Electric cars on the South Shore Line. The IC train is just visible behind some poles in the center of the picture. (Robert Selle Photo)

These photos have been added to our previous post The Fairmount Park Trolley (November 7, 2017), which also featured several images from the Five Mile Beach Electric Railway:

The Five Mile Beach Electric Railway line truck on May 30, 1945, at the Wildwood car house around the time of abandonment. (Walter Hulseweder Photo)

A former Five Mile Beach Electric Railway streetcar at Wildwood, New Jersey in the late 1940s. The sign at left says, “Barbecued chicken our specialty.” (Walter Hulseweder Photo)

Here are some classic photos from the collections of William Shapotkin. We thank Bill for sharing these:

Chicago Transit Authority bus 9085 on Route 9 – Ashland on August 24, 1979. (Ron Sullivan Photo)

CTA car 6186, working a southbound trip on Route 9 – Ashland, has just arrived at the south end of the line at 95th Street in May 1951. The view looks northeast.

South Suburban Safeway Lines bus 458 in May 1971. (Richard R. Kunz Photo)

CTA 6213 at 95th and State Streets in 1949.

Chicago Surface Lines 6212 on 93rd near Blackstone on August 13, 1947.

CTA 745 at 4544 W. 26th Street in March 1950. The cross-street, described as Kenton, is not quite accurate as Kenton does not run in this area, which is the border between Chicago and Cicero.

CSL 5250 at 79th and Brandon.

CTA 3219 changing ends at 87th and Commercial.

CTA trolley bus 9584 at “Six Corners” (Cicero, Milwaukee and Irving Park) in April 1969, heading south on Route 54 – Cicero Avenue. Who would have thought when this picture was taken that this would someday become the very last Sears store in Chicago?

CTA 214 at Belmont and Western on December 31, 1948. At right is the famous Riverview amusement park, which closed abruptly after the 1967 season. The tall structure is the parachute jump, which I once rode on as a kid. It was a terrifying and exhilarating ride, especially since the harness was not especially tight.

CSL 2598 at 138th and Leyden in April 1934.

CSL 881 at Lawrence and Austin on Route 81 in March 1939. As you can see, this northwest side area was not very built up yet.

CTA 357 at California and Roscoe in March 1951 on Route 52.

The old Chicago and North Western station in July 1966. (Joe Piersen Photo)

Milwaukee Road loco 93A shoves an eastbound “Scout” under Lake Street. The view looks east-southeast.

CTA 4013is at the east end of Route 63 at Stony Island and 63rd on November 29, 1951. This was also the terminus of the Jackson Park branch of the “L”, which has since been cut back. I believe this is a Truman Hefner photo.

CTA 7011 is eastbound at 63rd and Western on June 4, 1950.

CTA 743 at Clinton and Adams on Route 60 in May 1948.

We previously ran another version of this photo in our post Surface Service (July 11, 2017) where it was credited to Joe L. Diaz. CSL 5094 is at Root and Halsted on Route 44 – Wallace/Racine in 1945. That’s the Stock Yards branch of the “L” at back.

CSL one-man car 3286 is at Montrose and Broadway on Route 78 in April 1942.

CSL one-man car 3116 is at 18th and LaSalle.

CTA 7027 is picking up a crowd of shoppers as it heads eastbound at 63rd and Halsted, sometime between 1948 and 1951.

CTA 177 is westbound on 63rd and State in March 1950, having just passed under the viaduct near Englewood Union Station.

CTA 478 is westbound on 63rd Street at Harvard in 1952. That’s the old Harvard “L” station on the Englewood branch at rear, which closed in 1992.

309 W. 63rd Street today. Additional steel was placed under the “L” when 63rd was widened.

Jeff Marinoff writes:

I’ve been meaning to contact you for a long time, but I never seem to get around to it. I have a huge collection of original 8 x 10 transportation photos and vintage post cards. Many of which are from the Chicago area. Attached is just a ‘very small’ sample of what I have.

Well, we are certainly very appreciative of this. Thank you for sharing these great pictures with our readers.

Wes Moreland’s Chicago in 1/4″ Scale

Eric Bronsky recently posted this video, featuring some incredibly detailed models made by Wes Moreland:

Pacific Electric, Hollywood Freeway

FYI, John Bengston runs a blog called Chaplin-Keaton-Lloyd film locations (and more). Streetcars and interurbans appear frequently in his posts.

We recently sent Mr. Bengston a suggestion for an article, covering filming locations for the 1941 W. C. Fields film Never Give a Sucker an Even Break. There are some shots of the Pacific Electric in this film, in particular the Glendale-Burbank line, and also the Hollywood Freeway, which was new at the time.

He does a tremendous job with his research, and he certainly took the ball and ran with it.

Part two has just been published and can be found here. You can find part one here.

Jack Bejna writes:

Congratulations on your third anniversary. I’m happy that I get a chance to enhance your fine posts once in awhile. I hope that there are many more posts to come.

Here’s a few winter shots on the CA&E. You’ll notice on the plow shots that they would put a plow on

just about any motor when they needed to clear the yard, and, probably along the main line if needed.

Ingenuity in action on the “Roarin’ Elgin!”

Don’s Rail Photos: “”Carolyn” was built by Niles Car in 1904. It was rebuilt as 209, a trailer coach, in 1924 and rebuilt in May 1939. It was retired in 1959.” From Ed Halstead’s blog Modeling Insull’s Empire in O Scale: “Parlor-buffet service was initiated in 1904. The parlor-buffet car Carolyn, although built after the original series of cars, was built much to the standards of the original cars. The Florence was built in 1906 and was slightly longer then the cars built before it. The Carolyn was a trailer while the Florence was a half-motor.” A half-motor car had two motors instead of the usual four. It could run in a train at normal speeds, but reduced the power consumption on the line.

CA&E car 308, built by Niles in 1906.

CA&E car 309, built by Hicks in 1908.

CA&E cars 315 and 207. Don’s Rail Photos: “315 was built by Kuhlman Car Co in 1909, #404. It was modernized at an unknown date and sold to Rockhill Trolley Museum in 1962. 207 was built by Niles Car in 1904. It was rebuilt in September 1940 and retired in 1955.”

CA&E suburban streetcar 500, built by St. Louis Car Company in 1927.

CA&E loco 2002 with snow plow attached. It was built by G. E. in 1920.

Again, CA&E loco 2002 with snow plow attached. It was built by G. E. in 1920.

Don’s Rail Photos says CA&E 3 “was built in the company shops in 1909 as a plow.”

CA&E locos 3003 and 3004 were built by Westinghouse in 1923.

At left CA&E 453, built by St. Louis Car Company in 1945, and at right, 413, built by Pullman in 193.

As always, we thank Jack for sharing these wonderful pictures.

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 206th 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 362,000 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.

Reader Showcase, 12-11-17

December 11, 2017December 13, 2017David Sadowski 10 Comments

Here’s a mystery photo, showing a Birney car (#512) being worked on, signed for Fruitridge Avenue. My guess is this may be the Terre Haute Indianapolis & Eastern Traction Company in Indiana. If so, Don’s Rail Photos says that Birneys 490 thru 514 were “built by American Car Co in December 1919, (order) #1228 as THI&E 490 thru 514.” There is a Fruitridge Avenue in Terre Haute. (Kenneth Gear Collection)

Here we are again, just in time for the holiday season, bringing many gifts. Like our last post (Reader Showcase, 11-30-17) we are featuring contributions recently sent in by our readers. These include some rare traction shots.

Again, our thanks go out to Jack Bejna, Kenneth Gear, and Larry Sakar for their great contributions and hard work.

