world.nycsubway.org

31 August 2001 - 3 September 2001
An overview by David Cole, with contributions by Dave Steckler, John Bredin, and Bill Steil.

Introduction

From August 31st through September 3rd of 2001, SubTalkers converged upon Chicago for the first-ever Chicago Field Trip. As a testimony to the ever-broadening scope and appeal of nycsubway.org, this field trip was the first field trip outside the Northeast, and the farthest away from New York City to date. Over the weekend we explored various CTA and Metra operations, the Illinois Railway Museum, and took in a generous sampling of Chicago's numerous culinary delights along the way. SubTalk participants included John Bredin from Chicago, David Cole from Chicago, Irwin Davis (chicagomotorman) from Chicago, Frank Hicks from Chicago, Jim Kestner from Green Bay, Ed Sachs from Chicago, Dave Steckler from St. Louis, Bill Steil (wsteil) from Minneapolis, Bob Vogel (chuchubob) from Philadelphia, and Kevin Walsh from New York. What follows is a day-by-day journal of the weekend.

Day One: Friday, 31 August 2001

Ed, Bob, Bill and I kicked off the official field trip by meeting in the Great Hall at Union Station at 3:00. We headed over to the Quincy "L" stop a couple blocks east of Union Station, and after a few minutes, caught the Evanston Express up to Howard. Being the beginnings of evening rush hour, we didn't have that great of a view out the front because the train was fairly crowded.

At Howard, we transferred to the Skokie Swift and rode that out to Dempster and back. We then caught the next Evanston Express back to the Loop. Because we were heading inbound this time, we got excellent vantage points at the railfan windows on both the Skokie and Evanston trains.

Both the Evanston and Skokie runs were nice and fast, with hardly any slow zones on the express portions. On the outbound Skokie run, we got a good chuckle at the sight of an SUV that hadn't quite stopped in time at one of the grade crossings. It was well away from the tracks, but the arm of the crossing gate was resting literally on his windshield!

When our Evanston Express train got to Merchandise Mart, we got off and transferred to the next Ravenswood train and rode that back to Quincy. (Normally we would simply take the Evanston train around the Loop, but we had to be back at Union Station soon to meet some more SubTalkers.)

We got off at Quincy, walked back over to Union Station, and met up with Irwin, John, and Dave. Around 6:00 we headed down to the Clinton stop on the Blue Line and rode the Douglas "L" out to 54th/Cermak and back.

We got off at UIC-Halsted, took a look at the new station house there, and then had a huge dinner at Greek Islands -- complete with the flaming slabs of cheese -- in the nearby Greektown neighborhood.

We then walked back over towards Union Station, where Ed and John left the group in order to catch their Metra trains back home. Dave headed back to the Holiday Inn where he was staying. The rest of us walked over to the Club Quarters hotel and hung out in the lobby for a while to mostly talk about trains and baseball.

After about an hour or so, we decided to call it a night. Bob and Bill headed up to their rooms, and Irwin and I headed over to the Red Line for the journey home.

Day Two: Saturday, 1 September 2001

Bill, Bob, Dave, John, and I started off the morning with a huge breakfast at Lou Mitchell's near Union Station. Ed caught up with us toward the end of the meal. Since there were six of us and three of us had cars (including Ed's minivan), we decided to head out to Cumberland where John and I would park their cars in the Park-n-Ride garage and then we'd all pile into Ed's minivan.

On the way out to IRM, we took a short detour over to the Fox River Trolley Museum in South Elgin, a couple miles south of the tollway. We got there before the museum officially opened, but took a walk around and got some photos of their small collection of mostly CTA, South Shore and North Shore cars that were stored outside. Fox River can be thought of as sort of an appetizer before the main course at IRM.

We arrived at IRM shortly after 11:00 AM, and took a walk around before meeting up with Frank at the Depot Street trolley stop. Jim and his friend met up with us briefly before they continues on their way. Frank was kind enough to take a huge chunk out of his schedule to give us a very extensive tour of the museum, including the electric, steam, trolley bus, and diesel departments. The tour also included several "behind-the-scenes" areas of the various car shops. Frank's knowledge of the equipment out at IRM is astounding, and his giving us the tour is greatly appreciated.

