| Posted by thewiz on July 29, 2010 | |
There is rust on both outside tracks. Might this have been an exceptional move on a little-used line?
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Yes this must have been down about 14th St. The El tracks from the south side are going down to the State St. Subway and John must have been in the railfan seat of a NB CTA train.. The North Shore cars must be in mid-day storage. I have never seen a shot from this location. It needs to be shared broadly.
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I agree with Marty's comments, both as to location, as well as to the need to share this broadly. I'm unfortunately not old enough to have witnessed this scene, but historical sites show the North Shore Line serving the Roosevelt stop, just north of this photo (behind the train) as a southern-most point. If this was the case, then this train may have been moving just south of this spot, right about 14th Street, to access the switches to move the train to the northbound side. Super shot, John. I have contemplated trying to do something similar from the Railfan's Seat at a similar location between the North and Armitage stops, but it is a challenge during rush hour, which is often the only time this seat is available these days.
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The outer tracks were rusty because they were only used by North Shore Line trains at the time this photo was taken. Note that the North Shore's southern terminus in Chicago was Roosevelt Road (12th Street), which is not visible in the background of this photo. This image isn't technically in the Loop, but is on the near south side. See https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Chicago,+IL&hl=en&ll=41.863313,-87.626567&spn=0.001722,0.002363&sll=39.739318,-89.266507&sspn=20.557944,38.71582&t=h&hnear=Chicago,+Cook,+Illinois&z=20 for location of this photo.
CTA "L" trains ceased using this portion of the elevated system as of July 31, 1949 when trains from the Jackson Park and Englewood branches of the South Side "L" were through routed with Howard trains via the subway whose south portal we see here. These outer tracks passed the Roosevelt Road station and led to the Loop "L" structure out of sight in the background of this photo, joining the Loop at Van Buren and Wabash.
The North Shore stored cars south of the Roosevelt Road station between rush hours, and with the date of this photo being a Saturday, no doubt the North Shore equipment was sitting out the weekend.
These outer tracks at 14th St. Jct. were not used in CTA revenus service again until the Dan Ryan "L" opened in 1969 – some six years after the North Shore abandoned service.
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