Chicago Sun-Times Article on Removal of Tracks in Kingsbury Street

[TBurke]

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/11751934-418/city-removes-old-railroad-tracks-on-kingsbury.html

[D. Kaniuk]

Also, CBS CH2 had a story and the web site is quoted:
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/04/06/crews-removing-old-railroad-track-in-effort-to-beautify-near-north-side/

[TBurke]

Good catch, Doug.

Here's a link to when the tracks now being torn out were being installed in 1985.

http://www.chicagoswitching.com/v6/articles/article.asp?articleid=12

[TBurke]

The CBS story is mostly right, and it's cool that they reference chicagoswitching.com. 

However the C&E South Line and the C&E North Line split at C&E Junction which is where the former Bloomingdale Line joined the C&E Line.  The article was off on their locations.  The Milwaukee Road used this terminology in describing the segments of the C&E.  Today C&E Junction is in the middle of the vacated section of Kingsbury occupied by General Iron Industries, south of Cortland. 

The article also does not point out that the reason for the Chicago & Evanston name of the line is that at one time it did indeed go all the way to Evanston!  They imply it went as far north as Wrigley Field only. 

[Suedehead]

Does anyone else here find articles like this just a little depressing?  I hate to see any rails being taken up, even if they have been abandoned for years. 

[TBurke]

Yes, it is depressing.  At least the tracks lasted longer than I would have expected on Kingsbury south of Willow in that the last customer-Midwest Zinc-closed over ten years ago. 

The are disappearing on the South Side as well.  I believe the city's long-term plan is to convert the Kingsbury corridor from industrial to retail and residential like Clybourn.  Goose Island is set aside for industrial use. 

It would be nice if the city saved the track in Kingsbury as a nostalgic throwback much as other cities save brick paved streets.  The flangeways could be filled in to prevent bicyclists from getting their wheels caught.  Even just paving over the track would be better than ripping it out.

Tucson's historic streetcar line runs over the same tracks that were buried in asphalt in the 1930s then uncovered and restored in the 1990s.