Love to see/slide show

[themats]

Coming sorta late to this party and not catching anything running before it was gone, I still think about the lines on the north side quite a bit, and have compiled a list of some of the things I\'ve imagined in my head and would love to see pictures of.

1. Anything steam anywhere on any of the trackage covered on by this website.  I\'m normally not a steam guy, but I\'d love to see this.
2. Passenger service on Bloomingdale or Lakewood, or at least the station buildings.
3. Action anywhere on the Com Ed spur, but specifically crossing Elston Ave.  I don\'t know if it was the same line, but action on the rail next to Addison west of the river too.
4. Switching CTA around Irving.

Anyone else have any thoughts like this?  If anyone has shots of any of this or knows where they are, please let me know.

I\'ve also been thinking about a slide show.  Has this ever been done?  There may be lots of photos that haven\'t been printed because they are part of private collections.  I know one railfan\'s work that pretty much everyone in the group would like to see, but I have been so busy this past year that I haven\'t had time to see him about getting them scanned or having him write something up for TMR.  If there\'s stuff out there, a slide show would be great.

Mike Murray

[TBurke]

Mike:

I encourage you to talk your friend into allowing you to scan and upload his historic photos.  Too often priceless railroad photos are thrown out by family members after the person passes away as they do not realize the historical significant to others.

1. I too would like to see some steam coverage though it was decades before my time.  You can see photos of Milwaukee Road passenger trains and steam locomotives on this line in the Bruce Moffat book \"The L\" which came out in 1995 and is published by the Central Electric Railfans Association (CERA).  The photos date from prior to 1917 when the Milwaukee Road ended passenger service on the C&E North Line (aka Lakewood Branch) from Montrose Avenue south, turning over both freight and passenger operations to the forerunner of today\'s CTA from Montrose Avenue north.  Most of the photos are set in Evanston, the one-time terminus of this Milwaukee Road branch line.

The book is available for sale at Des Plaines Hobby or Chicagoland Hobby last time I checked.

2. A good place to start for photos of the former Milwaukee Road passenger depots on the C&E North Line (aka Lakewood Branch) is in the special Milwaukee Road Historical Association (MRHA) publication \"Evanston via Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul.\"  This issue of The Milwaukee Railroader came out in June of 1984 and you might be able to find it at an MRHA convention where people sell old copies of The Milwaukee Railroader.  It includes photos of the stations at Fullerton, Belmont, and Addison.

Co-author Ted Schnepf of this special issue has quite a few photos of the C&E Line in the passenger era for sale as reprints.  I have a number of the photos in my collection but do not have copy permission.  Ted works out of his Elgin area house and can be reached via the MRHA.

3. The book \"A Rainbow of Traction\" (CERA publisher also, 1988) has a color photo of the ComEd steeple cab electric locomotive crossing California Avenue just south of Addison on page 66.  It used third rail power pickup but had to coast across California.  This grade crossing lasted for years past the end of rail service.  I have not seen any photos of trains crossing Elston Avenue to reach the ComEd site or other industries.  Perhaps the C&NW Historical Society has some photos.  It\'s an overlooked operation that deserved more coverage.

4. There are lots of article and photos of the CTA interchange with the Milwaukee Road at Irving Park.  The bibliography in my MRHA book \"The Milwaukee Road in Chicago\" lists several of them.

Tom

[themats]

As always Tom, you\'re a great source of information.  Thanks.

I picked up A Rainbow of Traction on eBay and will look for the others.  I\'ll also try to look up Ted.

What about the slide/photo show idea?  Anybody game?  Has there been one before?

Mike