Chicago, North Shore & Milwaukee - Passenger Service

Machines of Iron has compiled footage from several Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee photographers to bring you this look at the last few years of the line. Starting in the Chicago “Loop” we will follow the North Shore north through Evanston, Skokie, Glenview, Northbrook and Waukegan, to name a few, and than into Wisconsin through the countryside and on to street running in Milwaukee. We take a short look at the Chicago to Mindelein Branch This is a must have for Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee fans. A great variety of locations and equipment are highlighted.

[@normansilver905]

I rode the North Shore daily from Skokie to Chicago. Then back every evening. Good ride. Too bad it is gone now!

[@johngrantham5508]

Thank goodness we still have the SouthShore line. It's been alter the last 2 years,but this last interurban as of 2023 has a great future. The Hammond to Dyer Indiana line will be the first interurban rail branch built since the NorthShore Skokie valley route in 1926.The SouthShore branch to Dyer will open in 2025

[@carltonpoindexter2034]

I am from Ohio but got to ride it from Racine to Milwaukee. As a kid I always dreamt of their extending it to the South Shore all the way to Cleveland. My late aunt said that the locals really regretted the passing of the old North shore ten years later during the gas crisis.

[@rexracernj7696]

Look at near-collision at 3:31. Did people not know how to drive in those days? (I would have been around 3 yrs old)

[@normasorenson1001]

My dad rode the Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee from Zion to Chicago Loop to go to work from 1944 until 1963 I believe it was when he retired. We lived three blocks from the Zion station. I thought it was a shame they tore that station down.

[@maas1208]

Honestly, I would like to see the North Shore line get revived under the management of the RTA and use Silverliner 5s or something like that for a Revived North Shore line.

[@HRHolm-bi6zu]

Won't happen, too much of right-of-way has been sold/privatized for commercial development, perhaps residential, too. This could be seen even 50 years ago, when I would ride the C&NW from Kenosha to Chicago during college break periods.

[@maas1208]

@@HRHolm-bi6zu what about the skokie Valley, right of way

[@HRHolm-bi6zu]

@@maas1208 That was absorbed by the CTA for the Skokie Swift line, I knew that. I was referring to the main Milwaukee line.

[@maas1208]

@@HRHolm-bi6zu why can't CTA and Metra share the right of way and tracks

[@HRHolm-bi6zu]

@@maas1208 Do you even live in the Chicago area? Let me walk you thru this step by step. Metra and CTA are two different rail transit systems, serving two different constituencies in two separate places. CTA is city, Metra suburbs. CTA is electrified, Metra is largely diesel. I believe even the track gauges are slightly different. Impossible to share tracks, it would be redundant, anyway. Look at the respective system maps, they go different places! Even past ideas to arrange for transfers between the two have largely been given up on. And you think they could arrange to share trackage with just the snap of a finger, as it were?

[@skipk44]

My grandfather was an engineer on the North Shore Line. Great video. Bring back many fond memories.

[@needlenosekw]

Every time I cross the old right of way on 94 I always look for a train

[@idontreadyourrepliesever8032]

I used to ride my dirt bike up and down from Northbrook all the way to Harms on the abandon line. 1972-1976. It's all still there too.

[@Harveycartoonlvr11]

And it wasn't until the late 60s/Early 1979s that REALIZATION set in..."Why in the HELL did we let this railroad die?" Greed.

[@bcshelby4926]

..wonderful footage of the North Shore's last years.

[@TheDunestrider]

At 0:05, I see the Mediterranean Revival architecture of the train station, similar to what the South Shore Line uses, even today (the station at Beverly Shores, Indiana is the last remaining station using that architecture).

[@ivyrivera8081]

the turn at wabash is scary asf!

[@tcaddone]

Great footage of Harmswoods Station and CNS&M near Edens Expressway. At 2:34 the southbound train is actually passing The Brunswick Building in Skokie, IL. Old Orchard would be back east of the photographer. Very nicely done! Thanks for posting.

[@concorde2003]

Thanks for that info. The shot was driving me bananas.

