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The fairwell to Chicago's Grand Central

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Posted by daveklepper on Sunday, April 16, 2023 1:28 AM

Huh?   I see his head clearly in the edited photo.  He is shorter than any of the photo's passengers, and has his cap snugly over his head and ears.  All much clearer when edited the Richard Allman way.

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Posted by railfanjohn on Thursday, April 13, 2023 8:22 PM

 

 

 

daveklepper

 

 ....  "I did some photo editing, taking lessons from Richard Allman's fine, and I think readers will prefer this version:"

But bI see it can be improved further, when I have time. 

 

 

Except you 'decapitated' the Porter in the edited photo.

Oops

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Monday, March 6, 2023 10:33 AM

I do remember that there were a number of proposals for the property before anything actually occurred.  Dearborn Station was also factored into the plans for the Dearborn Park development.  Such a situation is more the exception than the rule since most developers would prefer to have complete control over what gets built without having to work around anything.

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Posted by richhotrain on Monday, March 6, 2023 5:11 AM

NorthWest

It's a shame that GCS did not survive. 

And the sad joke of it all is that after the completion of demolition in November, 1971, the property remained completely vacant until 1984 when a 17-story apartment building was erected near the south end of the site, nowhere near the intersection of Harrison and Wells where the station itself once proudly stood. The land at the corner of Harrison and Wells, the lot on which the station itself stood, remained vacant until early 2020. 

You could fairly blame the politicians for the failure to preserve the station. At least that dignity was granted to nearby Dearborn Station when it closed. It is hard to find many older buildings in downtown Chicago because its politicians seem obsessed with tearing everything down, and now, post-pandemic, downtown Chicago is becoming a ghost town with tons of vacant office space and very little residential housing.

As a lifelong Chicagoan, having been raised on the southwest side and employed in the south end of the “Loop” for most of my working 45 years, today’s downtown area is nearly unrecognizable to anyone who last visited or worked in the area back in 1965 when I first began working downtown.

Rich

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Posted by daveklepper on Sunday, February 26, 2023 3:08 PM

Lounge and diner, very minor editing on these

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Posted by daveklepper on Thursday, December 22, 2022 10:45 AM

Then that is it!   Thanks!

 

going back to the Capitol Limited sleeper I rode, I did some photo editing, taking lessons from Richard Allman's fine, and I think readers will prefer this version:

But bI see it can be improved further, when I have time. 

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Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, December 22, 2022 6:11 AM

The International carried 6 Sec 6 Rmt 4 DBR sleepers.  The cars were built in 1954 as part of the large upgrade of CN services.  The open sections in the photo look like other CN open sections of the era. 

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Posted by daveklepper on Thursday, December 22, 2022 5:50 AM

And here is boarding the roomette-bedroom sleeper I did use on that last Capitol Limited from Chicago's Grand Central Station:

  

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Posted by daveklepper on Thursday, December 22, 2022 3:43 AM

I did make an overnight Chicago - Toronto trip around that time.  Both ways by train.   My memory is that I used a roomette both ways.  But a photo of a section sleeper on the CN-GTW International waould havev been a natural.  Can any reader check to see if the vInternational carried such a car in 1969?

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Posted by BaltACD on Friday, December 9, 2022 5:30 PM

daveklepper

The photo of the first poating on this thread was scanned from a print that went with me in my 1996 big move.  Now there are scans from the negative roll, and more pictures have been added.  Posted here without editing.   Not certain all the interior photos are all of the Capitol Limited.   A section sleeper?   Possibly the Canadian?            "Newfie Bullet?"

...

  

B&O stopped using section sleepers on their feature trains in the middle 1950's with the arrival of the 'bird' cars - roomette & bedroom cars from Budd named for birds.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by daveklepper on Thursday, December 8, 2022 11:22 AM

Or modernization?

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Posted by Overmod on Thursday, December 8, 2022 10:41 AM

How many section sleepers were built with those hard partitions and slide-in doors?  Fluorescent ceiling lighting indicates 'postwar' to me.

The expression on the passenger's face sums up the experience.

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Posted by daveklepper on Thursday, December 8, 2022 7:33 AM

The photo of the first poating on this thread was scanned from a print that went with me in my 1996 big move.  Now there are scans from the negative roll, and more pictures have been added.  Posted here without editing.   Not certain all the interior photos are all of the Capitol Limited.   A section sleeper?   Possibly the Canadian?            "Newfie Bullet?"

