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| 1897 Map |
Michigan Central (MC) was not happy with an eastern competitor joining IC and MC at the Illinois Central stations. (IC had more than one station in the 1800s as it kept outgrowing the last one it built.) In 1883, the B&O built their own lakefront station.
Then the B&O joined the effort to build the Grand Central Station and moved their passenger trains to it on Dec 1, 1891. [Brandon McShane comment on a post]
The Illinois Central was probably relieved to have the B&O traffic off of their tracks to free up capacity for servicing the 1893 World's Columbian Exhibition.
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| 1897 Map |
So when IC elevated its tracks around the turn of the 19th Century, the B&O did not build a connecting ramp. In 1910, the B&O took advantage of the financial difficulties of Wisconsin Central and its financial backer, Northern Pacific, and acquired their Chicago properties, including Grand Central Station, to form the B&O Chicago Terminal (B&OCT) Railroad.
The Brookdale Spur served as an industrial spur until the 1970s. Forgotten Chicago documents the industries served and how the RoW has been reused.
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| 108. B&O Industrial Tracks 71st Street Grade [109 is Carpenter Coal - Woodlawn Fuel Co. 110. Team Tracks 112 Freight Connection IC Main Line] |
While studying the 1897 Map, I noticed that the Brookdale Spur allowed the B&O, as well as the IC, to directly serve the 1893 Columbia Exhibition.
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| 1897 Map |
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| Rod Sellers posted [This is just after the tracks turn north with the IC tracks on the left under the wires and B&O on the right. The comments indicate that the street crossing past the caboose is 93rd Street.] |
Further north was B&O's yard and southeast of here was B&O's bridge across the Calumet River.
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| Dennis DeBruler commented on Rod's post
A topo map shows how the B&O tracks came from the Calumet River and turned North to pass through here.
1929 Calumet Lake Quadrangle @ 1:24,000
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| David Daruszka posted Track elevation at 69th Street on the Illinois Central. The station sign says "Brookdale", which is the present day location of one of the substations for the Metra Electric. Brookdale was also the connection point between the B&O and IC. David R. Phillips Collection. The date on the photo is not legible. Lawrence Smith read somewhere that when the Ic elevated, the BO connection at Brookdale ceased to exist and the BO adopted their circuitous route via south Chicago/Beverly etc. turning W at RI Jct. Bob Lalich The B&O diverted their trains to Grand Central via the Chicago & Calumet Terminal in 1891. The IC was elevated at Brookdale shortly after 1900. David Daruszka I was told that David R. Phillips rescued many glass plate negatives from the demolition of Central Station where they were stored. This print may be from one of them, possibly a contact print off an 8X10 negative. |
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| Bob Lalich commented on a post Photos of trains on the Brookdale line are hard to find. Here is one of an eastbound local crossing the IC South Chicago Branch near 83rd St. Photo by James Burd. [Facebooked] |
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| Marty Bernard posted Illinois Central Electric MUs on the South Chicago Branch at 84th Street and Commercial Avenue, Chicago on March 31, 1964. Looks great at full screen. Paul Jevert: My grandfather Fred G. SNASHALL, I.C. Locomotive Engineer and I both ran these Suburban Service MU's , grandpa Fred from 1926 -1956 and myself 1972-1984 ! This is the R.R. Xing with the B&OCT at 84 street . Paul Jevert shared Bottom's Up on the B&O CT at 83rd Place back in the "Bush" ! (1962) Daniel Bovino posted This 1964 photo was taken on the IC's South Chicago branch at 83rd and Commercial. The view is looking South. The track crossing the IC at grade is the old B&O Brookdale Branch. At the time of the photo this branch served several lumber yards and material yards west of the crossing. The line ended at approximately 70th and Kenwood, but originally connected to the IC's mainline there. This was the B&O's original mainline into Chicago. Please note the old fashion semi fore signal on the upper right of the photograph. Photo courtesy of Marty Bernard. | Jack Fuller: 98: Trains must stop at junctions and railroad crossings as follows: ... 83rd Place ..... B&OCTRR crossing. At 83rd Place, South Chicago District. four-arm fixed signal governs movement over crossing only. Trains or engines will be governed by Rule 663[a] [I don't have an IC rule book to reference this rule]. Two top arms, one for each direction, govern B&OCTRR trains, and two bottom arms, one in each direction, govern Illinois Central trains. My guess is that there is a Switchtender in the shanty who operated the signals, like how used to be done at Brighton Park. Dennis DeBruler shared The density of railroad routes in Chicago in the 1800s was high because you either walked or used a horse & wagon on bad roads. Most of those routes survived unto the 1960s. But the advent of trucks and good roads reduced their utilization so that the routes have been disappearing ever since. Even some of the main routes (e.g. Milwaukee, Rock Island) would be gone if Metra had not bought them. The B&O route is now gone. The IC route is now a branch of Metra's Metra Electric District. [There are several comments discussing other railroad routes that Chicago has lost.] [It is because of this evidence of the track density that used to be in Chicago that I added the label "just horses" to this B&O route.] |
