Cable Car Lines in Chicago

by Joe Thompson

The Chicago lines, the first in the United States outside of San Francisco, demonstrated that cable technology could work in a harsher climate than San Francisco's

• Cable Car Operating Companies
  • Chicago City Railway
  • Chicago West Division Railway
  • North Chicago Street Railroad
  • West Chicago Street Railroad
• Chicago Miscellany
  • Two 1901 newspaper stories about Chicago cable cars
  • 524 At the Chicago Railroad Fair
  • The Chicago Tunnel Railway
  • Excerpt from The Pit by Frank Norris
  • "Memories" by Franklin P Adams

A Chicago City Railway train on State north of Adams Street. The third car in the train is an electric car being hauled into the Loop area. January, 2000 Picture of the Month.

line: State Street

opened: 28-Jan-1882. From State and Madison on Madison to Wabash. Wabash to Lake. Lake to State. State to 39th Street. The loop on Madison, Wabash, Lake, and State was shared with the Wabash/Cottage Grove line.

revised: 1887. Extended on State to 63rd Street.

revised: 1892. Loop revised to run on Madison, Wabash, Lake and State, but it no longer shared track with the Wabash/Cottage Grove line.

powerhouse: 21st Street and State

powerhouse: 52nd Street and State

grip: Hovey double-jaw side grip

gauge: 4'8 1/2"

cars: double-ended dummy & trailer trains. Trailer 209, 1934 replica with some original parts, is preserved at the Illinois Railway Museum

turntables: none

crossings:

line: Wabash/Cottage Grove Avenue

opened: 1882. From Wabash and Madison on Wabash to Lake. Lake to State. State to Madison. Madison to Wabash. Wabash to 22nd Street. Cottage Grove Avenue to 55th Street. The loop on Madison, Wabash, Lake, and State was shared with the State Street line.

revised: 22-Nov-1887. Extended on 55th Street to loop on Jefferson and Lake Avenues at Jackson Park.

revised: 1888. Extended on Cottage Grove Avenue to 67st Street to Oakwoods Cemetery.

revised: 1891. Extended on Cottage Grove Avenue to 71st Street.

revised: 1892. Loop revised to run on Madison, Michigan, Randolph, and and State. It no longer shared track with the State Street line.

powerhouse: 55th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue

grip: Hovey double-jaw side grip

gauge: 4'8 1/2"

cars: double-ended dummy & trailer trains.

turntables: none

crossings:

notes: The Chicago City Railway built the first United States cable car lines outside of San Francisco. Its lines helped to demonstrate that cable technology could work in a harsher climate than San Francisco's; they were also the first lines run entirely on flat ground. The Chicago City Railway's routes were the busiest lines in the industry, and among the most profitable.

Charles B Holmes, the president of the Chicago City Railway, had visited San Francisco in 1880 or 1881 to study its cable railways. He licensed the cable trust's patents and secured the services of Asa Hovey, who had designed the Sutter Street Railway. Holmes' success led to the spread of cable technology beyond San Francisco. Hovey's powerful side grip was the model for most of the industry.

In his book A Treatise Upon Cable or Rope Traction, J Bucknall Smith quotes from a questionnaire that the town clerk of Edinburgh, Scotland submitted to the city clerk of Chicago in late 1883. "In general has the working of the cable tramway system been proved to be a success?" The answer was "Complete success in all respects. This winter just closed was by far the most severe for many years and the cable system operated without the loss of a single trip."

The original loop on State and Wabash was operated by a lower speed auxilliary cable driven by reduction gears powered by the main cables.

Chicago cable railways often ran trains with three trailers, which was an unusual practice. The city eventually limited trains to two trailers. Smith reports that, as an experiment, a grip car hauled ten trailers. In later years, cable trains often hauled electric cars from outlying lines into the Loop.

Chicago cable railways tended to step up the speed of cables on the outer parts of lines. The outermost cables on the Wabash/Cottage Grove Avenue line ran at 14 miles per hour.

