Herein we begin a new regular feature, Transit Trivia. We’ll do our best to answer reader’s questions, and with any luck, we’ll all learn something along the way.

Doug Auburg (of Battle Ground, Washington) wants to know what colors the two electric locomotives the North Shore Line purchased from Oregon Electric were painted. Don’s Rail Photosgives their ineage ars follows:

458 was built by the Spokane Portland & Seattle in January 1941 as Oregon Electric Ry. 50. It was purchased by the North Shore in December 1947 and was completed as 458 on January 27, 1948.

459 was built by the SP&S in August 1941 as OERy 51. It was purchased by the North Shore in December 1947 and was completed as 459 on November 22, 1948.

CNS&M freight loco 458 looking pretty good at North Chicago in October, 1961.

459 in September 1961.

The two freight locos as they looked on the Oregon Electric. (From CERA B-77)

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to track down any color photos showing the locos on Oregon Electric. According to the Wikipedia, passenger service ended in May 1933, while electric freight operations continued until July 10, 1945, when the railroad dieselized. This gives a period of only about four years when color photos could have been taken, and this coincided with WWII when color film was scarce indeed.

My research shows that OE passenger cars were painted either “traction orange” or “Pullman green,” but this service ended several years before the locos were even built. To the best of my knowledge, the locos may simply have been painted black with either yellow or gold lettering. The photos reproduced in CERA B-77 would tend to support the idea they were black, at least.

Much better color information exists for the locos when they plied the North Shore Line. Here, the colors were the standard dark green with red accents and gold lettering. Unfortunately, both units were scrapped, presumably in 1964, a year after the famous interurban quit. There were no buyers for them.

Trying to paint a model using color photos as a guide will always be a somewhat haphazard affair. Even in the best of situations, colors (and particular shades of colors) may not photograph accurately.

You would think that the digital age has solved all these problems, but not quite. For example, Kodachrome slides, when scanned, often exhibit a “bluecast” that affects overall color. It can take both sophisticated scanners and software to eliminate the bluecast.

The roof of Indiana Railroad car 65, preserved at the Illinois Railway Museum, is supposed to be green, and maybe it is, but in various photos I’ve taken, it appears to be gray. That may just be a “trick of the light.”

IR #65 in 2012 at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union. (Photo by David Sadowski) Green roof or gray? You be the judge.

There have been at times many heated and passionate discussions at railway museums over the “correct” color some piece of equipment ought to be painted. Sometimes, old-timers have been consulted, and asked about the proper color. In one case I heard about, they said they bought whatever the paint store had on sale. So, even in the old days, there were color variations, even on properties that were trying to maintain a particular paint scheme.

The paints we use today may be different in composition than what was available decades ago. It may not be possible, in all cases, to have an exact match for the original colors. San Francisco has learned this as they try to reproduce the colors of various PCC cars representing various cities.

Birmingham (AL) Electric PCC 842 circa 1950. This car’s attractive color scheme has been reproduced in San Francisco on Muni car 1077. You can see how that car looks here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:San_Francisco_PCC_streetcar_1077,_Birmingham_livery.jpg

There are many things that affect the colors on a railcar, even after the paint drys. After the end of service, the Chicago Aurora and Elgin repainted some of their rolling stock, in hopes that a fresh coat of paint might help sell some equipment. However, they started thinning out the red paint, in order to make it last longer.

As a result, within a few years, some cars that started out red began to look more pink.

Sometimes, transit colors have acquired fanciful names. According to Graham Garfield’s excellent Chicago “L” site, CRT’s 4000-series cars were painted “brindle brown.” When was the last time you looked at something and said, “Hey, that’s brindle brown?”

CA&E 456 and 455 among the weeds at Wheaton Shops in August 1959. Even freight service had ended a few months earlier, but these cars look like they have received a fresh coat of paint, in hopes of being sold to another operator. Although the cars were only about 12 years old at this time, six of the ten postwar units ended up being scrapped a few years later right on this spot. The only cars saved from the 451-460 series went to “Trolleyville USA” in Ohio instead of ending up on the North Shore Line or in Airport service in Cleveland.

The late Gerald E. Brookins was responsible for preserving many historic railcars at his “Trolleyville USA” in northern Ohio. He sometimes took a different approach to paint schemes on his “Columbia Park and Southwestern,” with some equipment painted in an odd and rather unpopular yellow and dark green livery. I’m not sure what historic precedence there was supposed to be for it, but now that the Brookins collection has been dispersed to other museums, some of those same cars have been repainted into more authentic colors.

A 1984 shot of CA&E 451 (with a rather odd color scheme) in Olmstead Township, Ohio on the Columbia Park and Southwestern aka “Trolleyville USA.” This car is now at the Illinois Railway Museum. (Photo by David Sadowski)

Lehigh Valley Transit car 1030 as it looked at Fairview car barn on September 9, 1951, a few days after interurban service ended. The original paint chips from 1939 still exist for this color array, and hopefully can be used to provide an exact match the next time this car is repainted at the Seashore Trolley Museum.

Model painters can be a great source of information on authentic railcar colors. After all, they have to deal with this issue head-on in many more situations than railway museums do. There are a lot more models than real trains.

Another thing to keep in mind: color is density. Changing the exposure of a photograph also changes the color. The light meters in cameras are calibrated towards a medium gray tone, and will tend to render snow as gray instead of white. The same is true of very dark objects. The typical camera will tend to make them look gray as well.

A camera cannot adjust to light in the same way that your brain does. Your brain acclimates to different colored light, which explains why florescent light looks green in photos, but not to your eye. The same is true of incandescent light, which tends to look very yellow in pictures. The worst situation is when you have mixed lighting from different sources that are not the same color. In that case, adjusting for one throws the rest of the picture off even more.

There was no Pantone color matching system in 1963, when the North Shore Line gave up the ghost. Pantone equates shades of color with a reference number, and thus provides a way of replicating colors without the guesswork. It’s proven to be such a great system that it has even appeared in lyrics to popular songs, such as this excerpt from Reno Dakota by Stephin Merritt The Magnetic Fields:

Reno Dakota there’s not an iota of kindness in you
You know you enthrall me and yet you don’t call me
It’s making me blue, Pantone 292

The Pantone system, however, cannot replace the poetry of the past. Pantone color numbers will never sound as or look as romantic as the combination of Mercury Green, Croydon Cream, and Swamp Holly Orange, the original colors of Chicago’s postwar PCC streetcars and “L” cars.

