Evolution of the jet airliner

A technology that help make passenger trains unprofitable.

The Pilot posted
Boeing family

The other technology: Interstate Highways.

20150502 0763c

On the ramp from northbound I-90/94 to westbound I-55. It goes under I-90/94 and other ramps.

20150705 2553c
I-90/94 at the south end of Lumber Street. (Lumber Street used to have a GM&O industrial spur in it.) I-90/94 is so high in this area because the Federal Government required that its fixed bridge be sixty feet over the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

20160416 2200
The GM&O's abandoned industrial spur's ramp from grade level up to their Halsted Street Yard. It also captures the girders for a ramp and I-90/94. 

20150724 3528Looking North from the ramp going from eastbound I-55 to southbound I-90/94.

Approaching the east side of the Skyway on I -90.

See also the I-355 Veterans Memorial Bridge, Intersection of I-88 and I-355, and I-24 of the Ohio River for more views of non-trivial (expensive) interstate constructs.


Tax payers helped pay for building and maintaining airports and highways. Railroads still have to pay property tax. Railroads say they abandoned routes because they can't afford the maintenance costs. I wonder what fraction of that "maintenance" cost is property tax vs. inspecting and fixing the tracks and signals, including many road crossings.

Taxpayers not only paid for the Interstate system, they built the local, state, and US roads; for example a new bridge for US-68+KY-80, US-45 over the Ohio, Lemont's High Bridge, Senica Illinois River Road Bridge, Marseilles Illinois River Road Bridge. (We have taken several trips through the bridge reconstruction of the I-57 bridge over the Kankakee River, but I have not been able to find a single one. Bummer!)