In addition, just to keep a hand in, I have added some of our own recent finds that you may enjoy.

Keep those cards and letters coming in, folks!

-David Sadowski

Kenneth Gear shared some additional photos from the collections of the late William A. Steventon of the Railroad Record Club:

Salt Lake, Garfield and Western 401 was former Salt Lake and Utah 104. It changed hands in 1946, and is seen here in December 1952.

Niagara, St. Catharines and Toronto Railway locos 14 and 18.

Niagara, St. Catharines and Toronto Railway 130.

Altoona & Logan Valley Railway sweeper 50a in Altoona.

A North Shore Line Electroliner at the Milwaukee terminal.

Chicago Aurora & Elgin freight locos 2001 and 2002.

Jack Bejna writes:

Hi Dave,

I got back to work on my CA&E project and here are some shots of the final order of steel cars. In many cases I have more than one shot of individual cars so if you need any more images I may be able to help. This group of cars completes my coverage of CA&E’s fleet of passenger cars. I’ll move on to the freight motors and other miscellaneous cars that the railroad owned.

In 1941, CA&E ordered 10 new cars (451-460) from the St. Louis Car Company. This final order was not delivered until October 1945, after World War II ended. The new cars were compatible (and could train) with the Pullman and Cincinnati cars, and were used for all types of service. These cars were lighter and included many improvements.

I know our readers appreciate your fine work, and we will be glad to share any and all images you want to share with us. Thanks again.

CA&E 451.

CA&E 452 as new.

CA&E 453 plus one on a CERA inspection trip.

CA&E 454.

CA&E 455.

CA&E 456, eastbound at Lombard.

CA&E 457 and three more cars at Wheaton.

CA&E 457.

(See Comments section) Jack Bejna: “Here’s the image that I started with, as found on one of my searches of the internet. As you can see, I just Photoshopped the end of the car so as to present a nice ¾ view. I never noticed the lettering was unusual and didn’t do any work on it. In future posts, if I change/modify an image I will clearly label it as such!”

CA&E 458.

CA&E 459, eastbound at Wheaton.

CA&E 460 at Collingbourne.

Larry Sakar writes:

TM 978 at San Francisco Muni’s Geneva Yard in September 1983.

I was going thru my Milwaukee streetcar photos and ran across the one and only shot I got of the 978 in San Francisco. I had to climb on to this concrete wall in front of the yard and hold on to the cyclone fence with one hand and snap the picture with the other. The ledge was quite narrow.

Here is some valuable background for the Los Angeles streetcar and Pacific Electric Railway material. (Editor’s Note: See our previous post Reader Showcase, 11-30-17.

The Los Angeles Railway company operated a large network of streetcar Ines covering every part of Los Angeles. Los Angeles’ streetcar system was a cable railway in its early beginnings, which accounts for the fact that it was narrow gauge for its entire existence. On a number of streets in downtown LA, both the Pacific Electric and LARY operated on the same tracks. In those instances, there were three versus the standard two rails. Both lines shared the outer rail, but LA Railway cars had their own second rail “farther in”.

By the turnoff the 20th Century, the LA system was acquired by the great Henry Huntington. Huntington was the nephew of Collis P. Huntington, one of the big four involved in the creation of the transcontinental railway along with other eventual luminaries like Mark Hopkins, Leland Stanford, and Theodore Judah. Huntington headed the Central Pacific RR which ultimately became the Southern Pacific RR. The Pacific Electric RR was a wholly owned subsidiary of the SP, as were the Interurban Electric RR and Northwestern Pacific RR in the San Francisco Bay area. Henry Huntington transformed the former cable railway into the magnificent Los Angeles Railways Co. He was also the President and CEO of the Pacific Electric Railway, often referred to as “the interurban that helped build southern California.”

As was the case in so many cities, the rise of the private automobile began to take a toll on the streetcar lines, until the outbreak of WWII on December 7, 1941. Every available car was pressed into service. By the war’s end in 1945, the LA streetcar system was in need of renovation. Although both LARY and PE purchased new PCC cars, they could not overcome the post war turn towards freeways. PE’s right-of-way was beset with numerous additional grade crossings thus making the cars slower than competing automobiles and buses. By 1950 the LA Freeway system was knocking at PE’s door. there was little doubt of the eventual outcome. It remained only a matter of when PE would finally be killed off by the highway interests and one other well known menace, National City Lines.

First to succumb to the rail-destroying conglomerate (NCL) was LARY sold by Henry Huntington’s heirs in 1945. The company was renamed Los Angeles Transit Lines and equipment wore the well-known NCL “fruit salad” colors of yellow, green and white. Remarkably the LA system outlasted both Chicago and Milwaukee, abandoning the final five streetcar lines in March 1963. Some of the older equipment, like the sow bellies and Huntington Standard streetcars, were acquired by museums and one was “preserved” at the Travel Town Museum in LA’s Griffith Park. Several LARY PCCs also went to the Orange Empire Trolley Museum in Perris, CA. The remaining and newest PCCs were sold to Cairo, Egypt in 1963.

PE fared no better. Interurban lines on each of the four operating districts, as PE called them, (designated by direction) were abandoned even before the company was sold to bus operator Metropolitan Coach lines in 1953. Supposedly, MCL owner Jesse Haugh, a former officer with Pacific City lines (an NCL company), nearly had a heart attack when he saw the MCL emblem on the PE Interurban cars.

In 1958, both LATL and PE became part of the newly created Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority. But the MTA was, in reality, nothing more than a continuation of the pro-bus MCL/LATL managements. The two-tone green colors of the MTA were the colors of Metropolitan Coach Lines. The last PE line (to Long Beach) went to its grave in April 1961.

As stated previously, streetcar service under the MTA continued until March of 1963. Some of PE’s older 1200-series interurbans and all 20 of the Pullman built PCCs were sold to the General Urguiza Railway in 1959. Four years of storage in the damp, abandoned Hollywood subway brought an early end to their second lives in Argentina.

But the worst insult to transit came next. In 1963, the LAMTA became the SCRTD, Southern California Rapid Transit District. Never has a bus system been so misnamed. There was absolutely nothing “rapid transit” about it!

But when all hoped for California to wake up and return to its past, a transit revolution took place down the California Coast. A brand new light rail line was opened in San Diego in 1980. Known as the San Diego Trolley, it would start a transit revolution that rocked California. True, BART started up in the San Francisco Bay area in 1972, but San Francisco never lost touch with the streetcar the way LA did.

By 1990, LA was beginning to rise out of the dense smog that blanketed the area on a daily basis. It was then that the newly formed Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Commission opened its first light rail line, the Blue Line running between downtown LA and Long Beach via the right of way once used by the PE red cars. The line begins in a subway that one connects with via the LA METRO Red Line subway from LAUPT, Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal (Amtrak and Metrolink Commuter Rail).

Since then, two additional former PE lines to Pasadena and Santa Monica have been rebuilt and placed in service. Diesel commuter rail service, operated by Metrolink, serves other points once served by PE such as Glendale and Burbank. The service extends all the way up the California Coast to San Luis Obispo and south to Oceanside. Here, one can take the frequent trains on Amtrak’s San Diego Surfliner route or the commuter train from Oceanside to San Diego known as the Coaster. The Coaster operates equipment that resembles Toronto’s GO Transit system. Perhaps they are the same type of cars. Somebody familiar with both systems will undoubtedly know.

I went into my timetables and documents collection and found the 1983 San Francisco Historic Streetcar Festival brochure which pictured the cars that were going to operate. You’ll see that TM 978 was one of them. I had to scan it in part and then move it slightly to get the rest of it scanned as it was too long for my screen. I found some interesting things in my timetables and transfers that you are welcome to post if you wish.