Why be a number when you can be a Green Hornet?

-David Sadowski

CTA 6101-6102 heading up a Ravenswood B train southbound at Belmont in the mid-1980s. These cars are now at the Fox River Trolley Museum in South Elgin. (Photo by David Sadowski)

Another view of 458 in North Chicago, this time on May 30, 1962.

Three North Shore “pups” at work in March 1961, with loco 452 at rear. (Photographer unknown)

A North Shore Line freight train led by loco 456 at Rondout in November 1962. (Photographer unknown)

North Shore Line loco 456 and caboose in November 1962. (Photographer unknown)

CNS&M caboose 1005 at North Chicago Junction on June 16, 1962. (Photo by W. A. Gibson)

458 at North Chicago in July 1959. (Photo by Spitzer)

Another view of Oregon Electric 50. (Photographer unknown)

Another view of Oregon Electric 51. (Photographer unknown)

For the last year or more, CTA’s 2200-series rapid transit cars have been going, going… and now they’re gone. Recently, it was reported they had run their last on July 31.

But wait, there’s more! CTA decided to give them one final sendoff on August 8th, with a special farewell run after 44 years of service. As a regular CTA rider going back even before these “L” cars were new, this was one trip I just couldn’t miss. (You can read the CTA Service Bulletin here.)

First, there was a short non-stop “media run” between Rosemont and Jefferson Park. Then the extra train went out to the end of the Blue Line at O’Hare Airport, and ran all the way out to Forest Park and back starting at 11:11 am- and making all stops, despite being signed as an “A” train. (The CTA gave up on “skip-stop” service some years back.)

The “media run” at the Sayre avenue overpass along the Kennedy expressway.

These were the last cars on the CTA system that used “blinker” doors, a unique Chicago feature going back to the original experimental 5000 cars of 1947-48. The November 1950 issue of ERA Headlights explained their use on the first order of 6000s thusly:

There are four entrance-exit doors in each car– two on each side. Doors are located one-fourth the length of the car from each end. Under this arrangement, passengers will never be more than one-quarter of a car length from a door.

Each door is a double one– with a clear opening of 24 inches– that will permit passengers to enter and exit simultaneously in two separate lines.

The location and arrangement of doors will reduce boarding and alighting times, thereby contributing to faster service. The doors are interlocked with the motor controls so that a train cannot be started until all doors are closed. The doors have sensitive rubber edges that cause them to open automatically should they come in contact with an object while closing.

Final runs can be a somber affair, like a wake. But this one was more like a party. The cars were full of people, mostly fans, but some just regular riders. A train came along and they got on it. This is as it should be. People were laughing and talking, and reminiscing about the old days when the 2200s were the “state of the art.”

After 44 years, they still ran pretty good, and the body design has a timeless elegance that will never go out of style. They are a remarkable success story, and one that is even more exceptional when you consider how many contemporary railcar orders were flops.

This is in part due to the evolutionary, as opposed to revolutionary, nature of the 2200s design. They were an improved version, and a more refined one of their predecessors, the 2000s, which had a comparatively shorter life and were not as well liked.

The high-performance 2000s, only five years older than these cars, were the first series to come with air conditioning as standard equipment. But the compressors were underpowered and could not get the job done. Being mounted on the ceiling, they tended to leak water on anyone sitting in the middle of the car. When the a/c failed on really hot days, or couldn’t keep up, that resulted in some very sweltering conditions in those cars, which did not have windows that could be opened.

These shortcomings were dealt with in the 2200s. The air conditioning units were moved to below the riders. They were beefed up. The cars were eventually retrofitted with windows that could open if the a/c failed, but I really don’t recall ever seeing them used. Now we take air conditioning for granted on rapid transit cars, but there was a time when some considered it an unnecessary luxury.

The 2000s and 2200s, in turn, were improved versions of the 6000s, still my favorite. In some ways they will always be the quintessential CTA “L” cars. But these cars could go faster, and had better ride quality. They did not shake, rattle, and roll like the 6000s did as they strained to get up to a top speed of about 52 mph with a good tailwind.

It wasn’t a wake, it was a celebration. After it was over, the crowd milled about, some wanting to have their pictures taken standing next to the cars that they probably were sad to see depart. As they pulled out of the O’Hare terminal for the last time, they looked like they could go on for another 44 years. Instead, they are going to the scrapper, lock, stock, and blinker doors.

But a pair of these cars have been saved and are now at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, where we hope they will continue to serve in the future. You might want to consider visiting them sometime, even if they have to be fitted with trolley poles.

CTA did them up right with period advertising and signage. For this trip, they dispensed with the canned station announcements and did things the old way, with the doors being controlled by a conductor, and spoken announcements. It brought back a lot of memories.

I guess you had to be there.

-David Sadowski

(Note: The author’s own photos were taken on August 8, 2013. Others are credited as appropriate.)

The final southbound run at Cumberland.

CTA decorated the train with reproductions of vintage ads.

The old route map, circa 1970.

Map showing the “old” Congress-Douglas-Milwaukee route, before the O’Hare extension and the Pink Line.

“Blinker” doors.

Graham Garfield in period CTA garb, from before the invention of “casual Friday.”

Our train has arrived in Forest Park.

Everybody wants to get a picture, or get in the way of yours.

The 2200s on the turnaround loop at Forest Park.

If CA&E service had resumed in 1959, this is approximately where their trains would have run.

Ready for the return trip to O’Hare.

An “A” train making all stops.

All aboard!

Author and historian Bruce Moffat.

The end of the line, the CTA O’Hare terminal designed by Helmut Jahn.

Fans take a few last-minute pictures. People started posing next to the cars after their final run.

The 2200s going off to oblivion.

CTA handout from the trip.

2261-62 at Laramie on Douglas Park (today’s Pink Line) on July 4, 1971.

A Douglas-Milwaukee “B” train at Jefferson Park (then the end of the line) in September 1972. (Photo by Philip Horn)

“Blinker” doors on Chicago “L” cars were influenced by their earlier use on PCC streetcars.

September 28, 1969 – “New CTA trains, Dan Ryan. One of the new CTA rapid transit trains that went into service today, passing under the 31st street bridge, heading north.” (Photo by Pete Peters)

We all love a mystery, don’t we? Well, we certainly presented one in our earlier post “Roarin’ Elgin on the North Shore? (March 31). Where was that picture taken along the North Shore Line during a 1946 CERA fantrip? At first, we thought perhaps Greenleaf avenue in Wilmette. Eventually, we settled on 5th in Milwaukee.