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

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Posted by Deggesty on Saturday, January 6, 2018 8:11 PM

I understand now your reasoning. The passenger timetables in the Guide do not show trackage rights. I could name many more instances in which a railroad used another road, via trackage rights, to reach this place or that place--and neither maps in the Guide nor the timetables show any evidence.of such trackage rights.

For instance, the C&O operated freight and passenger trains into Washington, D.C.--and used the track of the Southern from Orange, Virginia, to AF Tower, just below Alexandria, then used the RF&P to the bridge across the Potomac, and then used the track of the the PRR to a junction just south of the tunnel into the station, and then the station track. (The freights ran to Potomac Yard, just north of Alexandria). Even though the Southern (originally Orange and Alexandria and, later, Richmond and Danville) actually began just below the station in Alexandria, the mileposts read from Washington.

Balt, correct me if I am in error on the roads/junction points between AF and the Washington station.

The Southern used ACL track from Hardeeville, S.C. to Jacksonville (and the KC-Florida Special used the ACL from Jesup, Georgia, into Jacksonville)

.The L&N used the Southern bridge at Decatur, Alabama, to cross the Tennessee River there.

I could go on and on, but I will stop with these examples.

As to the M&O/GM&O, after the M&O and the Gulf Mobile and Northern were merged, the new road became known as the GM&O. I named the M&O and the Northern Alabama because these were roads that the IC used to gain entrance to Alabama, even though in my time they had different names.

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Posted by BLS53 on Saturday, January 6, 2018 7:25 PM

I'm just going by the Official Guides of the day. None of those other roads were ever listed, and the map shows the Fulton-Birmingham line as owned by the IC.

Could be we're looking at different time periods. I notice you say M&O, and not GM&O. That's well before my time. 

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Posted by daveklepper on Saturday, January 6, 2018 12:50 PM

The four platforms at IC's Central could have accomodate many more trains in my opinion.  Look at photos of the train shed when it existed and the platform area afterward and see if you can find even one photograph with all tracks occupied.  The layout of the station, unlike the other Chicago temrinals, if my memory is correct, is that a train unloaded and then continiued north, wihout the need of backing out of the station, having a swtcher couple on the rear end and the locomotive being a second light move.  That is if my memory is correct on this.   Similarly, a loading train would pull into the station to load, again without the need of the locomotive being a seond move.

Even in 1952 it was rare to see more than two trains in the station at one time, and one was more frequent.

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Posted by Deggesty on Friday, January 5, 2018 8:12 PM

BLS53

The Florida trains left the main at Fulton KY. That line went through Jackson TN and Corinth MS and ended at Birmingham.  IC owned that trackage. The C of G took over at Birmingham, and of course the ACL and FEC further along the route into FL.

 

The only track that the IC owned between Jackson, Tennessee and Birmingham was between Ruslor Jct., Mississippi (just above Corinth), and Haleyville, Alabama. As was posted earlier, it had trackage rights over the M&O (GM&O) between Jackson and Ruslor Jct., over the Northern Alabama (Southern) between Haleyville and Jasper, and over the Frisco between Jasper and Birmingham. 

You can check this if you have the SPV atlases for Appalachia and Southern States-also, if you have IC, GM&O, SLSF, and Southern ETT's for these lines.

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Posted by BLS53 on Friday, January 5, 2018 3:49 PM

The Florida trains left the main at Fulton KY. That line went through Jackson TN and Corinth MS and ended at Birmingham.  IC owned that trackage. The C of G took over at Birmingham, and of course the ACL and FEC further along the route into FL.

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Posted by Deggesty on Friday, January 5, 2018 11:43 AM

BLS53

 

 
Deggesty

when I lived in Wesson 1962-65, there were four trains each way between Chicago and New Orleans--the Panama Limited, the City of New Orleans, the Louisiane, the Southern Express (sb) and the Creole (nb). 

I lived across the street from the track, and could count the cars even when in the back of house as they went over the frog of the crossover switch.                                                                                                           

 

 

 

 

I was including the 2 Florida trains, The City of Miami and The Seminole. Although the former didn't run on a daily basis. From a Chicago perspective, I consider these mainline trains. They didn't leave the main until the KY-TN border. 

