Nostalgia & History > A question about the North Shore Line

On North Shore line train not operated with Electroliners, were passengers able to walk from car to car?
Nick

Posted from iPhone

From what Recall, the answer was NO!!
There were no passenger diaphragms.
Some cars did have a Diaphragm of sorts, It was probably used by conductors for when the changed from Overhead to Third Rail on the outskirts of Chicago.
I attach two photos from Daves RailPix of a car at North Chicago the other in Chicago.

James R.(Jim) Baker
Whittier, CA

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Having never ridden on the North Shore, I cannot give a definitive answer.
However, I do know that the North Shore operated diner cars on some trains at one time. So, perhaps limited movement from car to car was allowed at least at some times during.
ALLEN

JimBaker Wrote:
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> From what Recall, the answer was NO!!
> There were no passenger diaphragms.
> Some cars did have a Diaphragm of sorts, It was
> probably used by conductors for when the changed
> from Overhead to Third Rail on the outskirts of
> Chicago.
> I attach two photos from Daves RailPix of a car at
> North Chicago the other in Chicago.

Hmmmm...Having ridden the CNS&M with my Father as a youngster, we rode to Milwaukee on conventional equipment and returned on an Electroliner.  I distinctly remember being able to go from car-to-car and I have attached a floor plan snippet from a CERA publication that shows it was a full-corridor carset

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penncentral74 Wrote:
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> JimBaker Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > From what Recall, the answer was NO!!
> > There were no passenger diaphragms.
> > Some cars did have a Diaphragm of sorts, It was
> > probably used by conductors for when the
> changed
> > from Overhead to Third Rail on the outskirts of
> > Chicago.
> > I attach two photos from Daves RailPix of a car
> at
> > North Chicago the other in Chicago.
>
> Hmmmm...Having ridden the CNS&M with my Father as
> a youngster, we rode to Milwaukee on conventional
> equipment and returned on an Electroliner.  I
> distinctly remember being able to go from
> car-to-car and I have attached a floor plan
> snippet from a CERA publication that shows it was
> a full-corridor carset

I actually know it was possible on the Electroliners, I was curious about conventional equipment, but thanks for the recollections. So my real question I suppose is, if you could not go between cars, how did you get to the dining car? As I have read they ran at times as dining parlor cars, and you could stay in the diner only by paying an extra fare once your meal was done. So did you have to get off and reboard another car at the next station?

Nick

On all NSL trains you could walk between the cars. But it was very windy and dusty or snowy. We walked between them all of the time to pick up transportation. On the substitute liner those three cars had diaphragms and were connected during the trip except when on the CTA then they were disconnected. A lot of the high number (700) cars had diaphragms. Sure brings back memories from when I worked there 68 years ago as a trainmen.

In earlier days it must have been possible, as th the NSL had a few diners in conventional trains until the Electroliners went into service.

Art House