Cable cars lasted longer in Chicago than in any other US city with flat streets because of three primary factors:

1. The Chicago City Railway and the other companies had large numbers of horse car lines that they wanted to electrify first
2. The franchises of all the companies were due to expire around the turn of the century and the companies did not want to invest in new technology until they knew where they stood.
3. Many people opposed overhead trolley wires in the Loop area.

The operating companies negociated with the city and produced the Settlement Ordinance on 04-Dec-1905. This agreement extended the franchises of the transit companies, but required them to convert their cable lines to electric.

The former Chicago City Railway converted the State Street line on 22-Jul-1906, and the Wabash Avenue line on 21-Oct-1906.

Bill Vandervoort, keeper of the Chicago Transit and Railfan Web Site, reports that near the "... intersection of 55th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, on Chicago's south side ... the cable car powerhouse had been at the northeast corner, where the 55th Street branch cars made the turn. East 55th Street was largely redeveloped during the 1960's, and that includes the buildings now at the northeast corner of 55th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue. I recently learned why a significiant sized lawn exists between those buildings and the street. It is because at the immediate corner, the previous existance of the cable car infrastructure made it too difficult to construct building foundations". Bill has a photo of this location, along with some still-standing powerhouses, on his site.

The Library of Congress' American Memory Project has an Edison film taken in the summer of 1897 at State and Madison. It shows a cable train turning the corner. The QuickTime version is only about 1.5 megabytes and is well worth viewing.

An advertisement for DB Fisk, wholesale, millinery, and fancy goods merchant, located at Wabash and Washington Streets. A Chicago City Railway train with two trailers is visible in the foreground. June, 2000 Picture of the Month.

A Chicago City Railway train passes under an El station on State near Van Buren.

A tinted postcard view of State Street at night, with Chicago City Railway cable trains. July, 2000 Picture of the Month.

A stereoscopic view of "State Street north from Madison".

A large tinted postcard view of State and Madison.

from Poor's Directory of Railway Officials, 1887 P. 237 Chicago City (Cable) Ry. Co. operates 104.35 miles of road, owns 1,659 horses, 729 cars, 3 dummies, 22 snow-ploughs and 5 sweepers. DirectorsS. B. Cobb, D. E. Pearsons, S. W. Allerton, C. L. Hutchinson, E. M. Phelps, D. G. Hamilton, C. B. Holmes, Chicago, Ill. -- C. B. Holmes, Pres., Supt. & P. A., S. B. Cobb, Vice-Pres., John Strong, Supt. & Pur. A., H. H. Windsor, Sec., T. C. Pennington, Treas., C. J. Luce, Mast Tr Rep., J. B. Wright, Mast Car Rep.. -- GENERAL OFFICE, 2010 State St., Chicago, Ill.

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opened: 1886. Lake Street near 40th.

extended:

powerhouse: ?

grip: Rasmussen non-grip

gauge: 4'8 1/2"

cars: converted horse cars. double ended?

turntables: ?

crossings: N/A

notes: The Chicago West Division Railway, a horse car operator since 1861, allowed the Rasmussen Cable Company to install a demonstration of its non-grip system on a short stretch of track on Lake Street in 1886. The Rasmussen system was intended to allow horse car lines to be converted quickly and cheaply to cable traction.

The Rasmussen Cable Company promoted Charles W Rasmussen's patents for a system which was intended to be inexpensive to install and to operate. Rasmussen's system used small four-wheeled trucks which were attached to the cable at about 6 foot intervals. The trucks ran on rails formed into the sides of the small conduit. The driving sheave in the powerhouse had slots at suitable intervals for the trucks; this was simpler than the drivers and idlers with multiple wraps needed for regular cable traction. Curves were also simpler. The tracks in the conduit banked around the curves, allowing the trucks to ride around. The rolled iron conduit required an excavation only 8 inches deep. The company claimed it could be laid between the rails of an existing horse car line.