We also had the pleasure of touring the trolley bus barn and receiving an in-depth explanation of the goings-on at IRM by a fellow who is restoring the trolley busses. IRM has been collecting trolley busses for almost 30 years. They have the only operating trolley bus line in a tourist museum in the United States, with about a dozen trolley busses (they call them trolley coaches) in their collection, and about a half-dozen diesel and gas busses. John and Dave rode on Miami Valley Regional Transit Authority (Dayton, Ohio) E-800 Flyer #925 trolley bus (built in 1977) around the bus loop.

And for you subway fans: This same fellow who is restoring the trolley busses also loves the NYC subway system, and is arranging for the IRM to acquire two Redbirds! Most likely they will be R-28's and/or R-29's. The museum is in the process of raising funds (donations) to acquire the cars. IRM already has a Brill SEPTA subway car, which is very similar in size and configuration to a BMT Standard.

Unfortunately there were no steam trains operating this weekend. Due to recent new FRA regulations regarding steam operations at tourist railroads, no steam locomotives were in use. However, there were still plenty of diesels and electric cars.

After leaving the diesel barn, we grabbed the PCC "Green Hornet" trolley around the loop before heading over to the dead storage area in search of the scrapped MBTA PCC's. (In true Green Hornet fashion, passengers were directed to board at the rear, have their ticket punched by the conductor, and then exit via the front doors at their stop. The small center doors were inoperable at the time.) Sure enough, we found the MBTA PCC's all the way at the end of Yard 11 in pretty sad shape. One had its door open, so a couple of us made our way inside and looked around.

We then walked over to the station on the mainline track, and caught a two-car train of CTA single units 30 and 41 on a regular revenue run. I introduced the group to Pete Vesic, who has sort of "adopted" the CTA single units and who has done most of the restoration and maintenance work on them. He offered to take us out on the CTA cars once they completed their revenue operations, so we stuck around and took him up on his gracious offer.

We took the two-car train out to the siding (about halfway out on the 5-mile mainline) and broke the train. We left car 41 on the siding and then raised the pantograph on car 30. (Car 41 has the typical trolley pole for museum operations, while car 30 has the original pantograph from its Skokie Swift days. Normally car 30 gets its power from a clever arrangement of jumpers from car 41. But with the pan up, the car was back to its "true" form.)

A couple of the guys got off and took photos of car 30, and then we all got back on and took the car out to the end of the line and back a couple times, using the pan. (Normally the pans don't mix well with the museum trolley wire, but it's less of an issue out on the mainline.) During this whole process, each of us who so desired got some time at the controller, and got the car up to about 40 MPH or so each time. This was not an experience any of us will soon forget!

We finally left the museum around 7:30 or so, and stopped back at Cumberland to pick up our cars. John had to leave us at this point to head home, but the rest of us headed over to Tedino's Pizzeria in the Edgewater neighborhood for an excellent meal of Chicago-style deep-dish pizza.

Ed gave Bill and Bob a ride back to the hotel downtown, and I retired to my apartment down the street.

Day Three: Sunday, 2 September 2001

We started the morning today by meeting at the Jackson stop on the Red Line at around 9:45 AM. It was myself, Dave, Bill, Bob and John, and we were to catch a southbound Red Line train being run by Irwin. (When not surfing SubTalk, Irwin is a CTA motorman. Don't ever call him an "operator".) He pulled in right on schedule, and we were treated to an excellent view and lively running commentary down to 95th/Dan Ryan and then all the way back up to Howard. In addition, Irwin is apparently close friends with every motorman and station agent in the entire CTA system.

Once we got to Howard, we waited for Irwin to finish up and sign off, and then all of us headed down to Byron's hot dog stand at Irving Park and Sheridan for some authentic Chicago-style hot dogs eaten outdoors in beautiful weather, with the Red Line "L" squealing around the Sheridan S-curve nearby. It simply does not get any better than this!

We hopped back on the Red Line and decided to explore the Orange Line, since Dave's flight would be leaving from Midway before long. We transferred to the Brown Line at Fullerton, and then to the Orange Line at Adams/Wabash via the crossover bridge. Once at Midway, we spent some time exploring the new terminal and its lousy connection with the Orange Line CTA station before seeing Dave off on his way.

We took the Orange Line back toward the Loop in car 3201, the very first car of the 3200-Series order of CTA trains. We transferred at Roosevelt to the northbound Green Line, rode the Green Line out to Harlem/Lake, stopping to explore the new Conservatory station, and then came back in to Clark/Lake. We then crossed over and took the Brown Line out to the end and back. At Belmont, Irwin left the group and headed home for some well-deserved rest.