But now a new contender has emerged, thanks to CERA Director John Nicholson, who writes:

In looking back on the photo of the two ex-CA&E cars on the 1946 fantrip over the North Shore, we were able to refute one reader’s claim that the photo was taken on Greenleaf Ave. in Wilmette; the most obvious strike against that was that the pavement in the photo was concrete while Greenleaf Ave. had brick paving.

I decided to have another look at the photo and I saw that the track on the right was curving left in the distance to indicate this was a siding. There was nothing like this in Milwaukee which led me to believe that the photo was in Waukegan. After checking the map in B-107, I concluded the only location for this photo was the siding on Franklin St. in Waukegan. This was confirmed by Tom Jervan, a native of Waukegan. He immediately identified North School in the photo and produced his own track map of Waukegan. On it he also placed the names of businesses and buildings from that era. In checking the map, we were able to determine that the two-car train had just turned left off of County St. onto the siding on Franklin St. and was westbound. He also had indicated the location of North School on his map.

Eureka! We have found it! The evidence seems persuasive. We will have to update that post accordingly, lest we continue to give out incorrect information.

But that’s OK, because we aren’t just writing about historical subjects in order to be topical. Good taste, they say, is timeless, and we hope that the CERA Members Blog, over time, will become both an archive and a resource that people will continue to read in the future, just as we still read old CERA bulletins.

But while the only way to correct mistakes in old books is to reprint them, here we have an advantage. We can always go back and update our old posts, once new information or images are available. And so we do- several of our previous posts have already been improved this way, and we will continue to work on them as the situation permits.

For example, we have added a couple of images to our recent post Scenes Along the Garfield Park “L” (July 31), and if we come across others that seem to fit there, we might do that again.

Here’s an image we recently added to the post.

And here’s another one. Unless I miss my guess, this is in the general area where the Union Station trainshed was later built… but this is perhaps 20 years before that happened.

Likewise, we have added a couple of new images to Chris Buck’s post The Great Subway Flood of 1957 (April 23):

CTA workers sandbag retaining wall of westbound expressway on west side of Halsted (July 13, 1957).

CTA sandbag crew, July 13, 1957. We enjoy having an opportunity to show the real working people of this country, whose contributions are often forgotten or taken for granted.

Over time, a few more images have snuck into other posts, such as Chicago’s Subways and the “Bluebirds”. We may not always draw attention to these changes, but from time to time we do make them, and we hope that you, the reader, will benefit.

This might all seem a bit like trivia- and it is. We will begin a new feature later this week called “Transit Trivia.” We are not too proud to note that it is inspired by a similar column that “The Professor” (Roy G. Benedict) used to write for First and Fastest magazine. But we are sure there is plenty of trivia to go around for everyone.

Watch this space!

-David Sadowski

A fanciful 1944 view of Chicago’s new State Street subway, patterned after a famous 1943 photograph, but showing a BMT-style “Bluebird” in red.

Few traces remain today of Chicago’s storied Garfield Park “L”, which was obliterated by construction of the Congress (now Eisenhower) expressway in the 1950s, events that also hastened the demise of the Chicago, Aurora and Elgin interurban. The transition from Garfield to Congress has long been one of our favorite topics, which we have written about at length.

It is not apparent from this early postcard, but the Met bridge over the Chicago River had four tracks.

But today, we offer a sampling of views along the old right-of-way, before the inevitable path of progress affected things. Looking at a route map from 1948, and considering how the western suburbs were expected to develop, we can see how the Garfield line (and its CA&E connections) had a tremendous reach and potential, only partly realized by today’s CTA Blue Line branch to Forest Park.

By the late 1920s, CA&E and CRT, both parts of the far-flung Insull empire, worked together as parts of a harmonious whole. While the Depression put everything under great strain, there were few real changes in services for the next 20 years. But the idea of a rapid transit line in the median of the Congress Parkway Super-Highway took hold by 1939, so change became inevitable.

The Met “L”s were not built to as high a standard as Chicago’s others, and therefore, sooner or later, the structure would have needed complete replacement anyway, as experienced by the Douglas/Pink Line. But not all of the Garfield Line ran in the footprint of today’s Eisenhower expressway. From Sacramento to a point just west of Laramie- a stretch of about three miles- the line ran outside where the highway is today, and this portion could have been retained. Likewise, the portions east of Halsted also veered off from the highway to connect up with the Loop “L”.

The highway plans did not always call for replacing the entire Garfield alignment. According to a 1948 CTA map, the plan at that time was to retain the old portion between Sacramento and Laramie:

On the City of Chicago’s construction program is a West Side Subway as an extension of the Congress Street leg of the Milwaukee-Dearborn-Congress Subway. Crossing under the Chicago river in tubes, it is to emerge near Halsted Street in the strip between the roadways of the Congress Street Superhighway. It is to continue in the median strip of the highway to Kedzie Avenue and then turn north in subway tubes to connect with the Lake Street “L”.

Included in the plan are the construction of two track connections to the Douglas Park and Garfield Park branches at Marshfield Avenue and Sacramento Boulevard, respectively.

Planners also hoped to tear down the Loop “L” in stages, and in order to do this, the Lake Street “L” would need to be relocated into a subway. It was thought this could be done by building a new connection between Lake and the planned Congress line, which would then run downtown via the Dearborn-Milwaukee subway. Whereas the old Met “L” arrangement had three branches coming together at one point (Marshfield junction), these early CTA plans called for separating them, with the Lake and Congress lines coming together at a point further west.

But there were many practical reasons for letting the Lake Street “L” remain, and it and the Loop “L” structure have survived to this day. For one thing, the Lake “L” was built to a higher standard than Garfield or Douglas. Relocating the portion east of Kedzie would do nothing to fix the problems Lake had running at ground level west of Laramie. Routing Lake via Congress would also have slowed down service downtown and back, in the same manner that the Pink Line is slowed down today by being diverted over to Lake.

CTA planners helped improve operations on the Lake Street “L” in 1949 with the introduction of A-B “skip stop” service, and this seems to have quelled the notion of connecting it to Congress. After all, a Lake-Douglas-Congress route would have been a three-headed monster, and CTA was not going to institute an A-B-C service.

We can all be glad that service on the west side lines got rationalized in a better manner than some of the early plans. Unfortunately, expressway construction is also widely regarded as having sped the end of the CA&E, which ceased operating passenger service in 1957.