A button attached to the cable at each end of each truck provided the point of contact with the non-grip mechanism. In Chicago, the mechanism consisted of a large cog wheel attached under the floor of a horse car. The cog wheel passed through the slot of the conduit and the teeth of the wheel engaged the buttons on the cable. A goose neck on the car's platform controlled a brake on the cog wheel. Loosening the brake would allow the wheel to rotate and the car to stop. Tightening the brake would stop the wheel and impart motion to the car.

The Rasmussen system was able to make a car move, but the demonstration highlighted severe problems with the original Rasmussen system. Normal stretching of the cable made the distance between the trucks vary so that the slots on the driving wheel and the cogs of the cog wheels had trouble engaging the trucks and the buttons.

Based on the minimal success of this demonstration, the Rasmussen Cable Company's successor, the United States Cable Railway Company made another installation in Newark, New Jersey. They made several changes in the non-grip mechanism.

The Chicago West Division Railway did not choose to pursue cable traction.

from Poor's Directory of Railway Officials, 1887 P. 237 Chicago West Division R.R. Co. operates 46.5 miles (all double track), owns 3,977 horses and 750 cars. DirectorsB. H. Campbell, Wm. H. Bradley, S. B. Cobb, Jerome Beecher, Henry Field, Wm. H. Ryder, J. R. Jones, Chicago, Ill. -- J. R. Jones, Pres., B. H. Campbell, Vice-Pres., Geo. L. Webb, Sec. & Treas., De Witt C. Cregler, Supt., E. A. Blodgett, Pur. Agt., Martin Connell, Mast. Tr. Rep., B. McDevitt, Mast. Car Rep.. -- GENERAL OFFICE, 59 State St., Chicago, Ill.

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North Chicago cable trains at the south portal of the LaSalle Street tunnel. Note the short grip car on the train entering the tunnel. February, 2000 Picture of the Month.

line: Clark Street

opened: 26-Mar-1888. From La Salle and Monroe on Monroe to Dearborn. Dearborn to Randolph, Randolph to La Salle (tunnel under the Chicago River), to Illinois to Clark to Diversy. Inbound La Salle to Monroe.

revised:

powerhouse: La Salle and Illinois

powerhouse: Clark and Elm (a former swimming pool and skating rink)

grip: Low and Grim (really) top grip

gauge: 4'8 1/2"

cars: Single end combination cars replaced by grip and trailer trains

turntables: Loops

crossings:

Intersection	Company	Status
La Salle/Washington	WCSRR	superior
La Salle/Madison	WCSRR	superior
Dearborn/Madison	WCSRR	superior
Dearborn/Washington	WCSRR	superior

line: Wells Street

opened: 26-Mar-1888. From La Salle and Monroe on Monroe to Dearborn. Dearborn to Randolph, Randolph to La Salle (tunnel under the Chicago River), to Illinois to Wells to Wisconsin. Inbound La Salle to Monroe.

revised:

powerhouse: La Salle and Illinois

powerhouse: Clark and Elm (through a blind conduit)

grip: Low and Grim (really) top grip

gauge: 4'8 1/2"

cars: Single end combination cars replaced by grip and trailer trains

turntables: Loops

crossings:
same as Clark Street

line: Lincoln Street

opened: Feb 1889. From La Salle and Monroe on Monroe to Dearborn. Dearborn to Randolph, Randolph to La Salle (tunnel under the Chicago River), to Illinois to Clark to to Centre to Lincoln to Wrightwood. Inbound La Salle to Monroe.

revised:

powerhouse: Lincoln and Wrightwood

grip: Low and Grim (really) top grip

gauge: 4'8 1/2"

cars: Grip and trailer trains

turntables: Loops

crossings:
same as Clark Street

line: Clybourn Street

opened: May 1891. From La Salle and Monroe on Monroe to Dearborn. Dearborn to Randolph, Randolph to La Salle (tunnel under the Chicago River), to Illinois to Wells to Division to Clybourn to Cooper. Inbound La Salle to Monroe.

revised:

powerhouse: Clark and Elm (through a blind conduit)

grip: Low and Grim (really) top grip

gauge: 4'8 1/2"

cars: Single end, double truck combination cars

turntables: Loop, powered turntable at outer terminal

crossings:
same as Clark Street

notes: The North Chicago Street Railroad was not well loved.

