Shriners ride Milwaukee to Rockford

[Anonymous]

How much of the following tale is true?
It's source has been misleading in the past and I need verification.

It seems that the Tripoli Temple Shriners93 (A.A.O.N.M.S.—Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine94) of Milwaukee, Wis. wanted to go to Rockford, Ill. to attend the May 16-18, 1916 dedication of the Shriners’ new Tabala Temple95. In order to go as a group, they faced two choices, take the Milwaukee Road steam line from Milwaukee to Beloit, Wis. Then switch to the Rockford, Beloit and Janesville interurban for the remaining 17 miles to Rockford or ride a chartered North Shore Line train (at that time still known as it’s original name “Chicago & Milwaukee Electric”) to Chicago and then north west to Rockford. Needless to say, the Shriners chose to stay on one train and avoid the hassle of having to transfer their luggage and whatever else they had to bring along. (This trip was possible mainly because the North Shore cars had both third-rail shoes and trolley poles, without which, they couldn’t have made the journey—period.)
The lead car was No. 160. This is significant because No. 160 is preserved at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Ill. and is the only car in the museum’s collection that ever actually ran in revenue service on the Elgin & Belvidere tracks—now the main line track of the museum’s demonstration line.
Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee 16096
Builder: J. G. Brill Company
Year Built: 1915
Seats: 58
Length: 56ft 1in
Width: 8ft 8in
Height: 12ft 6in
Weight: 90300 lbs
Brakes: AMU
Motors: 4 WH 557A5
Control: HLF-28A
Compressor: CP-28
Trucks: Brill 27MCB3X
Description: Double End / Double Truck / Arch Roof / Steel Coach

The North Shore’s carpenters at the Highwood Shop built a large illuminated replica of the Masonic emblem, the “Square and Compass,” and mounted it on the front door of No. 160.
The trip left downtown Milwaukee at 11:30 A.M., traveled to Church St. in Evanston, Ill. where it entered the Northwestern “L” tracks for the 13-mile run to the Loop. A Northwestern L pilot and supervisor took over from the North Shore’s personnel at this point.
At Quincy and Wells, an Aurora, Elgin &Chicago pilot and supervisor replaced the Northwestern L crew for the next phase of the trip. They traveled over the old Garfield Park branch to Laramie Street where the AE&C’s tracks branched off on its own right-of-way. Twenty-five miles west of the Loop, the Shriners Special was at the Wheaton Junction and 15 miles later, finally Elgin.
In Elgin, the Shriners Special entered trackage that took them west over Bion Arnold’s Elgin & Belvidere Electric Co. trackage for the 36.4 –mile spurt to Belvidere. Once again, they gained a new pilot and supervisor.
They arrived in Belvidere around 4:45 P.M. Here, the Shriners Special gained its last pilot and supervisor for the run over the Rockford & Interurban Railway Co. line into downtown Rockford. They arrived around 5:15 P.M. The whole trip took five hours and 45 minutes to cover the 177-mile distance, averaging 30.8 mph. Not too shabby.
George V. Campbell’s Days of the North Shore spends an entire chapter (pp. 39-44) on this event. It’s worth reading. There’s a lot more detail than can be gone into, here.

Hank Morris