Thanks!

San Francisco MUNI Part 3 by Larry Sakar

(Editor’s note: Parts 1 and 2 appeared in our last post, referenced above.)

SAN FRANCISCO MUNICIPAL RAILWAY STREETCAR LINES

The San Francisco Municipal Railway operates 8 streetcar lines. Although that may seem like a substantial number of streetcar lines, it is a fraction of the streetcar lines that once operated in the city by the Golden Gate. The 8 lines serve nearly every part of San Francisco. Within the last few years MUNI was reorganized into the SFMTA –San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency. The Market Street Railway which owns the historic streetcars is not a part of MUNI and receives no transit funding.

The Municipal Railway or MUNI for short uses letters rather than route numbers to identify the streetcar lines. Of course with the exception of the F-Line all of the other routes used modern Light Rail Vehicles with brand new cars now arriving and undergoing testing. The 8 lines are as follows:

E-Embarcadero (south of Market to Cal Train station)
F-Market St. & Wharves
J-Church St.
K-Ingleside
L-Taraval
M-Ocean View
N-Judah
T-Third St.

All trains entering the “downtown” area operate in the Market Street subway (with the exception of the E, F & T lines) to the end of the MUNI subway at Embarcadero station. The Market Street subway is a two-level tube. MUNI streetcars operate on the upper level with BART trains running in the lower tube. The MUNI subway ends at Embarcadero station but BART continues across the bay in a subway laid on the floor of the bay. The tube runs relatively close to the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge.

In the opposite direction BART turns off toward Daly City and eventually Milbrae and the line to San Francisco International Airport. However, they are still in close proximity at the BART Balboa Park station which is near the Curtis Green Light Rail facility. Let’s take a ride on MUNI:

Before the Market St. subway was built, streetcars operated down the center of Market St. from 1st to Duboce, where they turned off and entered the Twin Peaks tunnel. It is one of two streetcar tunnels, the other being the Sunset tunnel.

THE PHOTOS

1-3. I took the first three photos in late December 1973. If it looks like the car is running the wrong way that’s because it is. Long before passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, protestors decided to call attention to their plight by blocking the tracks on Market Street. PCCs put up their rear poles and ran the wrong way back down Market Street. At least two of the cars seen here were the 1006 thru 1015, which were double ended cars. Note the differing paint schemes between the PCCs.

4. We have operated thru the Twin Peaks tunnel and have arrived at West Portal station. This was the point where the various routes diverged and remains so today. The station was completely rebuilt when the LRVs took over from the PCCs and no longer looks like this.

5. This is the interior of one of the double ended PCCs.

6-7: By 1983 when I took these next two pictures the PCCs had been replaced by new Boeing-Vertol LRVs. The Boeing cars had many problems. When the new F-Market surface line opened in 1995, commuters flocked to the surface cars to avoid the delays caused by malfunctioning Boeing cars in the subway.

8. An interior view of one of the Boeing LRVs, which were articulated. Unlike TMER&L, who assigned numbers to each car of their articulated streetcars and interurbans, MUNI LRVs carried the same car number on each end, with one designated as “A” and the other “B”.

9-10: The Boeing LRVs were replaced by new LRVs built by BREDA. I don’t especially like the boxy looking front end of these cars. When I was in San Francisco on August 5th & 6th of this year (2017), MUNI was testing brand new LRVs which will replace the BREDA cars.

11-13: Three interior views of the BREDA LRVs. Like the Boeing cars before them, these cars have a unique but necessary feature. While operating thru the Market Street subway, steps are not needed as the floors are at platform height. As the cars depart West Portal station a warning bell goes off and a red light begins to flash. The floor then descends to reveal the steps needed to enter the cars from the city streets over which they operate. The door in the rear car has permitted fare cheaters to escape paying a fare. I saw school kids at various stops watch for that door to open. One would then jump in, thus blocking it from closing, while his cohorts scrambled aboard without paying a fare. The motorman was probably well aware of it, but knew better than to challenge the cheaters and risk potential assault. It surprises me that MUNI does not assign undercover personnel to catch these brats in the act.

14-17: This is the Curtis Green Light Rail Center near Balboa Park.

18. A BREDA two-car train lays over in front of the old Geneva car house. Look between the UPS truck and the train, and you’ll see that the old car house is fenced off. The building suffered extensive damage in the 1989 earthquake. MUNI plans to restore it when funding permits. The M-Ocean View, K-Ingleside and J-Church light rail lines all meet here.

19-22: Without question is MUNI’s most scenic streetcar line is the J-Church. A portion of the line operates on private right-of-way along the western edge of Mission Dolores park providing a spectacular view of San Francisco.

Recent Finds

Postwar PCC 4300, heading northbound on Route 42 (which was an offshoot of the Halsted line), has just passed under the New York Central on its way towards Clark and Illinois Streets. That’s a Rock Island train passing by, with a Railway Express car.

Four CTA prewar PCCs, led by 7033, are lined up on Cottage Grove at 115th in the early 1950s.

This one is probably late 1960s, as buildings around the funicular have already been cleared away as part of the redevelopment of the Bunker Hill area.

This view of the Angel’s Flight Railway looks more like the early 1950s.

Angel’s Flight in the mid-1960s.

Don’s Rail Photos says, “707 was built by Alco-General Electric in June 1931, #68270, 11193, as NYC 1242, Class R-2. It was renumbered 342 in August 1936. In July 1967 it was rebuilt as CSS&SB 707. It was scrapped in April 1976.” Here, we see it prior to the 1967 rebuilding.

South Shore Line 108 in Michigan City.

South Shore Line 111 in Michigan City.

South Shore Line 211.

South Shore Line 111 in the mid-1960s. Not sure if this is in Michigan City or South Bend.

To me, this looks like the CTA DesPlaines Avenue terminal as it appeared on April 4, 1959. Work was underway to both reconfigure the terminal and build the adjacent Congress expressway. We are looking east.

North Shore Line 714 on January 20, 1963, the last full day of service before abandonment. 714 is now at the Illinois Railway Museum.

North Shore Line cars 715 and 748 at the Milwaukee terminal on January 20, 1963. 715 is now preserved at the Fox River Trolley Museum.

CTA PCC 7215 on July 9, 1957. Notice the large dent on the front of the car. In our previous post One Good Turn (January 20, 2017), we ran another picture of this car taken on August 21, 1956 showing the same dent. Chances are, CTA chose not to repair this, as streetcar service was being phased out. This car was retired about two weeks before the Wentworth line was converted to bus on June 21, 1958.

CTA PCC 7184 is southbound on Clark Street on July 9, 1957. I realize that some people might not like this photo, since it is not perfect and part of the streetcar is blocked by a moving vehicle. But such pictures do give you a sense that these were vehicles in motion.

This view of two Garfield Park “L” trains is somewhere west of the Loop and was taken on April 13, 1957.

Indiana Railroad 375, probably on a 1938-40 fantrip. Don’s Rail Photos: “375 was built by St Louis Car Co in 1926 as Indiana Service Corp 375. It was ass1gned to IRR as 375 in 1932 and rebuilt as a RPO-combine in 1935. It was sold to Chicago South Shore & South Bend in 1941 as 503 and used as a straight baggage car. It was rebuilt in 1952 with windows removed and doors changed.”

From the picture, it’s hard to tell, but this is either Indiana Railroad lightweight high-speed car 35 or 55. If it is 55, that later went to Lehigh Valley Transit and became their car 1030, which is now at the Seashore Trolley Museum. Again, this appears to be a late 1930s fantrip.