Opinions are divided on whether CA&E, which was losing money, really wanted to continue at the start of expressway construction. It may be that cutting back service to Forest Park was part of an overall plan for a piecemeal liquidation, in a similar manner to what happened to Lehigh Valley Transit’s Liberty Bell Limited between 1949 and 1951.

CRT’s Westchester branch had great potential, but fell victim both to CA&E’s desire to liquidate its assets (it owned the land) and their desire to sever rail connections with the CTA. Continued CTA rail operations west of Forest Park would have meant keeping the track connection which CA&E cut as soon as their last westbound train passed Forest Park in September 1953. But I am sure CTA wishes it had the Westchester branch back today.

Meanwhile, I hope that you enjoy our Garfield Park “L” photo essay as we turn back the clock to a time before it, and much else of life in the 1950s, was swept away into the dustbin of history.

-David Sadowski

CTA 2818 leads the way west of the Loop in this June 1952 scene. I believe we are looking east from the end of the Racine station.

The three Metropolitan “L” lines met at Marshfield junction. Garfield Park trains are in the center of this postcard view, with Logan Square/Humboldt Park on left and Douglas Park on the right. This is approximately where the Pink Line crosses the Blue Line today.

The Garfield Park’s Cicero station, seen here in the early 1950s, was the westernmost one on a steel elevated structure. Service west continued at ground level. This portion of the line was unaffected by expressway construction and continued in service until the Congress line opened in 1958. It was torn down the following year.

In the early 1950s, a westbound Garfield Park train descends the ramp between the Cicero and Laramie stations.

CA&E steel car 430 at Laramie on July 23, 1933.

According to Don’s Rail Photos, “2721 was built by Barney & Smith in 1895 as Metropolitan-West Side Elevated Ry 721. In 1913 it was renumbered 2721. In 1919 it was rebuilt as a merchandise dispatch car to be leased to the North Shore line. After a short time it was replaced by new and similar MD cars built for the North Shore. It was then returned to the CRT and used in work service. It became CRT 2721 in 1923.” It is shown here in 1941 painted silver. This car was scrapped in March 1959. (The location is the SE corner of Laramie Yard. You can see the elevated ramping up at the right of the picture.)

CRT 2322 in a late 1930s photo by early CERA member La Mar M. Kelley.

CRT Metropolitan Division 2877, shown here in a photo by La Mar M. Kelley, was built in 1906. CERA Bulletin 113 describes this order as “the enclosed vestibule type with manually controlled pneumatically-operated sliding doors and with steel and wood underframes and steel-reinforced wooden bodies.” Work car 2721 is at the rear.

CRT 1805 sports an American flag in this late 1930s photo by La Mar M. Kelley. This may be out on the Westchester branch (note the sparse development and the single track.)

While CRT’s own tracks ended at Laramie, “L” service continued further west as far as Bellwood and Westchester over the tracks of the Chicago, Aurora & Elgin.

The Garfield Park route circa 1952, once the Westchester branch had been replaced by buses. CTA continued to serve the Bellwood/Westchester area with the #17 bus for the next 60 years. The old “L” had lots of stations closely spaced together, and relied on walk-in traffic from densely populated neighborhoods. The Congress line that replaced it speeded up service, in part, by reducing the number of stations.

A CTA summary of Garfield Park service as of 1952, after the Westchester branch closed, but before expressway construction forced a portion of the route to be relocated to temporary tracks on Van Buren street in the city.

If not for expressway construction starting in 1953 (and the resulting Congress median line that opened five years later), CTA might have simply truncated Garfield “L” service at Laramie and used buses west of there. The ground-level route west of there had grade crossings, passing sidings, and even crossed a freight line. No doubt CTA considered this very problematic. Similarly, service on the Douglas Park branch was cut back to 54th avenue in 1952. Proposals to eliminate the ground-level portion of the Lake street “L” around this time eventually led to the outer portion being relocated to the CNW embankment in 1962.

From 1953-57, CA&E service terminated at Forest Park, and passengers desiring to continue further east had to change trains and pay a CTA fare. There were no through tickets.

Joint timetables such as this helped improve the transfer of passengers between CA&E and CTA at Forest Park between 1953-57.

CRT 4317 leads the way on a CERA fantrip on the CA&E’s Mount Carmel branch on February 12, 1939.

The AE&C was the predecessor of the CA&E. Some of its original 1902 equipment included wood car 16, shown here, a sister of car 20, preserved in operating condition at the Fox River Trolley Museum.

CA&E cars 456 and 457 at Batavia Junction on July 3, 1949.

Now we’ve come full circle. Here is another view of the bridge shown at the beginning of this post.

We are pleased to announce that longtime CERA Member, Director, and President Walter Keevil will present the program at our 75th Anniversary Banquet this September 21st. Since this is the 50th anniversary of the North Shore Line’s demise, Walter will show rare films of that famous interurban from his extensive collection.

749 in Milwaukee in late 1962, just a few months before all North Shore Line service was abandoned. IRM acquired this car in 1963.

The hour-long program will include material from 1941 to 1962, with the Shore Line and streetcars included, as well as the mainline, Mundelein branch and scenes on the “L”. Preceding the program, we will have a short presentation of photos from CERA fantrips going back to 1938.

Tickets for the 75th Anniversary Banquet and Program are on sale now online and by mail. You can purchase tickets directly through our web site, using PayPal, credit or debit cards, or print out order forms.

To give you some of the flavor of Mr. Keevil’s program, we offer you a sampling of North Shore Line photos from the CERA Archives. We hope that you will enjoy them, and we look forward to seeing you at the Chicago Marriott O’Hare in September.

-David Sadowski

Electroliner at the North Shore Line’s Milwaukee terminal.

This sign, or one just like it, now hangs at the Illinois Railway Museum.

CNS&M 175 at Roosevelt Road in August 1949, during the years when the North Shore practically had this station all to itself.

One of the two Electroliners at Madison and Wabash on Chicago’s “L” in the late 1950s.

Car 729 at the gritty Milwaukee terminal.

CNS&M 771.

North Shore city streetcar 360 in August 1949.

CNS&M 417 in August 1949.

North Shore city streetcar 356 in August 1949. Sister car 354 is now preserved at the Illinois Railway Museum.

North Shore Line merchandise dispatch cars in August 1949.

CNS&M freight motor 21 at Highwood in August 1939.

