Editing Chicago, Ill.

TITLE:

SLUG:

X COORDINATE:

Y COORDINATE:

<h1>Chicago</h1> <h2>Chicago Tunnel Company</h2> <table align="left" width="300"><tr><td><p align="center"><a href="http://www.oberail.org/gallery/586.jpg" rel="thumbnail" title="This 1920s photograph shows a locomotive, a merchandise car and some visitors at the intersection of State and Madison. This location was completely obliterated during construction of the State Street Subway in the late 1930s. The subway helped ruin the company."><img src="http://www.oberail.org/gallery/586.jpg" width="300" height="256" border="1" /></a><br /><strong>Intersection of State and Madison in the 1920s.<br /><em>photo and captions from <a href="http://users.ameritech.net/chicagotunnel/tunnel1x.html">The Chicago Tunnel Company Railroad Website</a></em></strong></p></td></tr></table> <p>The Chicago Tunnel Company is a fabulous narrow gauge electric railroad under the streets of Chicago. The railroad was not built for passengers, but rather to bring coal, goods, packages, food, and mail to the basements, boiler rooms and warehouses of its customers. The railroad inspired the construction of the London Post Office Railway in 1927, which was a driver-less railroad that moved mail between the different sorting offices in London.</p> <p><em>"Construction on Chicago's unique freight tunnel network began in 1899 in the basement of a tavern in the heart of the Loop near LaSalle and Madison Streets. Workers dug a small access tunnel from the basement down to the center of the intersection forty feet below grade. There, they continued to carve tunnels by hand out of the blue clay under nearly every street in downtown Chicago. Excavations were quietly removed through the tavern and other small access tunnels during the night. Forms were put in place and the tunnels were lined with non-reinforced concrete about one foot thick. The finished tunnels were roughly six feet wide by seven and a half feet high" (<a href="http://users.ameritech.net/chicagotunnel/tunnel1x.html">The Chicago Tunnel Company Railroad Website</a>).</em></p> <p>The railroad was finished in 1906 with tunnels under most streets in Chicago. Initially, the railroad was only supposed to house telephone cables as it was owned by the Illinois Telephone and Telegraph Company, but who could resist putting tracks in these tunnels. The small trains were initially third-rail powered, but were soon after converted to overhead power.</p> <p>In 1912, The Illinois Telephone and Telegraph Company reorganized itself into the Chicago Tunnel Company and removed all of the telephone cables to focus solely on rail service. At its peak, the Chicago Tunnel Company operated 60 miles of track, 149 locomotives and over 3000 freight cars!</p> <table align="right"><tr><td><p align="center"><a href="http://www.oberail.org/gallery/587.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img src="http://www.oberail.org/gallery/587.jpg" width="300" height="247" border="1" /></a><br /><strong><em>from <a href="http://users.ameritech.net/chicagotunnel/tunnel1x.html">The Chicago Tunnel Company Railroad Website</a></em></strong></p></td></tr></table> <p>Because the tunnels were deep in the ground, elevators and conveyors brought many of the deliveries into the buildings. In some cases, cars could be shuttled directly into customers' warehouses etc. Like all rail systems in the United States, the railroad lost much of its business to trucks in the 1940s and finally closed down in 1959. See below:</p> <p><em>"Two locomotives rest between runs sometime near the end of all operations in 1959. By the time this picture was taken, the Chicago Tunnel Company was finding it hard to pay bills. Do you notice how most of the light bulbs have burned out in this picture? The financial problems got so bad in the last few days of operation, that the company only had two operating locomotives and it couldn't pay to dispose of customer's ashes and cinders. Ash cars were loaded and then pushed into unused tunnels. The company went out of business when it had no more empty cars!" (<a href="http://users.ameritech.net/chicagotunnel/tunnel1y.html">The Chicago Tunnel Company Railroad Website</a>).</em></p> <p>Though the railroad closed down, the overhead wire was removed, the cars, locomotives were scrapped and many of the delivery elevators gone, the tunnels still remain and so do many of the tracks! The tunnels are now used for telephone wires, which is ironic because that was there intended use when they were planned in the 1890s.</p> <p><strong>A BOOK:</strong></p> Bruce Moffat. <em>Forty Feet Below, The Story of Chicago's Freight Tunnels</em>. Glendale, CA: Interurban Press, 1982. <p><strong>MORE INFORMATION:</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="http://users.ameritech.net/chicagotunnel/tunnel1.html">The Chicago Tunnel Company Railroad Home Page</a> - the only real place you need to go to find out more</li> <li><a href="http://davesrailpix.com/tunnel/tunnel.htm">On Dave's Rail Pix</a></li> <li><a href="http://mikes.railhistory.railfan.net/r047.html">Mike's Rail History: A Journey to 1935</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/timeline/tunnelfrght.html">From the Chicago Public Library</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.trincoll.edu/~ncurtis/greenline/chicago.html">Frederic Delaitre: Lost Subways, Forgotten Tunnels, Strange Railways, Narrow Gauge</a></li> <li><a href="http://fdelaitre.club.fr/Chicago.htm">Chicago's Neibelung Railroad</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.cable-car-guy.com/html/ccchi.html#tunnel">From CableCarGuy</a></li> </ul> <h2>Metropolitan Elevated Lift Bridge, Chicago, Ill.</h2> <p align="center"><a href="http://www.oberail.org/photo/335"><img src="http://www.oberail.org/resize/335/500" alt="Metropolitan Elevated Lift Bridge, Chicago, IL" border="1" /></a></p>

PASSWORD: