In article <telecom26.139.6@telecom-digest.org>,
nospam.kd1s@cox.nospam.net says:
> In article <telecom26.138.10@telecom-digest.org>> says:
> Interestingly I never knew there was so much rail freight until we moved
> into our new offices. Huge P&W freighters carrying lumber, oil, etc. go
> through several times a day.
>> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: CTA's telephone system used the third
>> rail for the telephone communications on the trains. Between the
>> headquarter's switchboard and the individual stations, they used
>> leased lines from Illinois Bell.
>> A bit of history for you to consider: The _original_ train routes
>> (Jackson Park Elevated Line, Lake Street Elevated Company, Chicago
>> Rapid Transit Company, The Union Loop Elevated Line, Metropolitan Rail
>> and others) and the _original_ bus and street car companies (Boulevard
>> Bus, Chicago Surface Lines and others) were all privately owned
>> companies. In 1932, Chicago Rapid Transit Company went into
>> receivership and bankruptcy when they were unable to pay their
>> _electric_ bill to the Chicago Edison Company, our electric supplier
>> at the time. A man named Samuel Insull was the president of Chicago
>> Rapid Transit and on the board of Edison. On the day Edison was set to
>> cut off the power to the rapid transit line, Insull cut a deal for
>> them. Chicago Edison would loan the money needed to Chicago Rapid
>> Transit, in the form of fifty year bonds. I guess they figured fifty
>> years hence (1982) was a long time away, why worry about it. In 1947,
>> City of Chicago municipalized (a polite term for theft when City of
>> Chicago does it out of politicians' greed) all seven or eight
>> transportation companies and merged them all into Chicago Transit
>> Authority.
> Did CTA ever operate chartered 'funeral cars'? Again, true. About
> two blocks south of Lill Coal Company is the Graceland Cemetery, a
> very big place (it occupies four or five square miles in the heart of
> Chicago's northwest side, and even rates a telephone exchange named
> after it [GRAceland 312/773-472].) Many big wigs are buried there
> with huge monuments, etc. It also rates its own railroad siding, which
> was used in the 1920-40's to bring recently deceased big wigs for
> burial. All the bereaved family members and friends would ride along
> in the Chicago Rapid Transit street car made up like a funeral car to
> the cemetery. Family and friends came from Milwaukee all the way to
> south side Chicago for the funerals. Either North Shore or Chicago
> Rapid Transit would bring them there. This was Charles Insull's idea.
> And the chartered street cars would pull in almost daily for someone's
> funeral. When Chicago Rapid Transit went out of business (or actually,
> merged into CTA), Graceland asked the same sort of questions as Lill
> Coal would ask several years later when North Shore went poof! *Who is
> going to haul _our_ 'freight' to the ceremonies, etc. CTA agreed out
> of customer good will to continue handling the cemetery business for
> about a year in 1947-48, then stopped doing it. But the tracks are
> still there, all rusted and full of weeds right behind the cemetery
> where the one sidetrack slopes down to ground level and runs along
> for about a block. PAT]
The interesting part about our office is that there's a siding that
runs right through the parking lot, crosses West River Street then
heads off into USPS huge facilities in Providence.
T (nospam.kd1s@cox.nospam.net)