Indiana Railroad 375. This car has been preserved as South Shore Line baggage car 503 since 1996 in Scottsburg, Indiana.

Chicago Rapid Transit Door Control on 4000s

As late as 1950, the Chicago Transit Authority, which took over the Chicago Rapid Transit Company in 1947, was still using a very old-fashioned and labor-intensive method of door control on its 4000-series “L” cars, which were built between 1913 and 1924.

CRT had been unable to invest in more modern methods, which had been introduced in New York in the early 1920s, due to its lack of capital. Ironically, such an investment in multiple-unit door control (with a starting signal supplied to the motorman) would have saved CRT a great deal in labor costs.

If you’ve ever wondered how the old system worked, here is a detailed explanation from a rare 1950 CTA training brochure. Conductors rode outside between cars, even on some of the newer post-World War II rapid transit cars, before the conductor’s position was moved to a greater place of comfort and safety inside the new “married pairs” of cars.

This brochure suggests that as of March 1950, all 4000-series rapid transit cars had been made into semi-married pairs. As built, they were all single-car units. The last single car units (the 1-50 series) were built for the CTA in 1960.

Knittin’ Pretty

Here is a real curiosity. Reading this 1954 brochure through, you might at first think it is simply encouraging people to ride the CTA in order to save a few pennies.

However, as the text goes on, it becomes an argument in favor of the CTA’s “PCC Conversion Program,” whereby 570 fairly new postwar PCC streetcars were scrapped, and some of their parts were used to build a like number of 6000-series rapid transit cars.

The cost of a rapid transit car with all new parts is quoted as $50-60k, while St. Louis Car Company offered to build them for just $32,332 each. Thus a savings between $17-27k per car is implied.

After doing some research, I eventually found a CTA document that gives the actual costs incurred. The first 250 curved-door 6000s, with some recycled parts, actually cost the CTA $54,727.64 apiece.

From this, two conclusions can be drawn. First, that the contract between CTA and SLCC allowed for price adjustments that increased costs by more than 67% over the bid price.

Second, that the PCC Conversion Program did not actually save the CTA between $17-27k as was implied in this brochure (and similar figures claimed elsewhere). Since the cost of the previous order for one hundred 6000s with all new parts was $40,904.01, somehow the cost per car actually increased by nearly $14k per unit.

The difference can be explained in how the program worked. Over time, CTA sold 570 PCCs to SLCC for $14k each. This figure is confirmed on page 13 of the 1961 CTA Annual Report. Meanwhile, the cost for each new rapid transit car ordered appears to have increased by approximately the same amount, at least for the first 250 cars ordered under this arrangement.

The cost per car for subsequent rapid transit car orders, in general, shows a gradual increase. 120 cars purchased in 1957 had a cost of $59,368.84 per car, or $4,600 higher than the first 250.

Perhaps part of this increase is due to inflation, but it is likely that the age and condition of the parts being recycled was another factor.

In light of this, a case can be made that, from a materials standpoint in constructing 570 rapid transit cars, this program did not save any money at all, compared to what it would have cost to build the same number of vehicles with all new parts. In fact, since the recycled parts were not new, chances are the program was a disadvantage, as old parts cannot last as long, or serve as well, compared to new.

The actual goal, it would seem, of the PCC Conversion Program, was to get rid of the PCC streetcars in such a way as to take them off the books without showing a loss compared to their depreciated value. The 570 cars involved were between five and ten years old when scrapped. As we know, there are PCCs that are still being used in regular service by a few transit systems. The newest of these were built 65 years ago.

The CTA had other reasons for wanting to eliminate even the modern PCC streetcars. Curiously, the costs of maintaining track and wire were not cited in any of the various documents I have seen.

On the other hand, the 1951 DeLeuw, Cather consultant’s report recommended that CTA not buy any additional electric vehicles, streetcar or trolley bus, due to the supposed high cost of electricity purchased from Commonwealth Edison. As it turned out, no additional electric vehicles were purchased for the surface system until the recent experiments with battery powered buses.

CTA saved money by eliminating two-man streetcars, through reduced labor costs, but the CTA Board was told in 1954 not to expect any further savings in this regard (after the elimination of red car service). The reasons may be two-fold: in some cases, on the heaviest lines, it was likely advantageous to use two-man PCCs, and some PCCs had been converted to one-man operation, or could be used either way.

The Chicago Transit Authority had an decade-long flirtation with propane buses during the 1950s. Propane was then quite cheap, but the buses so used were severely under-powered and had difficulty maintaining schedules. The service thus provided on the surface system by such buses was of lower quality than the PCC streetcars and may have contributed to continued ridership losses on the surface system in the late 1950s.

One can argue that it might have actually worked to CTA’s advantage to continue operating the PCCs instead of scrapping them.

-David Sadowski

FYI, the above graph shows the costs for various rapid transit car orders placed between 1947 and 1958. A couple things are worth noting. The first four cars were the experimental articulated 5001-5004 units, which were each approximately equivalent in length to two standard “L” cars. This, and their experimental nature, helps explain the relatively high per-unit cost. The 1958 total includes the 50 single car units (#1-50), but does not break down the cost relative to the final 50 married-pair units it is lumped in with.

Railroad Record Club News

Additional tracks have been added to two of our Railroad Record Club CD releases, which are available through our Online Store.

An additional 11:24 has been added to this disc, which now has a running time of 75:41. Source: The Silverton Train (Your Sound of Steam Souvenir #2, 1964).

We recently obtained another handmade Railroad Record Club acetate disc with some new material on it, which has been added to our RRC Steam Rarities CD. One more track from the East Broad Top has been added, and the Illinois Central track has been improved. The new running time for this disc is 76:34.

Chicago Trolleys

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

HOLIDAY SPECIAL! This book makes an excellent gift. For a limited time only, we have reduced the price to just $17.99 plus shipping. That’s $4.00 off the regular price.

Help Support The Trolley Dodger

This is our 202nd 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 347,000 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.

Our 200th Post

November 25, 2017November 27, 2017David Sadowski 13 Comments

CTA Pullman-built PCC 4281 on Route 36 – Broadway-State. Andre Kristopans: “4281 is on 119th east of Morgan.”

It is fitting that our 200th Trolley Dodger blog post should appear on Thanksgiving weekend. There is always so much in life to be thankful for.

We are thankful for our relative good health (knock on wood), and thankful for friends and family. Since we began this venture in January 2015, we have made many new friends among our readers.

I am thankful to be able to share these classic images with you.

After wandering far afield recently to such exotic places as Milwaukee and Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, we are home for the holidays with an all-new post chock full of Chicago transit pictures.

We wanted to make this one something special. But that is our goal with every post… we want #199 to be as good as #200, and #201 to be as good as this one. We may not always succeed, but it is not for lack of trying.

Enjoy!

-David Sadowski

PS- We threw in a few shots from outside the Chicago area, just because we liked them.

Meet the Author

Incredibly, this building, which served as the terminal for the Logan Square branch of Chicago’s “L” until 1970, is still there, although heavily modified, and now serves as the home of City Lit Books at 2523 N. Kedzie. (Chicago Transit Authority Photo)

FYI, this Saturday at 5 pm (11-25) I will be at City Lit Books (2523 N. Kedzie Blvd., Chicago) to discuss my new book Chicago Trolleys. Additional authors will be there as well. Their books are Cycling in Chicago and The Great Chicago Fire. I hope to see you there.

More information here.

