North Shore Line Interurban Freight by Edward M DeRouin Soft Cover SIGNED North Shore Line Interurban Freight by Edward M DeRouin SIGNED Number 2 in the Midwestern Rail series Soft Cover 96 pages Copyright 2005 CONTENTS Introduction 5 Acknowledgments5 System Map6 The Early Years 1893-1916 8 Service and Route Expansion 1917-1929 11 The Court(ly) Years and a Second Chance 1930 - 1945 20 Postwar Struggle 1946 - 1963 24 Pettibone Area36 Milwaukee Division46 Mundelein Branch 56 Skokie Valley Route66 Shore Line Route82 The Coal and Fuel Oil Business90 Industrial Customers Report93 Team Tracks Report96 Waukegan Coal Traffic Report96 INTRODUCTION This story began as an account of a personal adventure. However, as work continued, the scope of the book rapidly expanded. Rightly so, my experience became just one piece of the story. I first saw the North Shore Line as an anomaly at the Chicago Transit Authority's Howard Street station located on the Chicago and Evanston border - trains of larger cars that seemed more important than those of the `L.' During the summer of my fourteenth year, I heard from a friend that this railroad also ran a freight train - and we could get to it via our bikes. With our mothers' blessings, our bicycles brought us to the Weber Industrial District of Skokie. On this stretch of industrial trackage west of McCormick Boulevard and straddling Oakton Street, we encountered the trolley-battery locomotives and the men of freight train C-1. As our wondering eyes gazed upon the vestige of this local freight, we were warmly invited aboard. We rode the locomotive. We watched and learned. We lunched in the caboose, enjoying a sandwich from our brown bags as the seasoned veterans engaged in their daily round of pinochle at the conductor's desk. After the thirty-minute intermission, the crew would return to their duties and in short order; the train was bound for Pettibone Yard. It sounded so far away to us. We decided to return. The adventure would grow as the crewmembers befriended us. Eventually, we were invited to ride the entire trip. The first northbound passenger train would deposit us in time to meet the crew as they reported for work. We did not realize it, but the sand of the hourglass was running low. Our rides ended with the job pick of September 1962. Four brief months later, the railroad's history was virtually complete. Many fine books have been published, negatives printed, slides displayed, stories told, and videos produced exclaiming to the audience, "What a great interurban the Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee was!" Historians have told of the expertise of the shop workers, of the customer-focused train handling and timekeeping skills of the motormen and trainmen, and the shame that it could not survive. The North Shore Line may not have survived physically as a railroad, but elements of it remain securely safeguarded as personal treasures within our collections, museums, and minds. The freight-hauling side of the North Shore Line has always taken a rear seat to the passenger business; its proper place given the magnitude of the passenger count and revenue. After all, the passenger service was in the public eye. The freight trains were behind the scene players that shared the spotlight only when one looked closely. Hopefully, this book will shed some of that light on these frequently witnessed, but little known, activities.
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