N&W's "Orland Park Cannonball" - 1972

I picked up this schedule at a recent railroadiana show... I thought you would enjoy seeing what service was like in 1972!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ottomatic77/4941777014/

"No checked baggage or remains carried..." This seems to be a common note on private line commuter timetables of the post-war era... Were people trying to ship a lot of cadavers by commuter rail back then?

And why was N&W making a distinction about Polk Street Station versus Dearborn Street Station?

-otto-

Thanks for sharing. Quite intersting to compare sevice then to SouthWest Service now. I had known about the station at Werstern Ave, but had no idea three additional stations existed along the 75th Street stretch. I'm suprised to find out the station at 63rd Street in Englewood was not in service in 1972, anyone know when service was halted at this station?

After Amtrak Day, Dearborn Street station was closed and the N&W trains used a platform at the west side of the station property. This continued for several years until the Regional Transportation Authority (pre Metra, I believe), took over and moved the Cannonball to Union Station. The Dearborn Station headhouse still exists and has been reborn as a shopping center/office building. South and east of the station is a thriving residential area and no tracks exist anywhere near the old station.

Otto: Neat TT find here-I first visited Chicago in 1973 and just over a block away from my relatives place was the Landers stop-79th/Kedzie in which I accidentally discovered the existence of the Orland Park Cannonball...See: www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=11646 for a post I placed back when I was new here...

Trains 112 and 113 ran from one of the last remaining remnants of Dearborn Station at Polk and Clark Streets - Downtown Chicago.
There was a small building at that corner with a ticket office that was open for the afternoon departure...the two trains were shifted to Union Station in 1976
and the service was eventually taken over by the RTA in 1979 when new Budd bilevels and F40 locomotives were introduced to that service and two additional runs were added.

I found this train to be quite interesting but because of the service limitations never rode past Ashburn...in my days of using this train back in the 70s I always remember the first stop was 75/Western but I wondered about stops like Englewood which were on the TT but the two trains did not serve...

Memories from MACTRAXX

Easily one of my favorite un-celebrated trains of the Chicago area. Today it's the only Metra train that regularly goes through CUS from north to south. It's serviced at Western Avenue, meaning the morning inbounds unload, pull out, cross over to the far easterly station track, and back through CUS all the way to Western. In the evening, you'll see the deadhead come in to CUS-North locomotive first, on the easterly track in order to board on the south end.

Under N&W
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.p ... 759&nseq=7
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.p ... 255&nseq=4
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.p ... 276&nseq=1
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.p ... 663&nseq=0

Under Wabash
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.p ... 70&nseq=34

Tadman: Good pictures posted of the N&W Orland Park Cannonball...with that first pic of the train coming off the South Branch "Bottleneck" Bridge...I remember how strategic this bridge was for many trains entering Chicago...

I would like to know if anyone knows exactly when this train began recieving subsidy payments from the RTA or any other Chicago area transit agency...it must be around 1976 when the train began serving Union Station...

The N&W took decent care of the equipment used on that train and I wonder if anyone knows about where the tuscan red coaches eventually went I will appreciate knowing about that...

Thoughts from MACTRAXX

Today it's the only Metra train that regularly goes through CUS from north to south. It's serviced at Western Avenue, meaning the morning inbounds unload, pull out, cross over to the far easterly station track, and back through CUS all the way to Western. In the evening, you'll see the deadhead come in to CUS-North locomotive first, on the easterly track in order to board on the south end.

A correction - the trains making the move you describe today are Metra's Heritage Corridor trains, which are of Gulf Mobile & Ohio ancestry. The successors to N&W's Orland Park Cannonball today are the Southwest Service trains, which are currently serviced along with the BNSF dinkies immediately south of CUS.

Otto Vondrak wrote:I picked up this schedule at a recent railroadiana show... I thought you would enjoy seeing what service was like in 1972!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ottomatic77/4941777014/

"No checked baggage or remains carried..." This seems to be a common note on private line commuter timetables of the post-war era... Were people trying to ship a lot of cadavers by commuter rail back then?

And why was N&W making a distinction about Polk Street Station versus Dearborn Street Station?

-otto-

"Back in the day" it was expected that a passenger train carried baggage (including remains) unless otherwise noted. There were timetables in which the head of almost every train column carried a reference mark that no baggage was carried. Once the last baggage car disappeared from a line the railroad would just put a general note in the timetable. My guess is that nobody ever tried to ship a casket over such a short distance, but the railroad figured better safe than sorry--just put a note in the timetable to be sure.

MACTRAXX wrote:I would like to know if anyone knows exactly when this train began recieving subsidy payments from the RTA or any other Chicago area transit agency...it must be around 1976 when the train began serving Union Station.

I have a schedule in my collection from the RTA entitled "Norfolk & Western Orland Park Line", with an effective date of 6/6/81. Some schedules were definitely done on the cheap in those days, and this one was no exception, as it was folded and printed on lime green 8 1/2 X 13 paper in black text on both sides. Anyway, newer trains 114 & 115 are listed, but the description in Otto's photo above says the subsidy began in 1978, which sounds about right, and is likely when those two trains were added to the schedule. I suspect then, that my 1981 copy probably just involved some minor tweakage from the previous issue.