For one thing, the promoters, the Widener-Elkins syndicate and Charles T Yerkes were from Philadelphia, where Widener-Elkins had built a cheap and unsuccessful cable railway. Yerkes had done time in the Pennsylvania penitentiary for misappropriation of funds, and so was widely trusted.

For another thing, the North Chicago was as poorly designed as the Philadelphia Traction Company had been. The company recycled the La Salle Street tunnel, which the city had built in 1871. La Salle Street lies between the company's two main lines, on Clark and Wells. This required trains passing to and from the tunnel to drop cable and coast. This was made more difficult by the company's use of a top grip, which lengthened the distance needed to drop and pick up cable. Many cars could not make the change on momentum, and the company had to use a team of horses to help them around. The powerhouse located at La Salle and Illinois had to issue a cable which went through many contortions to carry cars to Wells and Clark, and through the tunnel and around the downtown loop. Arthur D Whitton, the engineer, later added a short auxilliary cable to carry cars from the tunnel to Clark and Wells.

The top grip, another bad idea, was an effort to avoid paying patent royalties to the Cable Railway Trust.

The entire system was undependable and prone to breakdown. Despite that, and despite Yerkes' poor repute, the company made money because it served a growing area of Chicago and many amusements, including the Ferris Wheel, which was moved near the outer terminal of the Clark Street Line after the 1893 Columbian Exposition.

In 1899, Yerkes merged the North Chicago and West Chicago companies into the Chicago Untion Traction Company, the predecessor of the Chicago Surface Lines.

The Settlement Act of 1905 (see Chicago City Railway) allowed the company to convert its cable lines. The Clark Street line was converted on 21-Oct-1906.

1895 - North Chicago cable cars at Dearborn & Madison.

North Chicago cable trains at the portal of the LaSalle Street tunnel. Illustration from Harper's Weekly.

North Chicago cable train.

from Poor's Directory of Railway Officials, 1887 P. 237 North Chicago City Railway Co. operates 37 miles (reduced to single track) of road, owns 1,790 horses and 316 cars. DirectorsV. C. Turner, Jacob Rehm, Hiram Crawford, W. C. Gandy, Geo. L. Dunlap, Chicago, Ill. -- V. C. Turner, Pres. & Supt., Jacob Rehm, Vice-Pres., Hiram Crawford, Sec. & Treas., Aug. W. Wright, Supt., Tr. & Const., F. L. Threedy, Asst. Supt., John M. Roach, Pur. Agt., J. M. Miller, Mast Car Rep.. -- GENERAL OFFICE, 441 N. Clark St., Chicago, Ill.

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A West Chicago train on Madison Street. March, 2000 Picture of the Month.

line: Milwaukee Avenue

opened: 07-Jun-1890. From Fifth Avenue and Washington on Fifth to Madison, Madison to La Salle, La Salle to Randolph, Randolph to Fifth, Fifth to Washington. Washington through a tunnel under the Chicago River to Des Plaines to Milwaukee to Armitage Avenue. The loop on Fifth, Randolph, La Salle, and Madison was shared with the Madison Street line.

revised:

powerhouse: Jefferson and Washington

powerhouse: Milwaukee and Cleaver

grip: Whitton double-jaw side

gauge: 4'8 1/2"

cars: single end combination

turntables: loops?

crossings:

Intersection	Company	Status
La Salle/Washington	NCSRR	inferior
La Salle/Madison	NCSRR	inferior
Dearborn/Madison	NCSRR	inferior
Dearborn/Washington	NCSRR	inferior

line: Madison Street

opened: 16-Jul-1890. From Fifth Avenue and Washington on Fifth to Madison, Madison to La Salle, La Salle to Randolph, Randolph to Fifth, Fifth to Washington. Washington through a tunnel under the Chicago River to Jefferson to Madison to 40th Avenue. The loop on Fifth, Randolph, La Salle, and Madison was shared with the Milwaukee Avenue line.