North Shore car 162 as it looked on November 27, 1941. According to Don’s Rail Photos, “It was acquired by American Museum of Electricity in 1963 and resold to Connecticut Trolley Museum.”

The North Shore handled packages as well as passengers.

The North Shore Line left a legacy that continues to enrich our lives today. Here we see car 160 at the Illinois Railway Museum in the mid-1980s. Emerson Wakefield, the author’s uncle, is walking away from the car. (Photo by David Sadowski)

CERA Celebrates 75 Years

We are now less than two months away from CERA’s 75th Anniversary events, which include a banquet, program, and three special fantrips. Orders and inquiries are coming in every day. You can get more information, purchase tickets online or print out mail-in order forms here.

CTA 6181-6182 at Skokie Shops on May 26, 1963, during the CERA 25th Anniversary fantrip.

Trolley Sparks Special #1

Everyone who attends the banquet and program on September 21st will receive a copy of Trolley Sparks Special #1, a limited-edition commemorative 80-page full color book celebrating CERA’s first 75 years. If you cannot make the banquet, you can still pre-order a copy here. Demand for this book is high, so reserve your copy now for this collector’s item, which is sure to sell out quickly. Work on the book has now been finished, and will go to the printer this week, so that it can be ready in time for our banquet and program.

We will announce the international shipping cost for the book once we know how much it weighs. The $29 pre-order price includes domestic shipping only.

CTA 4259-4260 and 4287-4288 on the South Boulevard team track in Evanston, during CERA’s 25th Anniversary fantrip on May 26, 1963.

Myles Jarrow To Receive CERA Founder’s Award

The CERA Board of Directors has invited longtime member Myles Jarrow (#23) to be an honored guest at our 75th Anniversary Banquet and Program, where he will receive the prestigious Founder’s Award for his service and commitment to the organization. Myles is 91 years old and is the last living person who attended the earliest CERA meetings. We hope that you will join us in honoring Mr. Jarrow at the event for a lifetime of dedication.

CTA Historical cars 4271-4272 at Sedgwick on May 28, 1978, during a CERA 40th Anniversary fantrip. (Photo by G. E. Lloyd)

Membership Rates for 2014 Set

At the July meeting, your CERA Directors set the membership rates for next year. The rates for Active, Contributing, and Sustaining memberships remain unchanged at $45, $90, and $180 respectively. The Associate rate will go up to $42 from $38.

Due to the increased cost of international postage, the rate for International Associate members will be $72, and $75 for International Actives. The additional $30 USD will go towards covering the cost of mailing the membership book entitlement abroad (which can cost in excess of $30 by itself) plus other informational mailings.

The Directors hope to merge the Active and Associate membership classes into one group for 2015, but this will require the approval of membership at our next business meeting, which will be in January 2014. Over the last 75 years, the original purpose behind having our membership divided this way has gradually been lost.

In the beginning, Active members had to pass an oral examination at one of our program meetings, although longtime member Ray DeGroote says this was largely done in jest. CERA’s founding members thought that local members would be more active, while those outside the Chicagoland area would not be interested in our programs.

However, we now find that we are just as likely to have Active members in other parts of the country as here, while there are also many Associates who are local. One reason for charging the Actives more was to cover the cost of mailing program notices 10 times a year.

Now we have started adding CERA News to the backs of the meeting notices, in order to keep our members better informed. Yet it does not seem fair that our Associate members should not get the same news.

What we envision is having one main class of membership, in addition to the Contributing and Sustaining. Perhaps they could just be called Members. We would then give each member the choice of receiving their information via regular mail, or via the Internet.

There are three main ways to receive CERA news and information, including program notices, via the Internet. All are available via our web site. Besides the web site, there is the CERA Members Blog. If you subscribe to the blog (also known as “following” it), you will get all our updates automatically via e-mail. Each person manages their own subscription. You can also “like” CERA on Facebook, which you can do via our home page or through Facebook.

Membership renewal notices for 2014 will go out around November 1st.

John Marton Recovering

Longtime CERA Member and Director John Marton is recovering from surgery and has been hospitalized for the past month. Our thoughts and prayers are with John and his wife Judy. We wish him a speedy recovery, and will look forward to seeing him at our 75th Anniversary Banquet and Program. Ray DeGroote will fill in for John as our master of ceremonies at the event.

-David Sadowski

October 16, 1943 – Crowd at State and Madison waiting in line to buy a ticket on the opening of Chicago’s new subway.

This is part three in our ongoing series on Chicago’s first subways, the first of which opened 70 years ago this year.

January 10, 1939 – CHICAGO, ILL. – Chicago’s dream is fast becoming a reality as workmen continued to drill the preliminary tunnel toward the route of the main subway tube in the middle of State street. With about 250 feet yet to go to that objective, machinery and material are being fed through this preliminary arterial which will provide an outlet for excavated earth. Photo shows a car loaded with clay as it is being pushed along the tracks by workers as progress is being made on Chicago’s new subway.

May 31, 1939 – “Muckers” push a load of blue clay after stripping it from the walls of Chicago’s future subway.

February 1, 1940 – “Mike Sunta, 4044 Montgomery, subway worker looking at the old tube where the street car cables traveled through.” (More likely, these were tubes related to the cable car system that preceded streetcars.)

February 18, 1941 – The State Street Council on inspection tour of the Chicago subway. They are shown in the observation car they rode through the subway in.

Models in furs pose in the uncompleted subway station at Clark and Division on March 18, 1943. Note the bare wires coming out of the ceiling.

Valarie Losinicki, 18, 10517 Oglesby and Eva Frendreis, 21, 1936 Wellington are shown coming up the escalator. Two ticket cages and their turnstyles are shown in the background.

October 12, 1943 – “Power control panel that has complete control over all electric power of the Subway, and small sections of the power can be cut off or the entire section, depending on occasion. This is located on the 12th floor of the Commonwealth building.”

October 21, 1943 – “The stile at left operates with a dime, while the ticket seller turns the one at the right from her booth for passengers using transfers or those requiring change.”

AT LAST – THE CHICAGO SUBWAY

The Chicago Subway is a joke no longer. After wrestling with its traction problem for more than 75 years, the city has finally completed the 4.9 miles of the first section of the underground tube, now serving North and South Side residents. Started on December 20, 1938, the beginning of the system was dedicated on October 16, by Mayor Edward Kelly. So far, the cost is nearly $57,200,00, a figure expected to reach approximately $217,000,000 upon completion of the 18th underground city transit system in the world.