[@tcaddone]

At 1:40 the CNS&M train is actually headed north from Chicago. Harmswoods station was on the east side of the tracks.

[@DoncasterA1Music]

Wow! I love historical CTA and interurban stuff. The brief map at the beginning is nice also.

[@badguy1481]

I was on the last run of the North Shore. What a shame its gone.

[@beepbeep3000]

In the early morning hours on a very cold January 21, 1963.

[@WesternOhioInterurbanHistory]

What was the day like?

[@northshoreline6704]

@@WesternOhioInterurbanHistory Freezing cold and gloomy. Trains were packed all day with people going for one last ride, while many others braved the temperatures to get photographs and movie footage of the final operations. There was at least one (non-fatal) collision with an automobile, and the final train reached Milwaukee after midnight the following morning.

[@cats0182]

The only thing that could have saved it would have been the same "arrangement" that saved the South Shore Line; some sort of government funding/ownership. I guess neither IL nor WI were interested.

[@Steven_Williams]

This is too cool! Thanks for sharing!

[@Isochest]

I guess the traction power supply was 600-750v DC. Was a higher voltage like 1500v DC used as on the South Shore line?

[@anonymike8280]

Terminal verminal. "Down at the terminal, and boy is it ever." But, take away a functional system adequate for a 90-mile run. Restore it today, it'll be a billion-gazillion dollar boondoggle and everyone will have get paid off or it will never be built. There is something to be said for the bad old days, you know.

[@kingjameswww]

thanks for posting

[@charonsferryold]

Those were better times for transportation. Today we have to travel in what are basically death traps.

[@414cyclerider2]

I live where the old north shore line ran parallel with 6th street

[@KorraDaTrainBuff]

Jeez, I can hardly recognize Milwaukee from this footage, and I've lived in Milwaukee almost all my life! A lot has changed! These trains are certainly more interesting than those Amtrak Hiawatha's, which is pretty much the only passenger train you see in Milwaukee nowadays.

[@JapaneseCityPopCat]

The original Hiawatha's were A LOT more interesting! Beautifully streamlined steam engines with 84" drivers. Sadly, all of them were scrapped.

[@KorraDaTrainBuff]

Lorna D Maybe we will get a replica of one someday.

[@JapaneseCityPopCat]

***** That would be awesome. :) If I had the money I would build a working, full-size replica.

[@KorraDaTrainBuff]

Lorna D I wouldn't stop you from building one!

[@Isochest]

@@JapaneseCityPopCat Were those the streamlined 4-4-2s?

[@trainandtruckmodeler786]

Holly cow, that cabover Peterbilt just cut the car off ....that truck musta been very new here.

[@EastEndProductionsArchiv-lm3lq]

Great stuff!

[@TheLewistownTrainspotter8102]

2:00 That grade crossing is the one for Golf Road.

[@M21L35]

Near miss @ 3:24!

[@robertgift]

Any flange oilers for the sharp curves?

[@robfriedrich2822]

I wonder if the train were 2 system trains, getting electricity from the rail and from the wire. I wasn't aware, that the system started as blend of tram and railway and later became independent from public streets as kind of a subway, what crosses streets, as known from railways.

[@anonymike8280]

3:40 - Messed up drivers, messed up cars.

[@davidwpinkston4226]

a reminder of the state of shock absorbers in the '60's

[@rony.3836]

In the opening part of this film Milwaukee was misspelled, they left the "U" out.

[@beepbeep3000]

2:58 North end of the old 6th Street Viaduct. Closed and dismantled in 2001. Rode Milwaukee County Transit System Route 80 buses over the old 6th Street Viaduct so many times. 3:26 I-794 occupy this section today. Been there since 1968. 3:57 An office building and parking garage today. Built in 1981.

[@Lebenspiel]

From what year is that footage, if there is hippie sign at 0:44?