revised:

powerhouse: Jefferson and Washington

powerhouse: Madison and Rockwell

grip: Whitton double-jaw side

gauge: 4'8 1/2"

cars: single end grip and trailer trains

turntables: loops?

crossings: same as Milwaukee Avenue

line: Blue Island Avenue

opened: 1893. From Jackson and Franklin on Franklin to Van Buren, Van Buren to Dearborn, Dearborn to Adams, Adams to Franklin, Franklin to Jackson. Jackson through a tunnel under the Chicago River to Jefferson to Van uren to Halsted to Blue Island Avenue to Western. The loop on Franklin, Van Buren, Dearborn, and Adams was shared with the Halsted Street line.

revised:

powerhouse: Jefferson and Van Buren

powerhouse: Blue Island and 12th Street

grip: Vogel and Whelan bottom

gauge: 4'8 1/2"

cars: single end grip and trailer trains

turntables: loops?

crossings:

line: Halsted Street

opened: 1893. From Jackson and Franklin on Franklin to Van Buren, Van Buren to Dearborn, Dearborn to Adams, Adams to Franklin, Franklin to Jackson. Jackson through a tunnel under the Chicago River to Jefferson to Van uren to Halsted to O'Neil. The loop on Franklin, Van Buren, Dearborn, and Adams was shared with the Blue Island Avenue line.

revised:

powerhouse: Jefferson and Van Buren

powerhouse: Blue Island and 12th Street (via blind conduit under 12th Street)

grip: Vogel and Whelan bottom

gauge: 4'8 1/2"

cars: single end grip and trailer trains

turntables: loops?

crossings:

notes: The West Chicago company, like the North Chicago, was promoted by Charles T Yerkes and the Widener-Elkins syndicate.

The promoters and their cheif engineer, Arthur D Whitton, had learned from some of their mistakes on the North Chicago lines. In place of the top grip used in North Chicago, they used a side grip on the northern pair of West Chicago lines (Milwaukee Avenue and Madison Street) and one of the most interesting shallow-conduit grips in the industry, the Vogel and Whelan bottom grip, on the southern pair of lines (Blue Island Avenue and Halsted Street). The northern lines used another recycled tunnel under the Chicago River, but the southern lines used a new tunnel. The southern lines hauled electric cars from Van Buren Avenue and other lines into the Loop area.

The Settlement Act of 1905 (see Chicago City Railway) allowed the company to convert its cable lines. The Halsted line was converted before July, 1906. Blue Island Avenue was converted in July. Milwaukee and Madison were converted on 19-Aug-1906.

West Chicago cable trains on Blue Island Avenue.

West Chicago cable train on Randolph Street.

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524 At the Chicago Railroad Fair

524 at the Chicago Railroad Fair. From the 03-Aug-1949 San Francisco News: "Two thousand miles removed from its regular route, a San Francisco cable car is being operated by Western Pacific at the Chicago Railroad Fair. The car carries capacity loads up a steep incline to return to a turn-table the replica of the one at Market St., San Francisco" (Source: San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection, AAC-8005).

524, now numbered 24, at Powell and Post. January, 2002. Photo by Joe Thompson. February, 2002 Picture of the Month.

The 1948-1949 Chicago Railroad Fair celebrated 100 years of railroad progress. The Fair was held on the shores of Lake Michigan at 23rd Street and Lake Shore Drive. Many historic locomotives, including the William Mason, which pulled Lincoln's funeral train, appeared at the Fair.

In 1949, the Western Pacific Railroad sponsored the appearance of San Francisco Powell Street cable car 524. 524 was built by the Mahoney Brothers in 1887 for the Ferries and Cliff House Railway. According to an account from the 03-Aug-1949 San Francisco News, "The car carries capacity loads up a steep incline to return to a turn-table the replica of the one at Market St., San Francisco."

524, renumbered as 24 in the early 1970's, still operates in San Francisco. Read Walter Rice's article Is It "Mahoney" or "Mahony?", about 524's builder plate.

Western Pacific promotional brochure distributed at the Fair.