A Chicago subway scene on December 23, 1943. “Escalator all to himself, post-midnight customer reads while he rides. No din, no shove.”

In 1938, when the FDR Administration (via Harold Ickes and the PWA) approved plans for Chicago’s “Initial System of Subways,” it seemed baffling to many, that the east-west streetcar subways were nixed, while a subway on Dearborn was approved that appeared to simply end at Congress street and connect to nothing on the south end. However, I have uncovered documentary evidence that this second subway was always intended to connect to a “subway” median line in the Congress Super-Highway, which at that time had not yet been approved. So rather than play up this incongruity, press reports of the day tended to remain silent on the matter.

However, on page 5 of the November 1938 issue of Surface Service, the CSL’s employee publication, it says:

Subway Extensions

The City must on or before July 1, 1939, or such later date as the Administrator may approve, submit a comprehensive plan for extension of the subway system satisfactory to the Administrator and in such detail as he may require, to include provisions for the widening of Congress street from Michigan avenue westward and for the construction of a subway in west Congress street from Dearborn street westward.

In the event that the State of Illinois makes available for such construction the proceeds of the motor fuel tax or other monies adequate for this purpose, the City must proceed promptly with this construction and carry it on as rapidly as possible according to the approved plan.

You can read the entire article here.

This in fact is what did happen. In 1939, the City made public their plans for “phase 2″ of subway extensions, which included connecting up the Milwaukee-Dearborn subway to a relocated Garfield Park line in the median of the Congress Super-Highway. At first, it was not clear whether the entire Garfield “L” would be relocated, or only the portion in the expressway “footprint.” This was the general area between Sacramento and Halsted, where Garfield Park trains (but not the CA&E, who refused to participate) were rerouted via surface trackage on Van Buren street.

The PWA also insisted that Chicago follow through on unifying the surface and rapid transit systems, then run by CSL and CRT, private companies that were in bankruptcy. This was considered essential to obtaining the new all-steel subway cars that were needed to operate the two subways.

The government allowed the State Street subway to be completed during the war as a matter of necessity, using the 455 steel cars that the Chicago Rapid Transit company had. But once war broke out and there were delays in merging CSL and CRT into a new private entity (which perhaps would have been called the CTC, or Chicago Transit Company), work on the Dearborn-Milwaukee tube was halted in 1942 “for the duration.” At this point, it was estimated that the second subway was 75-80% completed.

World War II also halted work on the Congress expressway. Work on both the subway and the superhighway resumed in 1945. Chicago finally achieved transit unification in 1945 with the creation of the Chicago Transit Authority by state statute.

In 1944, the City had looked into the idea of purchasing 65 articulated rapid transit cars itself (the equivalent of 130 single cars), and would presumably have leased them to CRT for use in the Dearborn subway, if not for the creation of the CTA. As it happened, the fledgling CTA had CRT order four articulated trainsets, which were delivered in 1947-48 and numbered 5001-5004. Presumably, these were all that the broke CRT could afford.

CTA also stage-managed CSL’s order of 600 postwar PCCs in a similar manner. The Surface Lines had millions of dollars set aside for purchasing new equipment, and was in much better financial shape than CRT, who could barely make operating expenses. Starting in 1939, the City had been publicizing a “wish list” for modernizing the surface and rapid transit systems, and wanted to get a quick start on buying new equipment, even before the CTA took over CSL and CRT in 1947.

In 1949, CTA ordered 130 6000-series PCC rapid transit cars without articulation. Delivery began in 1950, which permitted the opening of the Dearbon subway in February, 1951. Connecting the Dearborn subway to the Congress median portion did not happen until 1958, and even then, some of the outer stations on the line were not finished until 1961.

The “phase 2″ subway extension plans came up again in the mid-1950s, when plans started to extend the Logan Square “L” in the median of the Northwest (now Kennedy) expressway. A leading neighborhood activist group preferred that the Milwaukee subway simply be extended to the city limits as a subway, claiming that the City had promised the Federal government in 1939 to do this and thus had a legal obligation.

They felt that the expressway median was not the best place for a rapid transit line, as it would be too far away from people in the surrounding neighborhoods. In particular, they felt that the area along Kimball needed improved rapid transit service.

Once Federal money for mass transit became available in the mid-1960s, a compromise was reached with the mile-long Kimball subway. The original connection to the NW median would have been east of there, near California avenue. The City’s 1950s plan called for a ramp to veer off northward from the “L” at this point, going down into an open cut subway, which would have gone into the expressway median. There would have been one new grade crossing required in this plan.

The new plan, while more expensive, was clearly an improvement, as it allowed for service to continue to Logan Square, which the old plan bypassed. So even the Kimball subway owes its origins in part to Chicago’s 1930s plans for its “Initial System of Subways.”

-David Sadowski

The south end of the parking area at Des Plaines in Forest Park on December 10, 1957, about five months after CA&E suspended passenger service. Note the #17 bus, which replaced the Westchester branch of the “L” in 1951.

A four-car Congress-Milwaukee A train at the Des Plaines station in Forest Park on May 26, 1961. (Photo by Lawrence H. Boehning)

This has been a year of unusual reroutes on the CTA rapid transit system. A few months ago, we reported on Brown Line trains running in the State Street subway while the Wells Street bridge was rebuilt. Now, it’s the subway’s turn to be diverted onto the “L”.

For five months (starting last May), the CTA Dan Ryan portion of the Red Line is being rerouted onto the South Side “L”, while the expressway median trackage is being completely rebuilt. Your roving reporter took a trip out to 95th to check out how things are progressing.

Shuttle buses at Garfield (Green Line).

Riders (CTA calls them “customers” nowadays, but I like the old terminology) seem to be taking things in stride, and the reroute and shuttle bus operation appears to be running smoothly. Thankfully, the disaster some expected has not come to pass.

The CTA Howard and Dan Ryan lines were joined in 1993 when a new mile-long subway connection opened. Previously, Howard trains exited the subway south of Roosevelt and proceeded up a ramp to rejoin the South Side “L”.

The South Side “L” runs parallel to most of the Dan Ryan line, and only a few blocks away. However, the Ryan line was not meant to replace the Englewood and Jackson Park lines, which were among the system’s busiest prior to 1969. Opening the new line did siphon off most of this traffic.

When the decision was made that the Ryan line needed to be completely rebuilt from the ground up, CTA thankfully could make use of this underutilized capacity on the South Side “L”. So, until October, Red Line and Green Line trains are sharing the “L”, resulting in some hot rails indeed. Subway trains are once again going up and down the ramp to the “L”, 20 years after they last did so.

