GM and others:
The track north of Diversey Parkway was taken out of service prior prior to the Soo Line takeover in 1986. My guess is that it was officially abandoned once Reed Candy was purchased by Wrigley and production relocated to Naperville in 1983.
About one foot of rail was removed from each side of the track by the Milwaukee Road sometime around 1984 on Lakewood Avenue on the north side of the Diversey crossing, parallel to the north sidewalk line, preventing future operation. This area is now paved over.
The Milwaukee Road sold off sections of the unused ROW north of Belmont Avenue in stages, including the area in front of Wrigley Field in 1981 to the Cubs for parking. By 1973 train operations had already been cut back to Racine and Newport to serve a fuel oil dealer. By 1982 operations were cut back again to Melrose Avenue where enough track was left in place north of Belmont to serve as a tail to reach the Reed Candy spur.
Milwaukee Road corporate successor CMC (see other post for details) sold off other parcels not in city streets to residential and commercial developers after 1985 north of Belmont. A long stretch of the old northbound main track is still in place however where it runs through a parking lot off School Street, one of the last places north of Diversey where you can see remains of the old C&E Line.
Chicago Terminal Railroad in their Surface Transportation Board postings (
www.stb.dot.gov) included a map which showed they acquired from CP Rail the tracks on Kingsbury south of the Goose Island Lead all the way south to where they end close to Division Street. They also purchased the tracks on Goose Island south of Bliss Street and running along North Branch to the old Akzo Salt site. That would indicate that though they are out-of-service they are not abandoned.
The C&E South Line (official Milwaukee Road designation) aka the Kingsbury Line south of Division Street was taken out of service by 1992 after Wallace Business Forms relocated to the suburbs. The last movement was in 1991 with a drop-center flatcar (see picture on this website) delivered to the ComEd substation south of Halsted St. I don\'t know when the official abandonment petition was filed by CP Rail/Soo Line for this stretch.