Recent Correspondence

Wally Weart writes:

David, I want to let you know how much I enjoy your postings. I grew up in Chicago during and after World War II and was able to ride a lot of the streetcar and “L” lines as well as those interurbans still in operation through the 50s and 60s.

Your pictures bring back a lot of memories and show me things that I missed during that period of time as well. Please do know how much your work is appreciated and keep it going.

I appreciate that, thanks! I will do my best.

Another of our regular readers writes:

Creative writing has always been your skill, whether it was the CERA blog, the Trolley Dodger blog, as well as several CERA publications. Some of your postings on the Trolley Dodger blog are mini stories in themselves. Writing seems to come easily to you and you do it well. Such has never been the case for me. Although I have done some writing, maintaining a blog like you do would be boring to me.

I was extremely impressed with your postings on the Fairmount Trolley, the CA&E 400 series Pullmans, and Andre Kristopan’s analysis of the end of the Red streetcars (see our post The Fairmount Park Trolley, November 7, 2017).

Thanks… I think that everyone has a unique contribution to make in life, and we all need to find that “niche” for ourselves. I seem to have found mine with this type of work. No doubt there are other things you excel at that would leave me clueless.

While some might think working on a blog such as this would be a burden, I consider it a privilege and a responsibility. Like many other things in life, you get back out of it what you put in. I hear from so many people who are grateful to see our posts. Like The Beatles famously sang, “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

It’s anything but boring to me, because in the process of researching these articles, I always learn so much. And when I do get things wrong, which does happen, our readers are quick to point that out, and I learn from that too. So, we all learn together and I feel that our readers are an integral part of what goes on here. So again, I am thankful to you.

If you challenge yourself to “think outside the box,” you can achieve more in life than you ever dreamed possible. There is so much to learn in life that I don’t see how it would ever be possible to be bored. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day to take it all in.

Recent Finds

A westbound Garfield Park “Met” car crosses the B&OCT tracks in Forest Park.

In July 1965, a two-car train of flat-door CTA 6000s is on the ground-level portion of the Ravenswood route, todays’ Brown Line. (Roger Puta Photo)

CSL Small Pullman 891 is on north Lincoln Avenue, running on Through route 3 (Lincoln-Indiana). Cliff Burnstein adds, “The CSL small Pullman 891 is on the northbound track at the end of the line on Lincoln at Peterson near Kedzie. . The poles have been reversed and 891 will shortly cross over to the southbound track. The north suburban gas tower is seen in the distance to the right.”

CTA “Turtleback” 1702 is at Division and California.

CSL 584, a Milwaukee Avenue car, is at Madison and Canal, in front of the Chicago Daily News building.

CTA 6152 at Waveland and Halsted, north end of the Halsted car line in April 1952.

CTA 1801 at Kedzie and 67th Streets on March 28, 1948.

CTA 407, signed for the Museum Loop, is on Roosevelt Road in August 1949.

CTA535 on Milwaukee at Paulina in April 1951 (this is the date that I received with this negative, however it must be wrong). Milwaukee was converted to buses on May 11, 1952. George Trapp: “The photo at Milwaukee and Paulina looks to me to be earlier than 1951, auto at far right looks like it dates to late 1920’s early 1930’s and no post war autos are in sight so I guess the photo is from the late 1930’s early 1940’s.”

CTA 363 at the Pennsylvania Railroad viaduct at Ashland and Arbor in March 1951. Andre Kristopans notes, “363 Ashland north of Fulton – bridge has three railroads over it, closer behind car is PRR with Milwaukee Road also using the same tracks, beyond is C&NW. Note that street under bridge is much narrower than rest of street. Ashland was widened relatively late, and the bridges were never widened out to this day.”

CTA 415 at Cermak and Kenton. The date given is August 2, 1949, but that must be wrong, since there is a Chicago & West Towns streetcar at left and the 415 still has a CSL logo. So perhaps 1947 would be more like it as the West Towns streetcars quit in April 1948.

CTA Sedan 3358, still sporting a CSL logo, is at Cottage Grove and 115th, south end of the Cottage Grove line, in May 1948.

CTA 6168, signed for Route 38, is on the Wabash Avenue bridge in October 1951.

CSL Sedan 6316 is on Wentworth and 73rd Street, running on Route 22, Clark-Wentworth.

CSL 3318 is at Damen and 74th on November 28, 1946.

CTA Pullman 585 is signed for Halsted and Waveland in February 1954, which suggests it is running on Route 8 – Halsted, which was bussed three months later. Andre Kristopans: “585 is on Emerald south of 79th.”

CTA 6172 is at Lawrence and Austin on February 26, 1950, running on Route 81.

Some passengers are getting off CSL 3312, which is running on the Damen Avenue extension. This gives you an idea of how some men dressed back in the 1940s when it was cold out.

CSL work car S-53. Not sure of the location.

CTA 4380, signed for Clark-Wentworth, on June 30, 1955. This may be South Shops.

CTA Postwar PCC 7053 is signed for Route 38 in this November 1952 view. This designation was used for Route 4 – Cottage Grove cars to indicate they were terminating at Grand and Wabash. As you can see, some postwar cars were used on Cottage, and this one appears to have been converted to one-man operation.

CSL 7054 in the late 1940s, running on Route 22, probably near the south end of the line. Andre Kristopans: “7054 is AT the south end of 22 – 81st and Halsted about to turn north into Halsted.”

CTA 4008, in “tiger stripes,” is on Route 20 – Madison in March 1948. Notice the sign advertising the Chicago Herald-American, which at this time was owned by the Hearst Corporation. It was sold to the Chicago Tribune in 1956.

North Shore Line wood car 300,in the days circa 1939-42 when it was used as the “club car” for the fledgling Central Electric Railfans’ Association.

North Shore Line “Birney” car 333 circa 1947. (Donald Ross Photo) Larry Sakar says this is “southbound at 5th & Chase.”

North Shore Line wood car 201, which looks like it is headed for the scrapper (probably in the late 1940s). (Donald Ross Photo)

South Shore Line car 107 at the South Bend terminal near the LaSalle Hotel in 1954. (Walter Hulseweder Photo)

Chicago Rapid Transit Company “L” car 328 at Indiana Avenue in September 1936. It is signed as a Stock Yards local.

CRT “Met” car 2847 at Canal in August 1938. Riders could change here for Union Station. This station remained in service until June 1958, when the Congress rapid transit line opened.

CTA Pullman 908 is at Navy Pier, east end of Route 65 – Grand.

South Shore Line car 110 is in South Bend, not far from the LaSalle Hotel which was its east terminus until 1970. I presume it is heading into a storage yard.

CSL experimental pre-PCC 4001 at South Shops in 1934. Like its counterpart 7001, it was used in service that year to bring people to A Century of Progress, the Chicago World’s Fair.

CTA PCC 4168 is seen in 1949, signed for Route 42 – Halsted-Downtown (note the side sign says Halsted-Archer-Clark). There is a Route 8 – Halsted car behind it. The location is on Emerald south of 79th.

CTA 7052 appears to be in dead storage at South Shops on June 30, 1955. Note the lack of overhead wire.

CTA 4025 at South Shops on June 30, 1955.

A train of CRT steel 4000s emerges from the brand-new State Street subway in late 1943.

Cable cars are shown here using the LaSalle Street tunnel under the Chicago River some time before they were replaced by streetcars in 1906.

CTA 4035 on Cottage Grove in 1953. Not sure of the exact location. (Walter Hulseweder Photo)

CTA 4004 running on State Street, signed for Route 4 – Cottage Grove, in the early 1950s. (Walter Broschart Photo)

CSL 4039 at the Madison and Austin Loop in August 1941.