[@LesAtlas]

I recall taking some of the last of the Electroliners from Milwaukee to Chicago. Hard to forget them since they seemed so neat back then. I would have been about 10 years old, making it about 1963. That matches the newest autos I see in the movie, like some 1963-64 Ramblers and Chevys. I do not see any hippie sign. Those started appearing about 1967, unless there was someone years ahead of their time--which was not very likely in Milwaukee. By the way, my grandfather said he was a passenger on the steam-powered streamliner Hiawatha that broke the US rail speed record, on a Chicago-Milwaukee run.

[@docjanos]

@@LesAtlas The North Shore's last run was on January 20, 1963. I last rode it the day before. So given the cars seen (early Corvair, some Impalas, a VW Beetle, Karmann Ghia) as well as the leave-less trees it corresponds to being probably taken in the autumn of '62. I recall that in the waning months of the Line one could see rail fans filming from various vantage points. They got the word that it was nearing its end. I too notice the peace sign on the mailbox. Actually the late 1960s hippies appropriated it from its early use during the "ban the bomb" movement which was popular around the turn of the 60s--so it makes sense

[@siemenstraffic]

The peace symbol (☮) was the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament symbol, designed by Gerald Holtom in 1958.

[@northshoreline6704]

As others have explained above, that symbol originally represented opposition to nuclear weapons, and actually predates the hippie phenomenon by a few years. This footage was likely shot in the latter months of 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis, general escalation of the arms race and the health effects of atmospheric nuclear testing would all have been significant issues in the public awareness at that time.

[@zachsplep]

How long would the trip from Chicago to Milwaukee take?

[@RedArrow73]

Quicker than Amtrak.

[@WesternOhioInterurbanHistory]

+RedArrow73 That's so true.

[@docjanos]

90 minutes to 2 hours, depending upon the scheduled stops.

[@matthewjachtorowycz2455]

I may not have been alive then but thinking about it now, it would have been a convenient service considering I live not far from the old Skokie valley route. I’ve explored most of the old line, and its eerie how threes almost nothing left

[@gil.k9634]

Wasn’t that train on the up Milwaukee sub tracks

[@northshoreline6704]

The North Shore Line ran parallel to the Milwaukee Sub between Lake Bluff and Northbrook, then parallel to the original Skokie-Mayfair Sub south of there. In 1965, after the North Shore Line had ceased operation, the C&NW abandoned the original Skokie-Mayfair Sub and moved their operations over to the dormant North Shore Line tracks. This was ostensibly done because the North Shore tracks were in better condition, having been built for high-speed passenger service, but it is alleged that an ulterior motive was to prevent the CTA from extending the Yellow Line service north of Dempster Street and competing with the suburban service of the C&NW.

[@gil.k9634]

@@northshoreline6704 interesting

[@cats0182]

@@northshoreline6704 And now there is no "competing service". EVERYTHING commuter railroad is under the aegis of METRA.

[@maas1208]

​@@cats0182 Chicago's Railroads are a shell of their former selves

[@robfriedrich2822]

In Germany the history of elevated trains was pretty boring. When they built it in Hamburg and Berlin, it was with electric rail, it was completely separated from public streets, the law treated it as a kind of express tram, in Berlin the system turned to a subway with some overground sections, because the towns, that built later greater Berlin, were not willing to accept the elevated trains. In Hamburg there are also underground stations, but it's the exception.

[@robfriedrich2822]

The idea of a combined subway and tram, as found in San Francisco, came in Germany after WW2, Munich and Nuremberg were the exception, building a subway as known from London, all other cities who started a subway, used tram trains and it was in fact a tram with subway sections.

[@xaenon]

1:14 The famous 606 club.

[@VolumedMusicMan]

Hugh Hephner used to frequent there. Rumor has it JFK and Daley did as well…

[@xaenon]

@@VolumedMusicMan It was an attraction for many in various positions in power.

[@user-lu4em2nj4o]

日本の私鉄電車と変わりませんね！

[@smpark12]

never forget what they took from us

[@quentinkirk3870]

2:19 So The High School Wasn't Built Yet 🤔

[@luckettg]

I rode this train several times in late 1970

[@VolumedMusicMan]

yeah👌🏻

[@HRHolm-bi6zu]

No you did not in that year. Service on the North Shore was discontinued in early 1963.