Tracks by Wrigley Field

[Milwaukee_F40C]

www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-021209-landmarks-renamed-pg,0,6825208.photogallery

This slide show on Chicago Tribune has an old picture of the field with the Milwaukee Road tracks in front.  The tracks appear to be well maintained and it kind of shows how different operations on the line must have been in those days, double tracked with a crossing gate.  Looks more like a main line than a dilapidated industrial branch.

Good thing we don\'t have the Chicago Whales around any more.

-C h r i s

[TBurke]

Good catch.  

Those two tracks are part of the original Chicago & Evanston (C&E) line of the Milwaukee Road, with northbound and southbound mains shown.  You can still see remains of these tracks just outside the northwest corner of Wrigley Field where they are embedded in the sidewalk on the south side of Waveland Avenue.  The bumps in the pavement on Waveland past the sidewalk cover the rails trying to break free.

The Chicago Surface Lines (and later, CTA) had a streetcar line that ran on Clark Street and which crossed the Milwaukee Road\'s C&E line just a few steps to the left or north of this view.  

Through 1917 it was possible to take a passenger train from downtown Chicago to Wrigley Field on the Milwaukee Road.  There was even a station to the right of this camera view.

The last train ran in front of Wrigley Field in 1973.  Service was cut back to Racine and Newport to access a fuel oil dealer.

[raisin]

The tracks that used to show through the street near Waveland Avenue have been covered with asphalt now.  I just noticed this on Sunday and the asphalt looks fresh, so it must be a relatively new development.

[Jeff Wingstrom]

I got lucky today and biked down Waveland just before fresh asphalt was laid down - the C&E rail was once again visible briefly.  Posting here for posterity.  I was back thru here after paving today and all direct traces of rail are hidden for now - the next visible remnant to the south is now in the neighborhood behind the Cubby Bear and Taco Bell as a part of a residential parking lot.

[gordg3]

The track was also visible in June 2007: http://www.pbase.com/gordg3/image/80239009

[ray gerard]

40 years ago enuf trax (4,or more) protruded thru the asphalt in that parking area that you wondered if a train mite come thru during the ballgame, the ghost of a former small yard?

[Jeff Wingstrom]

I have the Sanborn maps of this area in PDF form for both 1894 and 1950 via the Chi Public Library -- does anyone know if it\'s legal to repost here?  Any way to do so \"fair use\" style?  The CPL\'s copyright information is confusing.

The 1950 map shows two tracks north of Waveland but as many as five next to the ball park if you include spurs.

[mark_k]

quote:Originally posted by jwingstrom

I have the Sanborn maps of this area in PDF form for both 1894 and 1950 via the Chi Public Library -- does anyone know if it\'s legal to repost here?  Any way to do so \"fair use\" style?  The CPL\'s copyright information is confusing.

The 1950 map shows two tracks north of Waveland but as many as five next to the ball park if you include spurs.

Pretty sure that if you\'re not making a profit off of it you have a good bit of leeway.

[TBurke]

There was a pair of Milwaukee Road main tracks (northbound/southbound mains) that ran past Wrigley Field then north of Waveland they consolidated down to a single track all the way up to the Buena Yard at Irving Park.  

A spur came off the northbound main and traveled south along the west wall of Wrigley to almost where the box office is now.  It was a team track.  This spur was in place up until this line was abandoned in 1973 north of School Street.

On the west side of the main tracks was the Collins & Wiese coal yard which had its own yard.  Old postcards show the Collins and Wiese coal yard with its silos and strings of freight cars alongside it.  Milwaukee Road steam locomotives working the C&E used to refill their tenders there and take on water.  

Collins & Wiese was taken down in 1961 and replaced by a parking lot and a restaurant later known as Yum-Yum Donuts.  Yum-Yum was bought by the Cubs and the building used for storage until it was torn down in the recent past.  

http://temporarytraveloffice.net/hollywood/ChicagoZineWeb.pdf

I model in N-scale this area from Eddy Street north to Waveland Avenue including Wrigley Field as a flat with its western wall, circa the early 1970s.

[Jeff Wingstrom]

I snapped the attached pic of a photo on the wall at the bar "Toons" at Southport & Byron.  Just posting because it's a view of the Clark & Addison C&E crossing I've not seen before, though I doubt the photo is an original.  Sorry about my reflection    Anybody seen this one online anywhere?

Here's another I stumbled on while googling for the attached pic - haven't seen this one before either:
http://www.bracephoto.com/images/players/Untitled-62.jpg

Edit:  realizing the photo I took is very similar to the one at the beginning of this thread    but it does add a view of a tower at the intersection..

Edit 2: fixed the bracephoto URL above

[Jeff Wingstrom]

Here's another one I'd not seen before - here you can see the spur next to the stadium's west wall with a couple cars spotted. Bats & hot dogs?     Pretty wild how much rail infrastructure there was at Clark & Addison.  Anyone know what the structure is to the west of the Fire Dept. on Waveland, on the left edge of the photo?  That spot is paved/empty now.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4024/4341905081_2ff9436de9_o.jpg

[Jeff Wingstrom]

Progress (like it or not)... looking down at the C&E grade crossing at Waveland Ave. and ROW to the southwest, April 2015. I have to wonder what interesting stuff they found under the old parking lot asphalt. I'm feeling an itch to build a diorama of this scene as it looked in the 40s, probably from the perspective of the McDonald's sign.

[TBurke]

Good photos.  It's not the 1940s but I am creating a diorama of that same area circa the early 1970s.  Here are a few low-res photos taken with my iPhone to keep them compact enough to post.  This N-scale diorama is very much a work in progress and a long way from being finished.

Before McDonald's was there at the NW corner of Clark and Addison there was a Franksville fast food restaurant.  My first pass at modeling it is shown but I was unhappy with it's appearance when I saw closer views of another Franksville since they shared the same look.  The new one is next to it and very much under construction with roof segments awaiting the interior to be finished and windows added before going on.  And to the north is the gas station that is still there.  Across the street is the former Yum-Yum Donut shop.

The Wrigley Field flat was damaged a number of years ago returning from a model railroad show which is why it looks disjointed.  I've been more focused on other buildings.

Other buildings include the Cubby Bear in its early 1970s appearance with a white exterior, Standard Manifold which at one time was rail served, and various other buildings.  I show the remains of an old spur alongside Standard Manifold.  Cubby Bear took over the Standard Manifold building in the 1990s and expanded into it.  That white house along Eddy was torn down a few years ago.

Everything is scratch built from historic photos.  No kits or stand-ins.  The track is flexible Atlas track set nailed onto cork roadbed.  The pavement between the rails is made from cut polystyrene built up in layers to get the right height with wider than prototype flangeways to let the bigger than prototype N-scale flanged wheels travel over them.  Putty was used to smoothen out gaps.  The streets are made of card stock glued to the surface which allows me to cut it open and replace or repair them easier than plaster.  The grade crossing signals are from NJ International and match the overhead gantry type ones used at Clark and Addison.  The PRR boxcar sits on the team track that was in front of Wrigley Field.