Several Questions--Deering Line--Bloomingdale Line

[themats]

I sent this email privately to Tom Mann before I found the forum part of it, so I\'ll (re)post it here:

Wow!  Great website covering some interesting parts of Chicago rail history.  I\'d always meant to get some shots of the sugar train and the r.o.w., but I see you guys have been at it for a while.

I also had a question: In 1992-3 I spent some time at a bar on Fullerton called The Harp and Shamrock.  It was on the S side of Fullerton, just west of Clybourn, literally one door west of the oil change place on the SW corner of Clybourn and Fullerton.  The building is no longer there, but I thought I remembered going out the back door of that building a couple of times and seeing track there.  I\'m just wondering if you can tell me anything about it.  Did it cross Fullerton?  What industry was it serving?  When would it have last been used?  I\'m assuming it was a branch off the Deering line.

Question two: maybe I\'m getting my childhood memories mixed up with CNW Lake Street, but were there ever passenger stations on the Bloomingdale Line?  I thought I remembered stairs going up from street to track level, but maybe I\'m wrong.

I remember riding the Fullerton bus in the 70s and 80s, crossing the see C.N.W.(?) tracks on the SW side of the river just south of the Fullerton bridge (Google earth is a big help here) and the tracks crossing Fullerton in the 70s and 80s, with the buses stopping at the Lakewood branch, and me, a young, mostly streetcar fan, wondering why.

Anyway, thanks for all the hard work you guys have done.  It\'s great seeing things that my memory had cataloged and are now gone--like the signals by Muskies on Lincoln.  Did anyone ever do a movie/film of the sugar train run?  Also, was there an article done many many years ago in Trains Magazine about it?  Couldn\'t remember.

Thanks,

Mike Murray

[TBurke]

Mike:

I know I responded to your e-mail with an answer already, but for the others I will also respond here.

The spur you saw which ran into the building EAST of the C&NW viaduct, west of Clybourn, and on the SOUTH side of Fullerton used to service the FP Smith iron and wire cloth factory.  The spur left the Deering Line of the Milwaukee Road just past Ashland Avenue and crossed Medill to the north.  

FP Smith relocated to Northlake in the suburbs several decades ago and they were acquired by another company in 2005. Franklin Cash Register then occupied part of the site, including the structure into which the track ran.  It is unclear if they ever received rail service though the spur as you indicated survived, isolated from the rest of the rail network, into the 1990s, nearly a decade after the rest of the Deering Line was cut back to McLean.  It crossed Medill just west of where the Wendy\'s now sits.

You can read more about the Deering Line in the feature article I did for The Milwaukee Railroader in 2006, including maps, photos, an all-time industry roster, and track diagrams.  There\'s even a 1991 photo showing the spur in question going into the former FP Smith plant.