John worked for many years at the Chicago Tribune until his untimely death in 2001. It was his unique idea to pull together information and photos from various sources about Chicago's freight railroad operations over city streets. His web site, called 'The Lakewood Branch', focused mainly on a four block stretch of street trackage on Lakewood Avenue on Chicago's North Side.
We've preserved John's site as it was at the time of his death at http://www.mannresearch.com/lakewood.
John was an avid and loyal Macintosh user, and he enjoyed sharing his site with the Internet Community. John was a loyal Cubs fan.
A life-long Chicago area resident, Tom began photographing and documenting the rapidly disappearing Milwaukee Road and North Western industrial lines around Chicago in the early 1980s. Tom works in the computer business when not continuing to follow his interest in trains. You can reach him at silphium{at}comcast.net.
Tom is responsible for the majority of photographs and articles on this site.
He also has a site featuring Milwaukee Road's Southwestern Line.
Tom has a lifelong interest in trains in general, with a specific interest in Chicago Area rail operations. His background in web application development led him to redevelop John Mika's original site in the Spring and Summer of 2002. He currently resides in the Washington, D.C. area and is modeling Chicago's Goose Island in n-scale.
Tom can be reached at tom@mannresearch.com
Read about the history of this site.
This site relies on information and photographs from a variety of sources. Below is a list of individuals or organizations who have contributed in some way to the Chicago Switching site. If you have any questions, comments, or information to share, please contact us.