Passenger Trains > A bit of CTA & North Shore history disappears (updated)

This caught me by surprise on my commute to work on Saturday. As part of the rebuilding of the decrepit Wilson station, CTA started demolition of what they label as Track 1, the southbound Purple Line express right-of-way in the vicinity of Wilson station. Over the weekend, it looks like they demolished the station platform, took up the rails, and cut in a new switch on the northern side, meaning that Purple Line trains will now enter the Southbound Red Line track (track 3) at Lawrence, then re-enter track four south of Wilson.

There is a significant bit of history on this little section, because it was a separate concrete viaduct apart from the other three tracks. The reason for that had a higher weight limit, because the ramp/lead to the former MILW/CTA interchange yard connected to that portion. As I understand it, that was abandoned in the mid-70's, and ever since the southbound Purple Line trains have lurched off the concrete portion and onto a ramp back to join the steel elevated viaduct.

Also, I believe the seperate, dilapidated track 4 platform used to be a North Shore stop. It was actually used maybe a year ago briefly as part of trackwork and reroutes. When I went to work, not prepped with a camera, excavators were ripping it down, when I returned, there was just one visible section. The new station will re-add a Purple Line stop here.

The pictures are views out of the back of a Red Line train showing the demolition progress at 6pm on Saturday.

Update: What luck! I took a video on a sunny day in summer with a tripod out of the back of a Purple Line train, and all things together, it is about as good a quality I could hope for as a historical record. Sometimes it is certainly worth filming what seems everyday.

The video starts at Argyle, where a slow zone allows a Red Line train to temporarily overtake the Purple Line train. I use the Purple Line weekly, and oddly, one of the few 55mph zones left has been right around Lawrence immediately before the now-demolished portion. The first cars of the 6-car train hit that portion pretty fast, and it has old jointed rail with 4-bolt joint bars and a real lurch at the curve where the switch to the freight ramp used to me. There is another severe lurch back up on the trestle near the switch where the line will now come back in.

No video can capture how much the rear car whips around the curves and rough track!! After that portion, I kept the video going to Belmont as it was a pretty perfect day to film all of that and might be of interest.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/15 20:58 by inCHI.

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More photos, showing where track 1 joins the concrete 4-track structure, and the new switch. Sucks that it is such a tight radius, low-speed switch... but much of the Purple Line is horrendous slow zones anyway...

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Photo 8 was taken last year, I think. I was wondering why this set of crossovers was being taken out, now I know.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/15 20:40 by inCHI.

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Thanks for sharing -- back in the late 60s I remember that 4th track and wondered about both its history (knew it was from the North Shore line) and its future. Riding the CTA on the origin lines gives one glimpses at many points of a formerly more complex plant at many points.

Wow!  Thanks for posting this.  I started to read this about 30 minutes ago, thinking about last May when my older son, Karl, and I were riding a Howard Street train through there and I was telling him about that track's history.  Then he called me.

Around 1970 I was riding a Howard Street train through there and saw a CMSTP&P SW1 with loaded coal hoppers next to Graceland Cemetery.  Unfortunately, I didn't have a camera with me.  CTA delivered the hoppers to a coal distributor on North Broadway until the early 1970's.

Gerry

Great photos inChi. Back in the 2000s I would get off at Wilson to visit friends who lived nearby, and I always wondered why that track was different from the others.

Two more older shots, showing what is now without rails.

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From Sept. 1971:  CTA had a pair of Baldwin-Westinghouse freight motors to handle their Northside freight business.  Like the Pacific Electric Midnight Switcher of Santa Monica Blvd., this was a night job, and the first photo shows one of the "juice jacks" tucked await north of the Howard St. station.  The second photo shows its mate at Skokie Shops.

Regarding the Purple Line slow orders: When I visited Chicago in 1971, the 4000-class cars from the 1920s were still running on the Evanston Express, indeed, it was their last assignment.  Since they didn't have any of those new-fangled speed control systems, a trip on the express could be a real E-ticket ride if you got a hot-rodder motorman.  Nowadays, performance is hobbled by CTA's speed control apparatus, which was apparently bought from the lowest bidder and has the trains creeping along for no apparent reason.

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I'll add these to DNRY122's contribution:
1 & 2: the freight motor in the Howard Street Terminal, 8/26/71 & 9/22/71, respectively.  In 1 you can see the gantlet track that allowed the freight motor to pass the passenger platform.
3: I was returning from a visit to "Greek Town" on Halsted Street (OPAH!) late on the evening of 3/20/72, when I passed the freight motor returning n/b after working the interchange and coal distributor.  I had a camera with me.  I think I waited at Howard Street for the motor.
Gerry



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/15 04:51 by GPutz.

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Interesting stuff.  Thanks for sharing.

I appreciate all the content here guys & thanks for that well done video inCHI.

I hope they do it as quickly & as fine looking as the Red Line rebuild.  Don't know if it was really rebuilt well, for all I know it could be a lot of cardboard under the new ballast.  

We do have some drawings for the Elevated structures at the Library.   Not the best drawings, but entertaining (and scattered about the city - also Skokie shop maps) and lots of equipment drawings). 

Design for shop and office building in terminal yard Sept-1895 Northwestern Elevated RR

Track & Platform Arrangements Loop July 5, 1936

Layout of Washington Street Station section c NW & UE RR

N.W. & C & O.P. Clearance diagram

Northwestern Elevated Railroad Map showing System with Track and Platform Arrangement

CTA Track Map South Side Elevated railroad May 11 1921

I am surprised no one has commented on the historic car sitting next to the steeplecab. Too bad it was lost in a fire. Since I was a westsider, I will let the CNS&M people comment on the line car, since it was prohibited from going south of Belmont due to clearance restrictions.

A view of the ramp from when it was in service.  You can clearly see where the remaining curve was in the video.  From here: http://www.chicago-l.org/operations/yards/buena.html



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/25/15 15:10 by cabanillas.

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