524 returning from the Chicago Railroad Fair. From the 24-Oct-1949 San Francisco News: "D. W. Yungmeyer, who crossed the country on a cable car to bring No. 524 back from the Chicago Railroad Fair, arrived in good condition today to be greeted by Mrs. Hans Klussman (should be Klussmann - JT), head of the Save the Cable Car Committee." (Source: San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection, AAC-8102).

524 was not San Francisco's only entry at the Chicago Railroad Fair. From the 08-Jun-1949 San Francisco Call-Bulletin: "Alexander Nielsen, winner of the Call-Bulletin memo from the cable car bell ringing contest, tests model cable car which leaves today for Chicago Railroad Fair parade. Admirer is Shirley Bodley. Model was produced by men of California Street Cable Railroad. The bell, of course, is regulation type" (Source: San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection, AAC-8062).

The "Deadwood Central", a narrow gauge train, at the Fair. The locomotive was probably from the Colorado and Southern, a subsidiary of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy.

Clay Street Hill Railroad grip car 8 and trailer 1 (numbered 8 in this photo) on display at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. (Source: The Book of the Fair). January, 2005 Picture of the Month.

Grip car 8 and trailer 1 of San Francisco's pioneering Clay Street Hill Railroad travelled to Chicago for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Grip car 8 still survives at the Cable Car Museum in San Francisco.

The Book of the Fair by Hubert Howe Bancroft describes the street railway display at the Fair:
"Although the exhibits of railroads proper completely dwarf those of the street car and minor lines, much is to be seen and learned by an examination of the latter groups; for here are displayed the latest patents in seats, stoves, wheels, switches, and all other appliances. Electric motors and the furnishings of electric cars are largely represented, together with all kinds of cable systems. In the latter direction San Francisco is prominent, A. S. Haliddie of that city, the inventor and builder of the first cable road, producing the original dummy used on a steep hill grade in August, 1873. In a section of the roadway are also revealed the workings of the grip and pulleys, and adjoining is a collection of grips used by various cable lines throughout the country, showing difference in style and mechanism. A California company, which manufactures wire cables, has a patent rope-way in operation, one devised for the transportation of ore over the mountains, and a Chicago establishments exhibits a motor operated by liquid ammonia supplied by stationary plants."

Walter Rice provided further information about the cars and their adventures after the fair: "Clay Street Hill Railroad's open-grip car (dummy) No. 8 was operated from the start of service (revenue service began September 1, 1873) of the world's first cable car line, the Clay Street Hill Railroad, until the 1891 rebuilding of the line by the Ferries & Cliff House Railway. According to the San Francisco Bulletin of July 24, 1873, No. 8 was one of four dummies. The Bulletin wrote, 'It is believed that four dummies will be sufficient for the immediate wants of the road.' The Bulletin of July 31, 1873 reported, 'The cars (trailers) are similar to the one-horse cars used on the Woodward line (City Railroad). They are from the Kimball Manufacturing Company. In addition to the ordinary brake, there is on each side of the car between the wheels, a wooden frame which can be let down on the track, and held so firmly as to make the weight of the car rest on them, thus holding the car stationary, no matter how steep the grade.'

"On April 14, 1893, the Ferries & Cliff House Railway sent Clay Street Hill Railroad grip car No. 8 and trailer No. 1 to Chicago for display at the 1893 Columbian Exposition. The grip and trailer were refurbished, dissembled, crated and shipped to Chicago to be reassembled and exhibited in the Exposition's Transportation Building. After the Exposition ended not all exhibits were returned to their lenders; some were abandoned, including No. 8 and No. 1. By default, both were transferred to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad's (B&O) collection. No. 8 and presumably No.1 were sent to the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exhibition in St. Louis. It is not known if they were shown at St. Louis. After this fair closed, the entire B&O collection of equipment was sent to Martinsburg West Virginia, to the B&O repair shops, for storage. In 1927, the B&O celebrated its centennial with the 'Iron Horse Fair,' held at Halesthrop, Maryland that August, with 1.25 million visitors. An authoritative source notes 'a cable car' was shown. This would most probably have been No. 8. Whether No. 1 was also displayed is unknown.