Returning to the Loop, we got off at Quincy and walked over to Union Station as Bob had an Amtrak train to catch back to Philly. A short time later, we finally hooked up with Kevin Walsh, who had been missing in action most of the weekend due to some serious flight delays on Friday. (Kevin had been making constructive use of the weekend by exploring most of Chicago's nooks and crannies before meeting us.)

We then walked back over to Quincy and grabbed another Brown Line train up to Fullerton. Getting off at Fullerton, we walked over to the Pasta Bowl on Clark Street, a small Italian restaurant in Lincoln Park. After dinner, John took off to head back home, while Kevin, Bill and I took a 36 Broadway (a New Flyer low-floor model) bus back to the Loop. Once downtown, I gave a mini-architectural tour of a few buildings near the hotel where Kevin and Bill were staying, and we talked in the hotel lobby for a while longer before calling it a night. Kevin and Bill headed up to their rooms, while I headed off to the Red Line and home.

Day Four: Monday, 3 September 2001

Today was the last day of our field trip. The four of us (Kevin, Bill, John, and I) got an early start by meeting down at Randolph Street Station and catching the 7:00 AM Metra Electric train down to Hyde Park. Once down there, we did some exploring of the neighborhood, including the Midway Plaissance, the University of Chicago campus, Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House, and Rockefeller Chapel.

We grabbed the 8:40 train back downtown and then walked over to the Club Quarters hotel where Kevin was staying, as he was flying back to NYC early this afternoon and needed to check out and pick up his bags. We had a large breakfast next door at Elephant and Castle, a London-themed restaurant, and then caught the CTA Blue Line out to O'Hare. Since the group hadn't done any railfanning on the O'Hare branch yet, this worked out perfectly.

Kevin's wait in the line at O'Hare took less time than expected, so we took the opportunity to do some exploring of the domestic terminals at the airport, particularly the Helmut Jahn-designed Terminal 1. We took a look at the bright, airy concourses before heading down to the "reincarnation tunnel" that connects Concourse C to the rest of the terminal. (For those of you who have never flown United Airlines to Chicago, the "reincarnation tunnel" is an underground passage with multi-colored backlit walls and a dynamic neon light display along the ceiling.) Once we got to Concourse C, we turned around and went back the way we came.

By this time Kevin's plane was preparing to board, so we shook hands with the great Forgotten New York (www.forgotten-ny.com) webmaster and parted ways.

Our SubTalk field trip ended incongruously back at the CTA Blue Line terminal, when I got separated from John and Bill when I had to go back to the farecard vending machine and add some cash to my farecard. The machine took my $10 bill but never added any value to the card, so I spent the next 10-15 minutes flagging down the station agent and filling out a form before I could get a replacement farecard. Meanwhile, John stopped to grab a soda while Bill waited downstairs on the platform.

As Bill waited on the platform, another O'Hare-bound train arrived and disgorged a full load of passengers on the platform and escalators. So he waited off to the side until the wave passed, as another train left for the city. He waited a bit more and then took a seat on the next train out, just as John arrived with his soda. John checked the other cars for me before the train departed. However, Bill had some friends who were now waiting for him, so they left on the next train out. John got off at Cumberland to get his car. Bill rode into the Loop, transferred to the Red Line to Howard, finally to the Purple line to Linden to meet his friends.

By the time I got down to the platform level, John and Bill were already gone, so I headed home to catch up on some much-needed sleep. So, thus endeth our field trip.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to the following individuals for going "above and beyond" the call of duty to make this an excellent weekend for all:

• Frank Hicks at the Illinois Railway Museum for taking the time to give us a very extensive and informative tour of the museum.
• Pete Vesic at the Illinois Railway Museum for taking us out on a special trip on CTA cars 30 and 42, and for allowing each of us some time at the controller.
• Irwin Davis at the CTA for allowing us to tag along for one of his runs on the Red Line, providing us with an excellent vantage point for the trip and some informative (and humorous!) running commentary.

Your hospitality and enthusiasm are greatly appreciated!

Also, thanks to Ed Sachs, Dave Steckler, and Bob Vogel for taking the photos that appear on this page. Thanks to John Bredin, Dave Steckler, and Bill Steil for your written contributions to this narrative.