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CHICAGO LAND SYSTEM - ATTN: Chicago Railfans

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This thread is old but so am I. I know of a abandoned rail line in Maywood - Bellwood that must have some story to tell. If you go to maps.google.com and type in Maywood, IL and then find 19th avenue and St. Charles as a starting point I can direct you. There are no rails, but you can see where the tracks were. Go NW to 20th and Railroad Avenue. The UP/CNW tracks are to the north. You can see an arc leading from the mainline to the alley between 21st avenue in Maywood and 22nd avenue in Bellwood. There was a side track that ran along the south side of the mainline that curved here and went south. I suggest that you tell google you want the hybrid screen. you can then follow the alley south. Note, that even tho the tracks have been gone many years, that alley is whiter, stands out more, than nearby alleys. As you approach Madison Street, Madison angles northwest and it is obvious that the tracks went SW. Skip south to see Maywood Drive. To the north of Maywood Drive is a green area that has what appears to be a path. That is now the Illinois Prairie Path but was the Chicago Great Western on the north part and Chicago, Aurora, and Elgin on the south part of the where the path now runs. The CNW spur coming from the north curves, you can still see where it had to go and then probably joined the CGW and then curves back north to join the Indiana Harbor Belt, elevated. The spur is gone. The CGW is gone. The "Roarin' Elgin" is gone. I remember seeing freights traveling down the alley as late as the late 1950's. I lived at 19th and Oak. It was needing lots of repair and the trains went very slow and usually someone walked along. But then, the CGW was, when I went to school a block away, seldom used and when used it was running extremely slow and I saw derailments. If you want to follow the CNW spur, CGW, CA&E west you can see what appears to be a bunch of new multi-family units west of the IHB. Georgina street to the north. Somewhere in there, the CA&E had a branch line going south. Originally it went just to the cemeteries in the area of Roosevelt and Mannheim in Hillside (and farther west to Mt. Carmel at Wolf Road). Later it went to near 22nd (Cermak) and Mannheim. That line doesn't show as well but if you see Bellwood Avenue go south and you will see Cernan Park. It ran where that park is today. you might be able to track it north or south from there. It is fairly easy to see where the cemetery trains went west just north of Roosevelt. There is a park there and you can see its shape. South, in Westchester, you can see how the road curves and the open area east of the road where the old tracks were. Sort of like Archeology?
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