And in a strange coincidence, today's 808 schedule follows 112's schedule from 1972 closely, leaving 143rd St. two minutes later, and arriving downtown five minutes earlier. If not for the closure of the in-city stations, the arrival times would probably be identical...

Somewhere, I have my grandmother's N&W pass (issued for the wife of the retired General Yardmaster) but it specifically says it's not good for passage on the line to Orland Park. Grandpa retired from the Wabash in about 1962. Interestingly (to me anyway), I now ride the Metra SWS downtown to work everyday.
Dave

My grandmother was a daily commuter on that line for years, including when it switched over from N&W to RTA equipment. She has some photos taken of the last train made up of the old N&W equipment, both the inside and out. Although the outside of the cars may have looked pristine and ready for an NS steam excursion, the inside was full of peeling paint. The cars probably weren't kept heated on cold winter nights and the freeze-thaw cycle took its toll on the interiors.

I asked her a while back why she took the photos - in retrospect, it would seem like a good idea but if I were "Joe Commuter" in 1978 I'd probably welcome fancy new bilevels with A/C and say good riddance to the ratty old N&W train, but she said it was less so the train itself and moreso the other people - when there's only one train in and one out every day, everyone's a "regular." When the RTA came in and took things over, it was acknowledged that while the service would improve, the same bunch of commuters that got to know eachother wouldn't see eachother very much since there were now more trains to take.

There's an N&W maroon coach on isolated track in Wakarusa, IN. It was a siding on the Wabash before it was torn up. I have no idea if this was a Chicago commuter car, but it seems likely.

Nine, (at least) cars on that N&W version first photo posted above. Lotta cars for a commuter line. I didn't know the Wabash Orland Park had that many riders!!!

The SWS is in a unique place (geographically) where it never lost riders due to expressway construction, and it has never had a reduction in service because it began operations as a once-a-day train and stayed that way until public subsidies came into the foray. If you'd have asked anyone who rode it under N&W control in 1978 if they thought the line would have thirty trains a day in thirty years, they probably would have started laughing hysterically.

The line still needs its improvements, though. After moving from Evergreen Park to Oak Lawn earlier this year, it put me slightly closer to the Oak Lawn SWS station over the Rock Island's Beverly Branch. So I went and got a zone D monthly and prepared to take the SWS every day. Did that for about three days before I went back to the Rock. Why? The Rock is hardly ever late, unlike the SWS which is always five or so minutes behind during the outbound rush. The Rock also runs more frequently, whereas on the SWS, if you want to do an "early quit" you have to leave work at around 2:00 to catch the last pre-rush outbound. And as someone who gets an extra half hour of sleep on the train every morning, the ride quality of the SWS is, well, "lacking." Metra seems to take far better care of their track than freight lines and in my opinion, the "smoothest" Metra lines are the MED and RI (in that order). If Metra had the option to buy the SWS route from NS at some point I'd like to see them exercise it and get the track to be more like the Rock's. Finishing all the related CREATE projects are finished and relocating the SWS main over to the Rock's will probably help solve these problems too.

Speaking of which, I think I'm one of only a handful of people who thinks that putting the SWS in La Salle is a good idea. It would offer better connections to the CTA and put commuters just a bit closer to the loop (with no drawbridge in between). Aside from its lack of retail establishments and no Amtrak transferability, I think La Salle's nice wide platforms & corridors and easy entry/exit make it a more ideal commuter terminal.

byte wrote:The Rock is hardly ever late, unlike the SWS which is always five or so minutes behind during the outbound rush.

That's strange. I'm not a regular rider, but there have been those at this forum that have said the schedules are actually overly generous, particularly off-peak service that tends to run 3-5 minutes ahead. More minor delays in the evening due to freights perhaps?

byte wrote: Metra seems to take far better care of their track than freight lines and in my opinion, the "smoothest" Metra lines are the MED and RI (in that order). If Metra had the option to buy the SWS route from NS at some point I'd like to see them exercise it and get the track to be more like the Rock's. Finishing all the related CREATE projects are finished and relocating the SWS main over to the Rock's will probably help solve these problems too.

No doubt, the smoothest segments on SWS are the ex-CWI segment from about Pershing Road to 75th, and the single track ROW south of Palos Park; both were upgraded in the years before the Manhattan extension. But the ride does get rougher after curving onto the 75th St. corridor, mainly because Metra has to play hopscotch at grade over the busy freight crossings at Belt Junction and Forest Hill...

byte wrote:Speaking of which, I think I'm one of only a handful of people who thinks that putting the SWS in La Salle is a good idea. It would offer better connections to the CTA and put commuters just a bit closer to the loop (with no drawbridge in between). Aside from its lack of retail establishments and no Amtrak transferability, I think La Salle's nice wide platforms & corridors and easy entry/exit make it a more ideal commuter terminal.

For the record, I like the idea too, I'm just wondering about the logistics of the proposed 75th St. connection, and how viable it is. That said, the increased transit options at the two innermost downtown terminals currently only benefit Rock, MED, or NICTD commuters; everybody else getting off any of the other nine routes at OTC or CUS has to either catch a bus, a cab, or hoof it a couple of blocks to CTA's Green or Blue lines, and I've always felt that discrepancy should have long since been addressed somehow. Unfortunately, there are no easy solutions...