A week ago I was treated to a slide show by a friend of a friend that covered quite a bit of the MR on the North side in 1974 or so. The photographer/host lived near the Best Brewing Company and as a child and used to hop trains there and at the C&NW’s Deering Yard. He used to work for C&NW at the Oak Park Yard when it was on the ground, then went to the CTA, working all sorts of jobs, including switching with the MR at Buena for a year. His Christmas card this year was a SB MR train at Rockwell and Taylor Streets—an incredible urban train scene now gone.
In his slide show I saw long trains on Goose Island, a couple of trains crossing North Ave. with trolley wire still hanging and traffic stopped, shots N of North Ave., with the big gas tank along the river and the building that Sam’s currently occupies, the Deering Line at Southport, ROW shots where 4 tracks—not just 1—curved north to cross Clybourn, and several shots with Gutman’s in the background. Some of the coolest, most interesting shots were at track level on both sides of the Ashland Ave. bridge, one looking W from the E side, and another looking E from the W side, with the team tracks visible. There were also 3 shots where the tracks went under the C&NW North Main and the garbage dump bridge on the way to Fullerton Ave. One shot was W of the C&NW and had the concrete towers from the industry just south of Fullerton in them.
Heading north, I saw the tower that was at the NE quadrant of the C&E tracks crossing Fullerton Ave. with trolley wire hanging there, a lot of pictures of the brewery just S of Belmont, with one especially nice picture looking S from the N side of Belmont. There were also a couple of pictures of the cement towers from the industry N of Belmont, between Melrose and School.
There were also a bunch of others from Bensenville, Techny, Sturtevant, and Rockford (including the old roundhouse) from the same year.
I know that everyone that visits this website would love to see these slides in electronic format and up here for all to see, but I just met the guy. I don’t hang out with or talk with a lot of railfans so I’m a little unsure what the proper etiquette is for this, and I’m a little hesitant to ask about copying them and putting them up on the website. Plus, apparently the guy is an amazing writer—he certainly had some great stories to tell us while we watched, and is a treasure trove of information—so I’m wondering: I know that TMR has had two of Tom Burke’s articles published, plus the fabulous book recently, but does anyone think another group of pictures and more information from this line might get published in TMR? In other words, do you think for most MR people that this line “has been done†enough or should I suggest he write something up? Are the slides I described rare or do other Chicago area railfans have similar things, but just not up on the web?
Thanks,
Mike Murray
La Grange Park, IL