 

Quite true; the Florida-bound trains continued down the original main as far as Jackson, Tennessee. They reached Birmingham on a combination of trackage rights (over three different roads) and new IC track. For some reason, I did not think of them. 

I do not know if the M&O (later, GM&O) or the Frisco segments had ATS, but the Northern Alabama (later Southern) section between Haleyville and Jasper had ATS. 

When I lived in Alabama, I rode both of these trains, just as I rode all four of the New Orleans trains when I lived in Mississippi.

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Posted by BLS53 on Friday, January 5, 2018 11:24 AM

Deggesty

when I lived in Wesson 1962-65, there were four trains each way between Chicago and New Orleans--the Panama Limited, the City of New Orleans, the Louisiane, the Southern Express (sb) and the Creole (nb). 

I lived across the street from the track, and could count the cars even when in the back of house as they went over the frog of the crossover switch.                                                                                                           

 

 

I was including the 2 Florida trains, The City of Miami and The Seminole. Although the former didn't run on a daily basis. From a Chicago perspective, I consider these mainline trains. They didn't leave the main until the KY-TN border. 

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Posted by Deggesty on Thursday, January 4, 2018 8:35 PM

I did make use of Grand Central twice--in 1968, I took the Capitol Limited to Washington (I bought a ticket to Baltimore, and it cost no more than a ticket to Washington), and in 1969, I took the C&O's evening train to Grand Rapids.

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Posted by Deggesty on Thursday, January 4, 2018 8:25 PM

when I lived in Wesson 1962-65, there were four trains each way between Chicago and New Orleans--the Panama Limited, the City of New Orleans, the Louisiane, the Southern Express (sb) and the Creole (nb). 

I lived across the street from the track, and could count the cars even when in the back of house as they went over the frog of the crossover switch.                                                                                                           

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Posted by BLS53 on Thursday, January 4, 2018 8:12 PM

Just off the top of my head, in the 1960's, IC had 6 trains each way on the mainline, 2 each way on the Iowa line, and 2 each way to St. Louis. 

The St. Louis trains went on the main to Gilman Il, where they branched off to Springfield and St. Louis. 

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Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, January 4, 2018 3:36 PM

In addition to IC trains, Central handled Michigan Central (except the Wolverine, which used LaSalle) until 1956 and Big Four trains until 1971 for the New York Central.  That amounted to more than 10 train pairs a day which was quite a lot considering Central only had four island platforms.  IC had about 10 more pairs of their own.

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Posted by daveklepper on Thursday, January 4, 2018 11:18 AM

I  think Central operated below capacity during the peak years and might have handled traffic that went to other stations.  But how to get the trains to the different railroads' coach yards from Central would have been a problem.

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Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, January 4, 2018 10:26 AM

Union operated at or near capacity well into the 1950s - a lot of the traffic was mail and express which is no longer handled there.  Burlington's gallery cars were a direct response to capacity constraints.

Grand Central was easily the least used of the stations - probably fewer than 20 train pairs a day even in peak years. 

The amount of traffic between stations was small enough that sidewalks, streetcars, taxis and Parmalee coaches were enough to handle the transfer load.

Amtrak operated through service from Milwaukee to St Louis for a period in the 1970s, and found that most passengers boarded or got off in Chicago, with very few through passengers.

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Thursday, January 4, 2018 10:08 AM

That would eliminate Dearborn Street (Erie, MON, C&EI, GTW, WAB, ATSF), La Salle Street (RI, NYC, NKP) and Grand Central (B&O, C&O/PM, CGW, SOO).  Even at that time, Grand Central traffic could have been moved to North Western Station without too much strain, but the other two would have been a problem.

The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
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Posted by daveklepper on Thursday, January 4, 2018 4:28 AM

No one station as built could have handled all the traffic, but there were more stations than absolutely necessary.   Possibly Central, Northwestern, and Union, together, could have done the job.  But then there were the locations of coach yards, the whole track layout, etc.

The three interurbans and the IC suburban were, of course, special cases.

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Posted by BLS53 on Thursday, January 4, 2018 12:50 AM

Did the shear volume of passenger trains in Chicago necessitate that it needed so many stations?

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