Museum marks the day the Chicago Aurora & Elgin stood still
Imagine the chaos that would ensure if a railroad took thousands of people to work but didn't take them home. Imagine if it happened the afternoon before a major holiday.
It happened July 3, 1957, in Chicago's western suburbs, and the Fox River Trolley Museum will re-enact that fateful day as part of a special celebration Friday, July 3.
The museum, 361 S. LaFox St. South Elgin, will mark the 52nd anniversary of one of the most unusual "service suspensions" in the history of mass transit with a special day devoted to the Chicago Aurora and Elgin Railroad and its history.
The interurban railway halted passenger service at 12:13 p.m. July 3, 1957, minutes after the expiration of the last of a series of court orders that had kept it in operation and over the objections of then-Aurora Mayor Paul Egan, who even offered in a court hearing that morning to put his home up as collateral against continuing losses by the railroad. The judge rejected Egan's offer, saying he didn't want the mayor to lose his home, and the CA&E immediately canceled its remaining trains.
Despite determined efforts by officials of communities served by the line, the CA&E never again operated a regularly-scheduled passenger train. Freight service limped on for two more years as tax referendums to enable public purchase of the line failed by a narrow margin, and formal abandonment was granted in 1961, about the time the museum was founded. Notices were posted along the disused, weed-infested right-of-way and the railroad was dismantled over the next 18 months. Today, that land is home to the Illinois Prairie Path.
On Friday, the Fox River Trolley Museum is transforming itself into the CA&E. The museum is fortunate to own a lot of CA&E memorabilia, some of which is on display whenever the museum is open to the public, such as a maroon enamel sign advertising CA&E and Fox River Line services dating from the early 1930s; a sign from the 5th Avenue station in Maywood; a flag stop signal mast mounted at the museum's Castlemuir station; and the old CA&E Hollywood station shed, located in its storage yard.
Weather permitting, the museum intends to operate and display CA&E cars Friday. Some CA&E memorabilia owned by the museum that is not normally on display and other items from private collections are expected to be on display, weather permitting. Regular fares of $3.50 for adults, $2 for children ages 3-11 and seniors will apply. Children younger than age 3 will ride free.
Signage has been made to re-christen Castlemuir for the day as "Wheaton," which was the nerve center of the old CA&E. The museum's southern terminal, at Blackhawk station in the Kane County Forest Preserve District's Jon J. Duerr Forest Preserve, will become "Forest Park," which was the CA&E's eastern terminus in 1957. The CA&E was a remarkably complex operation, especially before September 1953, when CA&E service was cut back from a terminal in downtown Chicago on Wells Street to Forest Park, allowing construction of what would become the Eisenhower Expressway. The CA&E and the Chicago Rapid Transit Co., later CTA, operated a mixture of local, express and limited trains between the railroad's downtown Wells Street Terminal and Bellwood Junction on the largely two-track line that routinely featured wrong-track run-bys and multi-section trains. All of this was done without radios, global positioning satellites or complex signaling, except at junctions and prescheduled run-by points. Even after service was cut back to an eastern terminus of Forest Park, the CA&E provided far more frequent service than parallel Metra lines do today, especially in the "reverse commute" direction.
The Fox River Trolley Museum is an all-volunteer, nonprofit organization. For schedules and additional information, or to rent a train, call the museum at (847) 697-4676.