CSL 7018, a Madison-Fifth car, heads west near Union Station in August 1941.

CTA 7067 at South Shops on June 30, 1955. The “Enter at Rear” sign indicates this was a two-man car and was thus not one that had recently been assigned to Western Avenue. However, chances are the date I received is wrong, since George Trapp notes: ” The photo of PCC #7067 at South Shops shows the car brand new, note CSL logo, so should be dated around May 18, 1947 when that car was delivered, for some reason St. Louis Car cranked the side signs to HALSTED on there first order of Post War cars when shipping. I have a photo of car #7089 just delivered with same side sign.”

CTA 7225 at South Shops in 1956.

Don’s Rail Photos says that North shore Line wood car 131 “was built by Jewett Car in 1907. It was rebuilt in 1914 and rebuilt as a plow in 1930. It was retired in 1935 and scrapped in 1942.”

CTA 7060 on June 30, 1955, possibly in dead storage.

CTA 7041, possibly in dead storage at South Shops on June 30, 1955.

CSL 7025 is downtown and signed for Madison-Fifth, which was a branch line of Route 20.

CSL 7090 is at 81st and Halsted, south end of Route 22, in the late 1940s.

CTA 7156 is signed as a one-man car (but appears to be convertible to two-man) at South Shops in October 1956. (Walter Hulseweder Photo)

CTA 4022 heading east on 63rd Street in the early 1950s.

CTA 4094 in dead storage at South Shops on June 30, 1955. Postwar Pullmans were an endangered species by then, practically all having been scrapped as part of the CTA’s “PCC Conversion Program.” I believe the date is correct; however George Trapp says, “Last Pullman PCC’s to be sent off to St. Louis were the oldest while the newest were sent first, 150 cars in series 4172-4371 went in 1953 with the rest in early 1954.”

CTA 4401 on October 21, 1950.

CTA 4401, with 4376 trailing, is heading north on Dearborn via Route 22 in 1955.

CTA 7268 is signed for Route 36 – Broadway-State and appears to be near Devon Station (car barn) in 1955. (Walter Hulseweder Photo)

CTA side dump car N-1 at South Shops on May 16, 1954. A CERA fantrip was held on that day, over the last remaining streetcar lines that used the old red cars, which were retired from service two weeks later. (James C. Barrick Photo)

CTA side dump car N-1 at South Shops in October 1956. (Walter Hulseweder Photo)

Capital Transit Company pre-PCC 1053 is on line 42 – Mt. Pleasant in Washington, D. C. on September 26, 1948. This was probably on a fantrip.

CTA 6163 is at Lake and Austin in the early 1950s. The Park Theater has already been closed, which would probably date this to circa 1952-54. (Walter Hulseweder Photo)

Lehigh Valley Transit car 702 is part of a three-car fantrip circa 1950 or 51 at stop #96 in Quakertown, Pennsylvania. This was in the waning days of the Liberty Bell Limited interurban between Allentown and Norristown. The “Bell” stopped running on the Philadelphia & Western’s Norristown High-Speed Line in 1949.

CTA salt spreader AA-105 (ex-2854) at the North Avenue car barn in February 1952. Don’s Rail Photos: “2854 was built by South Chicago City Ry in 1907 as SCCRy 340. It was rebuilt in 1907 and became C&SCRy 839 in 1908. It was renumbered 2854 in 1913 and became CSL 2854 in 1914. It was later converted as a salt car and renumbered AA105 in 1948. It was retired on February 17, 1954.”

CTA Pullmans 482, 584, and 518 on the scrap line at South Shops in March 1955. (Walter Hulseweder Photo)

CSL R-202 was a single-truck sand car. It is seen here on February 20, 1943.

CSL 4000 was a 1920s experiment in articulation that did not work out. It is seen here on the scrap track in the early 1940s.

With gas and tire rationing during World War II, CSL 2840, which had been in storage for ten years, was put back into service. Here, we see it on September 13, 1942.

CSL 2779 at South Shops on October 23, 1938. On this day, the Surface Lines held a fantrip that helped garner new members to the Central Electric Railfans’ Association, which was just getting started. (LaMar M. Kelley Photo)

Chicago Aurora & Elgin 407 and 432 in Forest Park in April 1955.

CA&E 413 at Wheaton on July 26, 1942.

South Shore Line cars 109, 39, 353, and 103 are on west Chicago Avenue at Northcote Avenue in East Chicago, Indiana on July 16, 1956. Not long after this, street running in East Chicago came to an end, as the South Shore began using a new bypass route parallel to the Indiana Toll Road. (James C. Barrick Photo)

South Shore Line “Little Joe” freight loco 803, with a train of 25 cars, is in the 1100 block of west Chicago in East Chicago on July 9, 1956. (James C. Barrick Photo)

South Shore Line cars 107, 37, 27, and 5 are on east Chicago Avenue at Whiteoak Avenue in East Chicago on July 16, 1956. (James C. Barrick Photo)

CRT 294 is signed as a Kenwood Local on July 21, 1934.

CTA 4109 at Madison and Austin in August 1948.

CTA 4383, I would assume, is turning from Clark onto westbound Devon as it is to run on Route 49 – Western.

CTA Sedan 6317 is running on Route 4 – Cottage Grove in the south Loop.

CSL Birney car 2000 in 1927.

CRT 1048 is a Jackson Park Local on July 21, 1934.

CRT 1763 is at Cermak Road on September 19, 1934.

CRT 337 at Indiana Avenue in September 1936.

Queensboro Bridge car 534 on January 16, 1949.

North Shore Line 719 is northbound on the Loop “L” at Adams and Wabash in June 1940.

North Shore Line car 181 in Winnetka.

North Shore Line car 409 at the Milwaukee terminal yard in February 1952. (Donald Ross Photo) Don Ross adds, “North Shore 409 at the Milwaukee station yard is interesting. That car had no smoking area and it was completely open. We used that car for our ERA meetings and the North Shore people helped to make sure it was set up.”

North Shore Line cars 720 and 747 in Milwaukee on October 12, 1941.

North Shore Line car 725 in Milwaukee in June 1940.

North Shore Line 170 at the Highwood Shops on July 5, 1949.

North Shore Line 250 in Wilmette on July 11, 1939.

CSL 3210 on the 51st-55th route, probably in the late 1930s.

North Shore Line Electroliner 803-804, which was new at the time, on a February 8, 1941 fantrip, making a photo stop at South Upton Junction.

Updated Posts

FYI, new material has been added to our post The Other Penn Central (May 9, 2016). Several additional pictures have also been added to The Fairmount Park Trolley (November 7, 2017).

Chicago Trolleys

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

-David Sadowski

Help Support The Trolley Dodger

This is our 200th 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 341,000 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.

A Tale of Two Cities

April 1, 2017April 2, 2017David Sadowski 20 Comments

This remarkable picture was taken at the North Shore Line’s Milwaukee terminal in January 1963. for all we know, this may be the last night of operation. If so, the temperature was below zero.

Today, we feature color slides taken in Chicago and Philadelphia. Those are the “two cities” in our title, but we also make brief side trips to Los Angeles and Mexico City. Somehow, though A Tale of Four Cities just doesn’t have the same ring.

Come to think of it, some of these pictures were taken in Milwaukee and South Bend, so that’s even more cities.

Chicago’s transit system and Philadelphia’s have shared a few things in common over the years. After the North Shore Line quit in 1963, the two articulated Electroliners (see one in our lead picture) were bought by the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company, better known as the Red Arrow Lines. Rechristened Liberty Liners, they continued in service from 1964 until about 1976.

