Chicago's Low Line (From Kinzie Street to Navy Pier)

[Anonymous]

In the June issue of Trains, the article on the line to the Chicago Tribune is quite interesting. While working on my dissertion in 1986, The Transformation of Metropolitan Chicago's Railway Pattern 1957-1986, I unearthed additional information. Some of this is posted on my link below. This line is the subject of ongoing city-UP talks about conversion to light rail. (This would be a GIANT transformation).

http://us.f2.yahoofs.com/bc/40edc76f_1005c/bc/Chicago+Rail/The+Low+Line+of+Chicago.htm?BC78wsCBiMltG3t4

[gwight]

Ah, remembering the Low Line. Back in the early 70's, I was 5 years into my career with IBM, when I was assigned to the 4pm to midnight shift. One of the places I got to for service calls was the North Pier Terminal building. The Low Line single track passed the building along it's loading dock. I was on a service call at Hiram Walker one night around 8, when a man came into the office and said, "Folks, the engineer said you have 5 minutes to move your cars from the track or he will move them himself". You should have seen those people scatter. Outside, there was nothing but the bright glare of the locomotive headlight and a dozen cars going every which way.

Later, in the early 90's, I was working in IBM Plaza. The tracks ran on the lower level of Kinzie street, under IBM PLaza, to end at the Chicago Sun-Times Building across Wabash Avenue. Every weekday, around 3 in the afternoon, if you stood outside, you could here the train down below switching boxcars of newsprint paper at the Sun-Times loading docks. At that time, that is where the tracks ended. I don't know what the diesel was, it looked very old and dirty, but it still carried CNW logo. A small piece of railfanning in the big city. Hopefully the City of Chicago can make use of this line for light rail or whatever.
[8D]