"Somewhere during this time, No.1 was apparently lost. It may have fallen apart from old age or it may have been part of the B&O collection lost during the hurricane of 1935 that destroyed Halesthrop storage sheds. It possible No.1 was misplaced and exists today (B&O archival records are scanty). Gilbert Kneiss, of the Pacific Coast Chapter of The Railway & Locomotive Historical Society (R&LHS), while searching for railroad exhibits for both 1933 Chicago World Fair and 1939 New York World Fair, at some point in 1936 Kneiss became aware that No. 8 existed as part of the B&O collection. Kneiss was able to persuade the B&O to return No. 8, in 1938, to San Francisco. No. 8 was displayed at the Golden Gate International Exposition (on Treasure Island) in 1939 and 1940. After the Exposition closed No. 8 was temporary displayed at the Ferry Building, before exhibited for many years at the Sutro's Museum (near the Cliff House). In 1966, when Sutro's Museum was about to be demolished, the R&LHS had No. 8 stored temporarily by the Pacific Gas & Electric Company. Later that year, No. 8 was transferred to the Muni's Washington-Mason cable car barn's car storage area. In 1974, No. 8 was placed on display in the Cable Car Museum, where it resides today.

"Thank you to Randy Hees, Suzanne Fisher and Bob Callwell for their research."

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A Chicago Tunnel Railway electric locomotive.

I wanted to include a few words about another interesting but obsolete railway in Chicago.

In 1889, the Illinois Tunnel Company began to dig a tunnel from the basement of a saloon near LaSalle and Madison Streets. The tunnel was originally intended to carry telephone and telegraph lines. This was the beginning of a network of tunnels that eventually extended for 60 miles, forty feet below the streets of downtown Chicago. The system included eleven tunnels or "drifts" which passed under the Chicago River to reach North Side and West Side customers. In 1906, the company began to operate two-foot gauge electric freight trains through the tunnels. Its cars delivered goods and raw materials and removed finished goods. They also carried packages and mail. A particularly large part of the business involved delivering coal and removing ashes. In 1912, the financially ailing Illinois Tunnel Company reorganized and became the Chicago Tunnel Company.

Separating freight shipments from the overcrowded city streets seemed like a good idea, but it did not work well in practice. At a surface freight station, a car would be loaded with goods. It would go down an elevator to the tunnel and be added to a train. At the destination, the cars of the train would be sent up another elevator to the surface. This was labor and time intensive.

In 1938, the city began digging the State Street Subway, which displaced the company's connections to many of its best customers. Truck competition stole more customers. Many buildings stopped burning coal and started burning natural gas for heat. The buildings that continued to burn coal mostly switched to truck delivery. Most of the tunnel railroad's remaining business by the early 1950's was ash removal.

Eventually, the company ran out of money to dispose of the ashes and started parking loaded cars in unused tunnels. When the company ran out of empty cars in June, 1959, it went out of business. Scrappers came in and removed trolley wires, signals, and the watertight doors of the eleven drifts under the Chicago River.

Over the years, tunnels under City Hall were made into fallout shelters, and Commonwealth Edison and telecommunications companies used other tunnels to run cables. This returned some of the tunnels to their original use.

In 1992, a company driving wooden piles in the Chicago River drove one too close to one of the drifts, which began to leak. Even though the leak was reported soon after, the city allowed it to continue for several months without taking any action. When the wall of the drift collapsed, the Chicago River poured into the tunnels. Almost all the tunnels and many basements that were still connected to them were flooded. The Loop area was shut down for several days, costing the economy many millions of dollars. This would not have happened if the scrappers had left the water tight doors, or if the city had taken action promptly when the leak was reported.

The Fox River Trolley Museum in South Elgin, Illinois has one ash car that was saved during flood cleanup in 1992. The Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois was able to save a locomotive and a string of ash cars from a tunnel near the Field Museum of Natural History. The IRM web page has a good article about the rescue. All other surviving rolling stock was probably destroyed by the flood.