Dr. Thomas Conway, Jr., who helped modernize the Chicago, Aurora & Elgin interurban in the 1920s, did the same with the Philadelphia & Western, which later became part of Red Arrow.

In the late 1980s, Red Arrow’s successor SEPTA purchased several pairs of used Chicago Transit Authority rapid transit cars (from the 6001-6200 series) to help keep service going, as their existing equipment (Bullets and Strafford cars) was really showing its age.

While the CA&E’s 1953 cutback in service to Forest Park helped speed its demise but a few years later, the P&W Norristown line, which survives today, has never had direct service to downtown Philly.

The CA&E’s 10 curved-sided cars, built in 1945, are often cited as the last “standard” interurbans built in this country. Depending on how you define the word standard, some double-ended cars built for Red Arrow by St. Louis Car Company (they also built the CA&E cars) in 1949 might take the prize instead. These closely resemble PCC cars but don’t qualify as “true” PCCs because they used standard trucks and motors.

The other contenders for last standard interurban are two series built for the Illinois Terminal in the late 1940s. Double-end PCCs were purchased for the St. Louis to Granite City line, and streamliners for longer inter-city use.

For that matter, Pittsburgh Railways used PCC cars (built in the late 1940s) on their interurban lines to Washington and Charleroi. These cars continued in service in Pittsburgh for many years after the last interurban ran in 1953.

Scanning these images was just a starting point. I put in many hours of work in Photoshop to remove imperfections and improve the color. As always, if you have location information you can give us, don’t hesitate to drop us a line.

We salute the many fine photographers, whose names are unfortunately not known to us, who took these exceptional pictures. It is important to give credit where credit is due, but in too many cases, when we receive a slide, negative, or print, there isn’t a name associated with it. We wish it were otherwise, but we are grateful that so many fine images have survived the decades in order to be shared with you. Our intentions are always to give these images, and the people who took them, the respect they deserve. When we have such information, we always give proper credit.

Enjoy!

-David Sadowski

PS- You can see more great night shots in our previous post Night Beat (June 21, 2016).

Chicago Area

South Shore Line car 110 laying over at South Bend, Indiana in July 1963. This was the east end of the line until 1970, when service was cut back to the outskirts of town, and South Bend street running was eliminated. In 1992, service was extended to the South Bend International Airport, 3 miles northwest of downtown South Bend.

Sailors board a North Shore Line train at Great Lakes on June 1, 1962. Car 751 is at rear.

North Shore Line 731 is at Libertyville on the Mundelein branch. We featured another picture at this location, taken in warmer weather, in Our 150th Post (August 6, 2016).

North Shore Line 723 at the front of a three-car train at an unidentified location. Andre Kristopans: “NSL 723 is on the Evanston L, I would say between Central and Noyes.” George Trapp: ” I believe the train is Northbound on the Evanston “L” somewhere between the Foster Street and Central Street stations, probably closer to the latter on the last section of the line to be elevated starting in 1928.”

North Shore Line car 773 and train on the Loop “L”. The car is signed as a Chicago Express on the Shore Line Route, which was abandoned in July 1955.

We ran another version of this image in a previous post, but this one is better because there is less cropping. A northbound CNS&M Shore Line Route train, headed up by 413, at the downtown Wilmette station in June 1954. The Shore Line was abandoned not much more than one year later. We are looking to the southeast.

An Illinois Central Electric suburban commuter train in 1963. (Fred Byerly Collection)

This picture, taken in September 1958, appears to show the back end of a CTA Congress branch train heading east over temporary trackage just east of DesPlaines Avenue, where there was a crossing at grade. Construction work was underway for I290, and the previous June, the new rapid transit line in the Congress expressway median had opened as far west as Cicero Avenue.

CTA Pullman-built PCC 4223 on a shoo-fly at Halsted and Congress circa 1952. The Congress expressway was under construction, and the first thing built were the bridges. That is the Garfield Park “L” in the background, which continued to operate until June 1958. The temporary trackage in Van Buren Street was a short distance west of here. We are facing north. Those lines on the car are shadows from nearby telephone wires.

A two-car train of CTA 4000s goes up the ramp toward the Laramie station on the Lake Street “L” on July 5, 1960. The portion of the line west of here was relocated onto the nearby Chicao & North Western embankment on October 28, 1962. Earlier that year, power on the ramp was changed from overhead wire to third rail, to facilitate the transition.

CTA Red Pullmans 532 and 153 pass each other on Route 8 – Halsted at Chicago. We are looking north.

A train of CTA 4000s on a fantrip on the Skokie Swift (today’s Yellow Line). These were last used in regular service in 1973, but this slide is dated March 1975. (Rex K. Nelson Photo)

CTA prewar PCC 4018 on Cottage Grove at 13th in February 1955. (William C. Janssen Photo)

CTA prewar PCC 4018 on Cottage Grove at 113th in February 1955. (William C. Janssen Photo)

CTA Red Pullman 109 is heading westbound on Blue Island at Western.

CA&E 422 at the head of a four-car train.

CA&E 317 and 316 on an Illini Railroad Club fantrip in the 1950s.

CA&E 432 in winter.

CA&E 317.

CA&E 406 at State Road on the Batavia branch.

To me, this looks like CA&E 419 is approaching the Forest Park terminal at DesPlaines Avenue. CTA Garfield Park “L” trains would loop via the wooden flyover at rear. Construction is underway at the station, which make me wonder if this picture was taken around the time of the September 1953 cutback.

CA&E 454. Methinks this is Bellwood, near 25th Avenue, where the nearby Chicago Great Western had a freight yard.

CA&E 430 at Batavia Junction in 1957. (Fred Byerly Collection)

CA&E 319 heads up a train of woods.

CA&E 316 and 317 have just departed Forest Park and are heading west in the 1950s. CTA Garfield Park “L” cars would loop using the wooden trestle at rear. This is the approximate location of I290 today.

CA&E 406 on a 1950s fantrip, most likely on the Batavia branch.

CA&E 314 is at the rear of a two-car train that has just crossed the B&OCT tracks just east of DesPlaines Avenue. The station at left would be DesPlaines Avenue, so we are looking to the west. Note the large gas holder that was a local landmark for years.

CA&E 402 and train.

CA&E 307 at the Wheaton Shops.

If I had to guess, I would say this picture of a CTA wooden “L” car and CA&E 422 was taken at DesPlaines Avenue, shortly before the September 1953 cutback in service. The old station was on the east side of DesPlaines Avenue.

A short CA&E freight train, complete with caboose. Some other interurbans did not use cabooses.

CA&E 408 heads up a train that appears to be heading eastbound, possibly just west of DesPlaines Avenue.

CA&E 316 and 317, possibly on the same Illini Railroad Club fantrip shown in a few other pictures in this post. The location may perhaps be the Mt. Carmel branch, which operated on overhead wire instead of third rail.

CA&E 460 is at Fifth Avenue in Maywood on March 6, 1958. This was one of a handful of fantrips that were run after passenger service was abandoned on July 3, 1957. The second car may be 417. This was about as far east as trains could go at this point, as the CA&E’s suspension of service had facilitated construction of what we now know as I290 near the DesPlaines River. The CA&E tracks were relocated slightly north of where they had crossed the river, and were ready for service again in 1959, but by then the railroad had abandoned all service and no trains were run on the new alignment.

A CA&E freight train. Tom writes: “The Unknown CAE with the two freight motors is an Eastbound Freight at Berkeley under the I 294 / Eisenhower Expressway . I grew up a block away from there in Elmhurst.”

A pair of curved-sided CA&E cars, headed up by 452.

CA&E 452 at the DesPlaines Avenue Terminal in Forest Park, where passengers could transfer to eastbound CTA trains from 1953 to 1957.

CA&E 432 and 459 on the Met “L” just west of the Loop, prior to the September 20, 1953 cutback in service to Forest Park.

This picture may show CA&E 319 and 320 on a December 7, 1958 fantrip. This was the last passenger operation on the railroad. Freight service continued for a few more months before it too was abandoned.

CA&E electric locos 2001 and 2002 and train.

Looks like CA&E 458 and (I think) 434.

A CA&E freight train on the Mt. Carmel branch. I can’t quite make out the loco’s number (400x).

Philadelphia Area

SEPTA car 15 picks up a passenger across from the Media Theater (which is showing the film Taxi Driver) in May 1976.

A close-up of the previous picture. We are facing east.

SEPTA 19 on the Sharon Hill line in May 1976. Kenneth Achtert adds, “SEPTA 19 on the Sharon Hill line is outbound at Drexel Hill Junction.”

SEPTA double-ended car 15, built in 1949, in May 1976. Not sure whether this is the Media or the Sharon Hill line. Kenneth Achtert: “Car 15 is on the Media line at the east end of the Media street-running, crossing Providence Road about to reach Bowling Green station.”

SEPTA 22 near the 69th Street Terminal in May 1976.

SEPTA Brilliner 4, signed as an instruction vehicle, in downtown Media in May 1976. These cars continued in service into the early 1980s, when they were replaced by the current fleet of double-ended Kawasaki LRVs.

A SEPTA Bullet car crosses the Schuylkill River in May 1976.

SEPTA “Master Unit” 83 (left) and Brilliner 8 meet at Drexel Hill Junction on August 16, 1981. Kenneth Achtert: “The shot of 83 and 8 at Drexel Hill Junction is on a fantrip, with 83 inbound from Media and 8 on the pocket track.”

SEPTA Strafford car 160 in May 1976. This looks like the Norrsitown Terminal.

One of the Liberty Liners on the Schuylkill River bridge in May 1976.

A berthed Liberty Liner in May 1976.

SEPTA Bullet car 7 (207?) in May 1976. Kenneth Achtert adds, “Bullet car 7 in May 1976 is, in fact, #207. The ten bullets were always numbered 200-209, but carried the single last digit on the roof over the ventilation scoop as an aid for the dispatcher located at Bryn Mawr above the track area. (The tracks were in a cut at that location.) The older cars also carried numbers on the roof, but this practice was discontinued on all but the bullets, no doubt since the bullets had no other number visible from the front.”

SEPTA Brill Master Units 82 and 86 in May 1976. This may be the storage tracks near 69th Street Terminal, which are a short vestige of the old West Chester line. Kenneth Achtert: “82 and 86 are indeed on the storage tracks on West Chester Pike west of 69th St. Terminal.”

A “railfan seat” view out the front or back window of a Norristown train on the Schuylkill River bridge in May 1976.

A Liberty Liner crosses the Schuylkill River on February 16, 1964, about a month after they were put in service on the Norristown line.

One of the SEPTA Liberty Liners in February 1972. Kenneth Achtert: “The Liberty Liner in February 1972 appears to be southbound leaving Wynnewood Road.”

Red Arrow car 24 at the 69th Street Terminal in August 1960.

Red Arrow Bullet car 8 on the Norristown High Speed Line. I’m not sure at what point this car was renumbered to 208. This picture may have been taken shortly after the SEPTA takeover in 1970. Kenneth Achtert: “Bullet car 8 was always 208 (see previous), and the picture was definitely after the SEPTA takeover as evidenced by the blue-backed patches for the logos.”

The control cab of one of the two Liberty Liners, as it looked in May 1976, near the end of service.

The interior of a Liberty Liner in May 1976.

Bullet car 208 (left) and Strafford car 160 (right) in May 1976. I was fortunate to ride both such cars on this line in 1985.

Red Arrow car 13 in downtown Media in May 1976.

A SEPTA Bullet car crosses the Schuylkill River in May 1976.

Besides the Brilliners and postwar St. Louis cars, older equipment continued in use on Red Arrow into the early 1980s. Here, we see Brill “Master Unit” 80, built in 1932, in SEPTA colors in May 1976 near the 69th Street Terminal.

The next two scenes are from medium format transparancies, which were mounted in oversized mounts as seen here. Standard 35mm slide mounts are 2″ x 2″, and these are 2.75″ x 2.75″. I don’t know if slide projectors were made that could handle these giants. You wouldn’t exactly call these “super slides,” since that term refers to size 127 or 828 film (which is larger than 35mm) mounted in 2×2 mounts.

SEPTA Brilliner 5 in February 1971. Kenneth Achtert: “Brilliner #5 in the medium format transparency is just past the Naylor’s Run trestle approaching the Congress Ave. stop.”

SEPTA Brilliners 9 and 3 meet in February 1971. Kenneth Achtert: “Brilliners 9 and 3 are at Lansdowne Ave. (#9 outbound). The teenagers are students from Monsignor Bonner HS (boys) and Archbishop Prendergast HS (girls), out of view to the left. The schools have since been combined.”

A close-up of the previous scene.

Angel’s Flight (Los Angeles)

We have posted several pictures of Angel’s Flight before. To find those, type Angel’s Flight in the search window at the top of this page.

The view looking down the Angel’s Flight Railway in August 1966. Nearby buildings had already been torn down as part of the redevelopment of this area, which included leveling part of Bunker Hill.

A family rides the Angel’s Flight funicular in Los Angeles’ Bunker Hill neighborhood in May 1969. Service ended later that year, and Angel’s Flight was dismantled and put into storage for many years before being reopened a short distance from here.

Angel’s Flight, May 1969.

Mexico City

This, and the three pictures that follow, were taken in Mexico City in May 1957, apparently by a pretty good photographer. Mexico’s last remaining streetcar line (Tasqueña–Xochimilco) was converted to light rail in 1986. The PCCs were purchased second-hand from North American properties, including Detroit.

2017 Hoosier Traction Meet

Bill Shapotkin writes:

On September 8th-9th, a group of men and women will converge upon Indianapolis, IN for the annual gathering of the Hoosier Traction Meet. Considered by many to be the premier event of its kind, this conference of interested enthusiasts, historians, published authors and rail and transit professions consists of two complete days of audio/visual presentations on the history, operation and technology of electric railway and transit operations throughout the Midwest. In addition to the numerous auditorium events, there is an exhibition of electric rail and transit, where items of interest from transfers and photographs to fare boxes and operating models are for sale.

This year marks the 34th annual Hoosier Traction Meet. Founded by Dr. Howard Blackburn, the Hoosier Traction Meet features, in addition to its auditorium events and exhibition hall, a opportunity for those interested in electric railway and transit to exchange ideas and swap stories with old acquaintances and meet new friends.

Allow me to take this opportunity to cordially invite each and every one of you to this special event — an event which has been the rail and transit highlight of my year for nearly twenty years.

Click here for a Prospectus.

Note that by mailing in your reservation in advance, the admission price is half that paid at the door — now that’s a bargain in anybody’s book! In addition, there are numerous restaurants and shops nearby, allowing plenty of opportunities to and have lunch or supper with your fellow enthusiasts.

Please consider joining us for this year’s event.

Wm Shapotkin
Auditorium Manager
Hoosier Traction Meet

Chicago Trolleys

Work continues on our upcoming book Chicago Trolleys, which is now in the layout and proofreading stage. Lots of work has been done on the text, and the final selection of photos has been made. We will keep you advised as things progress.

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