Our trip began at Roosevelt Road, with photo stops at the nearby subway portal and Indiana Avenue. We got off at Garfield and took one of the free express shuttle buses to 95th, then reversed course.

Compliments go out to the CTA for the smoothness and efficiency of this operation. Interestingly, in order to make up for the inconvenience of the shuttle operation, CTA is allowing free rides for anyone boarding at Garfield, regular riders and diverted ones alike.

There were reports early on that regular Green Line riders were letting Red Line trains pass, even though they go to many of the same places, while others were riding slower local buses like the #29 instead of the quicker shuttles. But I am sure that as the public got used to the situation, these issues were minimized.

More and more service on the Red Line is being handled by the new 5000s, while we happily note that a pair of retired 2200s has just arrived at the Illinois Railway Museum. It will seem a bit odd to see them fitted with trolley poles, but we look forward to seeing them run in next year’s Trolley Pageant there. Meanwhile, there are still some 2200s in service on the Blue Line. Out with the old and in with the new.

-David Sadowski

Note: All photos were taken by the author on July 12, 2013.

Green Line trains are sharing the South Side “L” for five months with the Red Line while the Dan Ryan portion is being rebuilt.

A Red Line train emerges from the subway just south of Roosevelt Road.

A northbound Red Line train going down the ramp into the State Street subway.

A Red Line train using older equipment heads south at Indiana Avenue.

The Red Line meets the Green Line at Indiana.

REd Line 5000s heading south at Indiana, near where the Stockyards and Kenwood branches once split off from the main line.

Transfers to shuttle buses at Garfield are fast and convenient.

The R95 shuttle runs non-stop between Garfield on the Green Line and 95th/Dan Ryan. There are similar buses going direct to other closed Dan Ryan stations.

Apparently, this is the last remaining original station building on the South Side “L” (at Garfield).

The CTA’s Englewood branch crosses the Dan Ryan and continues west to Ashland. The line originally ended at Loomis, but was extended about two blocks west to a more logical termination point in 1969, the same year service began on the Dan Ryan median line.

Boarding area at 95th for the shuttle bus to Garfield (55th) on the Green Line.

Rebuilding work in progress at 95th/Dan Ryan.

A “colorized” version of one of the Chicago Subway postcards from our earlier post. 3-D glasses not included.

Today we take up where we left off in our earlier post about the building of Chicago’s “Initial System of Subways.” We now tend to take the subways for granted, but there was a time when they were quite newsworthy.

Apparently some portion of the new subway was dug out by hand using long knives, in much the same fashion as the old Chicago Tunnel Company system of decades before.

Chicago’s Subway Being Dug With Knives

Chicago- Because Chicago’s subway is being dug at a depth of 35 feet, where there is clay instead of rock, it is being dug with knives. A curved blade about a foot long, with a handle at each end, is held by two men while a third pushes the knife downward to slice off a long strip of clay. A carload of the stripped clay is shown above being taken from the tunnel. (January 10, 1939)

Chicago Builds a Subway

Hailed as the most pretentious civic undertaking since Chicago shook off the ashes of the Great Fire, a $40,000,000 subway system is being tunneled beneath the city. Sandhogs are digging at a rate of 30 feet a day and should reach the end of the first unit –7.5 miles- of tunnel by July 1, 1940. This picture shows a subway worker hauling out a load of clay in the subway dump train. (August 27, 1939)

There could be a long wait for the next train, especially since the tracks haven’t been laid yet.

Chicago Gets a Subway

Chicago- The dream of Chicago officials for years– a subway system to relieve traffic congestion around the Loop– is rapidly approaching reality. Here are several views of the city’s new subways as they appear today, well on the way toward completion. Wartime priorities may delay the opening, however, since steel needed for rails and cars must be used to arm America instead. Mrs. Leroy Post, left, and Mrs. C. L. Mann, right, both of Evanston, pictured in this view of the State Street tube hope to be able to board a train at this platform someday, however. (January 31, 1942)

Except for rails, this section of the State Street line of Chicago’s new subway system is virtually completed. At the left is part of the Clybourn-North Avenue station platform. (January 31, 1942)

This partially-completed subway lies under the Chicago River and is the first part of the State Street line. Workmen at the left are installing conduits for third rail power distribution. (January 31, 1942)

Escalators will save Chicago’s subway riders the task of walking up long flights of steps. A future subway strap-hanger shown here doubtless wishes the escalator at the right was completed instead of being only framework after trudging up the temporary steps at the left. (January 31, 1942)

A future subway rider tries out the temporary station control equipment at a station on the State Street line. Soon he and thousands of other Chicagoans will be dropping coins into turnstiles such as this for their underground ride. This and other stations will have structural glass columns, concrete floors scored in a tile pattern and fluorescent lighting. (January 31, 1942)

The new CTA 6000s were featured on the cover of CERA Bulletin 92, as one of the “new developments of 1950.”

Read CERA’s 1950 article introducing the 6000s here as a PDF file.

Here come the 6000s.

CTA Trial Run, New Train Gets the Highball

Motorman Charles R. Blade, 59, of 1740 Grace, who is with the company 39 years, looks out of his cockpit. He is ready for return trip downtown, pix taken at Logan Square Terminal. (August 16, 1950)

Changes

While the State Street subway opened in October 1943 using 455 4000-series steel “L” cars, the newest of which were already 19 years old, the Dearborn subway got brand-new equipment. CTA ordered 130 new 6000-series PCC rapid transit cars in 1949, and began taking delivery on them the following year. This was considered the number needed to operate the Logan Square and Humboldt Park lines via the new Milwaukee-Dearborn subway. However, things did not work out that way.

Shortly before the new subway opened on February 25, 1951, the CTA Board voted to discontinue service on the Humboldt Park branch, which was deemed unworthy of receiving new 6000s. Humboldt Park riders were encouraged to ride the North Avenue trolley bus instead, a rare instance of CTA giving precedence to the surface system over the rapid in this era. Neighborhood opposition succeeded in saving the line from abandonment for a time, but only as a shuttle operation using some of the oldest equipment on the CTA system. Predictably, the inconvenient shuttle was short-lived and service on the Humboldt Park branch ended on May 4, 1952.