If you want to learn more, you must visit Phil O'Keefe's Chicago Tunnel Company Railroad Home Page. The text and the pictures are wonderful.

A junction on the Chicago Tunnel Railway, with a train passing in the background.

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Frank Norris' last completed novel, The Pit, was intended to be the second book of a "trilogy of wheat". The first novel, The Octopus, was about growing wheat and the monopoly of land by railroad companies. This book, The Pit, was about trading wheat and cornering the Chicago commodity markets. The intended third novel, The Wolf, was going to be about the consumption of wheat and artificial famines in Europe. In this excerpt, the North Chicago Street Railroad is an important part of the scene.

He and Gretry were in the broker's private room in the offices of Gretry, Converse & Co. They were studying the report of the Government as to the supply of wheat, which had just been published in the editions of the evening papers. It was very late in the afternoon of a lugubrious March day. Long since the gas and electricity had been lighted in the office, while in the streets the lamps at the corners were reflected downward in long shafts of light upon the drenched pavements. From the windows of the room one could see directly up La Salle Street. The cable cars, as they made the turn into or out of the street at the corner of Monroe, threw momentary glares of red and green lights across the mists of rain, and filled the air continually with the jangle of their bells. Further on one caught a glimpse of the Court House rising from the pavement like a rain-washed cliff of black basalt, picked out with winking lights, and beyond that, at the extreme end of the vista, the girders and cables of the La Salle Street bridge.

The sidewalks on either hand were encumbered with the "six o'clock crowd" that poured out incessantly from the street entrances of the office buildings. It was a crowd almost entirely of men, and they moved only in one direction, buttoned to the chin in rain coats, their umbrellas bobbing, their feet scuffling through the little pools of wet in the depressions of the sidewalk. They streamed from out the brokers' offices and commission houses on either side of La Salle Street, continually, unendingly, moving with the dragging sluggishness of the fatigue of a hard day's work. Under that grey sky and blurring veil of rain they lost their individualities, they became conglomerate--a mass, slow-moving, black. All day long the torrent had seethed and thundered through the street--the torrent that swirled out and back from that vast Pit of roaring within the Board of Trade. Now the Pit was stilled, the sluice gates of the torrent locked, and from out the thousands of offices, from out the Board of Trade itself, flowed the black and sluggish lees, the lifeless dregs that filtered back to their level for a few hours, stagnation, till in the morning, the whirlpool revolving once more, should again suck them back into its vortex.

The rain fell uninterruptedly. There was no wind. The cable cars jolted and jostled over the tracks with a strident whir of vibrating window glass. In the street, immediately in front of the entrance to the Board of Trade, a group of pigeons, garnet-eyed, trim, with coral-coloured feet and iridescent breasts, strutted and fluttered, pecking at the handfuls of wheat that a porter threw them from the windows of the floor of the Board.

Frank Norris's The Pit was posthumously published in 1903. The full text is available at On-Line Books.

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"Memories" by Franklin P Adams

A Belding Brothers silk thread ad depicts a red State Street cable train being pulled by its product. October, 2003 Picture of the Month.

These are the things I used to know:
A book called " Remember the Alamo,"
Written, I think, by Amelia Barr;
And the Cottage Grove cable car --
It was purple, but the State Street car was red
That passed by the bakery of Livingston's bread.
In our yard, by the drying shirts and socks,
I planted nasturtiums and four-o'clocks,
And in winter I often used to glide
On Johnny Cudahy's toboggan slide --
(He had a pair of pants with stripes,
And lived just across from the Conrad Seipps).
And Toots McCormick and Alma Meyer
Yelled when I passed on my Barnes White Flyer;
And a thousand other things I knew
In that sweet Chicago of '92.

Franklin Pierce Adams (FPA), author of The Connning Tower, a popular newspaper column in the New York Tribune, wrote this poem remembering his childhood in 1892 Chicago. His most famous poem was "Tinker to Evers to Chance". To learn more about FPA, see Michael Gilleland's excellent "Biography of Franklin P Adams".

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