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| Marty Mroczkowski commented on a post This is a picture taken from my back porch at 81st & Saginaw. This train was affectionately known by everyone in the neighborhood as "The One-A-Day" |
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| Dennis DeBruler commented on a post I marked up a 1980 Chicago Quadrangle @ 1:100,000 to try to answer the route of the B&O passenger trains. Blue is B&OCT and red is a connector they had to build between the B&OCT and the Rock Island. B&O used trackage rights over the Rock Island (yellow) to Rock Island Junction where it joined its original track (green) into Chicago. The B&OCT ran south between the Pennsy Panhandle and the Chicago Junction until it got to the 49th Street Junction just north of the IHB overpass. At that junction, it crossed the Panhandle and continued south to the red connector. The connector crossed the Panhandle to join the Rock Island branch near the Rock Island tracks. |
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| Dennis DeBruler commented on a post It took me years, and at least one rewrite of my notes, to figure out the junction of the B&OCT with the Rock Island because I had to learn that different railroads use different names for the same thing. The two rectangles indicate what the two towers controlled. Pennsy referred to this whole area as Beverly Junction with the towers labelled A (south, yellow) and B (north, blue). Other railroads called the B&OCT crossing of the Panhandle and its connection to the Rock Island (blue) as Beverly Junction Junction and the Rock Island crossing of the Panhandle (yellow) as Beverly Hills Junction. 1953 Blue Island Quadrangle @ 1:24,000 |
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| John Smatlak posted Very pleased to see this awesome photo of the B&O Brookdale Branch on the excellent Trolley Dodger blog: https://thetrolleydodger.com/2021/06/03/the-old-school/... It's a shot of a Chicago Surface Lines streetcar crossing the branch at 75th & Constance. Joe L. Diaz photo, collection of William Shapotkin. Photos of the Brookdale Branch seem to be few and far between! That industrial building with the long skylight (seen just left of the streetcar) appears to still be there today. William Shapotkin posted We are at 75th and Constance on Chicago's South Side. A car, working an E/B trip on Chicago Surface Lines' Rt #75 -- 74th/75th heads E/B in 75th St about to x/o the B&O Brookdale Branch. Visible in distance is the Solo Cup Co. and a City of Chicago Pumping Station. Transit service in 75th was converted to bus on October 28, 1946. Undated photo from the camera of the late Joe L. Diaz. This line was the B&O's initial entry into Chicago. The tracks connected with the IC mainline just north of 71st St. After the IC booted the B&O off its line (1893 (?)) and trains were rerouted via a very convoluted route into Grand Central Station, this line was relegated to use an industrial branch -- which sadly today is totally abandoned. My sincerest thanks to Bob Lalich, who assisted in identifying the photo location. William Shapotkin Collection (Shapotkin295) Matt McClure: B&O refused to pay for a ramp to the in-process elevation project related to the world's fair. IC had zero interest in underwriting this project, according to Harold Mayer who wrote a number of academic pieces on Chicago's railroads during his career at the University of Chicago. William Shapotkin: Matt McClure have heard at least two other variations of the story (one which attributes B&O's unwillingness to pay entry fees over the IC) -- but to-date have not read anything that spells out the reason for the B&O's exit off the IC -- except that it was sudden and unexpected. Matt McClure: William Shapotkin The timing was undoubtedly accelerated by the World's Fair, but IC had to be waiting for the right opportunity after 1890 when Grand Central opened and the IC/SCAL were playing host. Kevin McKinney: Note the Brookdale line is still double track, later single-tracked. I believe the switch leads to a coal yard which later became Bidwell, then Rosenblum Park. As coal declined in the 60s and beyond, Solo Cup was probably the largest customer left on the line. John Iwanski Forgotten Chicago did a nice write up on this abandoned line - including a few pics of that Solo Cup plant. In that same article, there are two views of this area that show just how different it looks now. https://forgottenchicago.com/articles/south-shore-bo-spur/ |
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| William commented on his post BTW -- here is an undated pic of the B&O Brookdale station -- which had been located at 76th/Euclid (one block south of this location): Richard Fiedler: William Shapotkin I’m thinking I read a post several years ago that contained a newspaper clipping that stated a railroad employee rented that building as a residence. David Daruszka: Richard Fiedler Yes, it was converted to a private residence. |
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