![]() Two years later, the RTA was formed and it began to subsidize the region’s commuter trains. In 1972, Heineman sold C&NW to an employee-led investment group. Like other railroads in the 1960s and 1970s, C&NW sought to deal with losses by diversifying, and by 1970 the railroad was a money-losing component of a much larger corporation. And it rehabbed several locomotives and instituted a push-pull operation into and out of Chicago. The railroad also replaced the commuter fleet with new bi-level coaches and shuttered about 20 close-in stations so it could concentrate on suburban service. The Heineman era included catching up on deferred maintenance, modernizing ticketing and collection methods, revising schedules and adjusting fares. Commuter trains fared better than intercity trains but still were generally losing money.Ĭ&NW sought to reverse that trend under new leader Ben Heineman, who came aboard in 1956. In the 1940s and 1950s, passenger trains continued to lose riders to the automobile and airplane. C&NW’s introduction of its famed “400” intercity trains that decade was one of the few bright spots. Like the rest of the country, the railroad was battered by the Depression in the 1930s, leading to a nine-year bankruptcy starting in 1935. (The descendant of that car is still in service.) But during that same decade, the company was noticing a severe drop in local train passengers due to the growing popularity of the automobile. It also leased a private car, the Deerpath, to wealthy businessmen on its North line in 1929. ![]() But the cost – at least $60 million – and fact that the commuter trains were money-losers deterred implementation.Īlso in the 1920s, the railroad improved several suburban depots and introduced some new aluminum-alloy commuter cars. The company considered it in the 1920s, particularly after the Illinois Central electrified its commuter service (today’s Metra’s Electric Line) in 1926. In 1915, a committee sponsored by the Chicago Association of Commerce recommended that C&NW electrify its tracks between Chicago and Waukegan, Des Plaines and Elmhurst. ![]() It featured a three-story, 202-by-117-foot main waiting room, a dining room, women’s rooms with writing desks and hairdressing services, smoking rooms for men, a barber shop, hospital rooms and a variety of other features. The railroad spared no expense on a new $23 million facility, which opened on June 4, 1911, on a site bounded by Madison, Lake, Clinton and Canal. The fire especially made living in the suburbs, away from the congestion and noise of the city, more appealing, and the railroad promoted and benefited from the trend.īy the end of the century, the railroad’s passenger terminal at Kinzie and Wells had become too small for the number of commuters and intercity passengers using it.
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