Similarly, while the junction between the new Milwaukee-Dearborn subway and the old Paulina Met “L” was intended to be permanent, not temporary, CTA decided to discontinue service on the “L” portion as soon as the subway opened. This is understandable, since the subway provided a much shorter and direct path downtown. However, it would have been possible to continue Humboldt Park service downtown via the old routing, while Logan Square trains used the subway.

To do so, however, would have complicated Garfield Park service over the temporary ground-level Van Buren Street trackage that was used from 1953-58. One reason for opening the Milwaukee-Dearborn subway, even as a stub-end line terminating at LaSalle Street, was to reduce the number of Met “L” trains that would have to use the temporary trackage. Eventually, CTA found it only needed 80 6000s to operate Milwaukee-Dearborn. In late 1952, even these were shifted away to the much busier State Street subway, and Logan Square received the older 4000s instead.

Meanwhile, CTA did not tear down the Paulina “L” structure until 1964, leaving it as a single-track service connection that was traversed by at least one CERA fantrip. And only half of the Humboldt Park branch was demolished right away. Supposedly, the remaining portion would have been used as a storage yard for Chicago Aurora and Elgin trains, if service had been resumed downtown.

In this scenario, CA&E steel trains (the woods were not allowed) would have been routed through the Milwaukee-Dearborn subway, since the Interurban had lost its downtown terminal.

The City of Chicago dedicated the new subway at the Washington station on February 24, 1951. Dignitaries included Mayor Martin H. Kennelly, Commissioner of the Department of Subways and Superhighways Virgil E. Gunlock, CTA Chairman Ralph Budd, Chief Engineer Dick Van Gorp, General Manager Walter J. McCarter, and Aldermen Joseph Rostenkowski, Clarence P. Wagner, and James F. Young. TV cowboy Monte Blue was also on hand.

Mayor Kennelly (1887-1951) is not as well-known by any means as the man who replaced him, Richard J. Daley, but he did serve two terms from 1947-55 and thus bridged the Kelly-Nash and Daley eras. Conventional wisdom says he was a reformer who found that Chicago wasn’t ready for that much reform yet.

Chicago Mayor Martin Kennelly is the first one off the train of new 6000-series “L”-subway cars.

Chicago Mayor Martin Kennelly is the first one off the train of new 6000-series “L”-subway cars.

Virgil Gunlock, then head of the City’s Department of Subways and Superhighways, addresses the crowd. I’m not sure if this was before or after the cowboy.

Virgil Gunlock also appears in our blog post The Great Subway Flood of 1957.

Mayor Kennelly at the opening of the Dearborn-Milwaukee subway on February 24, 1951. Both subway tubes were dedicated during mayoral election campaigns.

By the time the Milwaukee-Dearborn subway was finally connected to the new Congress expressway median line in 1958 (which replaced the old Garfield Park “L”), Chicago had a different Mayor.

A CTA test train of 6000s in the brand new Congress Expressway median line on June 18, 1958, a few days before regular service began.

In the June CERA program, we saw some of Bill Hoffman’s movies, including the free rides given on a portion of the new CTA Congress rapid transit line on June 21, 1958, between Halsted and Cicero. Perhaps not coincidentally, this was the very same day that the last streetcar ran in Chicago.

You’re invited…. to the dedication of the new West Side Subway in the Congress Expressway median strip with Mayor Richard J. Daley officiating, June 20…. to take a free train ride and inspect the new subway on June 21…. to use the fast, traffic-free regular service which goes into effect at 4:00 A.M., Sunday, June 22. V. E. Gunlock, chairman of the board, Chicago Transit Authority, and Miss Julia Riordan, a stenographer in CTA’s Public Information Department, inspect the posters at Keeler avenue staton announcing these events. Posters will be displayed at all rapid transit stations starting Monday, June 9. (1958)

Within a few short years, however, not all the news was good:

The Chicago Subway as it looked in 1965.

Empty Chicago Subway Station

This subway station in downtown Chicago was practically deserted when this picture was taken at 9 p.m. last night. A recent outburst of subway beatings and robberies has alarmed Chicago’s commuters. The subway situation leaped into prominence Jan. 7 when a law school dean and state legislator was beaten and robbed by three toughs as 20 other passengers watched. (1965)

But Chicago’s subways have rebounded from these low points and even survived the Great Chicago Flood in April 1992. Photographing subway trains is not the easiest thing to do, so we will leave you with a shot of a 6000s pair taken in April 1988.

-David Sadowski

A two-car train of 6000s in the State Street subway in April 1988. (Photo by David Sadowski)

The Illinois Railway Museum celebrated 60 years with 60 cars at today’s Trolley Pageant. IRM has, of course, way more than just 60 cars. The collection has grown more than tenfold since 43 cars were moved from North Chicago to Union in 1964.

In the railfan community, it is easy to criticize, and IRM comes in for its share from time to time. But one thing today’s Trolley Pageant makes clear is that, in the big things, IRM has gotten it right. The breadth and scope of the collection is truly spectacular, and it continues to grow.

What makes it even more special is that the fans built it from the ground up. And to see cars that had once been storage sheds or chicken coops be brought back to life, to run again, would warm any railfan’s heart. Chicago and West Towns 141 is only the latest of these success stories, and is now operational for the first time since 1948.

Signs at Union proclaim it “America’s Premier Railway Museum,” and IRM’s claim to that title is as good as anyone’s. Who else could field:

A five-car train of North Shore Line cars
A three-car train of CA&E steels
A four-car train of CA&E woods
A seven car train of CTA 6000s
A three-car train of CRT/CTA 4000s
A three-car train of Illinois Terminal cars
A two-car train of CRT wooden “L” cars

All in running condition? Add to that the museum’s unique collection of Chicago streetcars, and you have something truly exceptional.

They say a picture is worth 1000 words. In this tribute to IRM, we figure it would be better to keep the words to a minimum, and concentrate on the pictures. So, we give you 60 pictures from the 2013 Trolley Pageant to commemorate 60 years of the Illinois Railway Museum. All photos are by the author unless otherwise indicated. We hope that you will enjoy them.

-David Sadowski

PS- CERA is running a special trip out to the Illinois Railway Museum on September 21st, as part of our 75th Anniversary celebrations. Tickets are on sale now.

Photo by Diana Koester

Photo by Diana Koester

Photo by Diana Koester

Photo by Diana Koester

Photo by Diana Koester

Photo by Diana Koester

Photo by Diana Koester

Photo by Diana Koester

Brothers Dan and Chris Buck, who piloted the three-car train of CA&E steel cars at the IRM 2013 Trolley Pageant.