Former Milwaukee:
Lakewood Branch
Kingsbury Branch
Deering Line
Goose Island
Bloomingdale Line

Former C&NW:
Navy Pier
North Line
Northwest Line

Common Locations:
River West

Overview:
Aerial Overview


Welcome!
We're passionate about preserving the history of Chicago's near north side Milwaukee Road and C&NW railroad operations. As a non-profit historical organization, we're undergoing a process to document as much as possible about this area through information and photographs.

Updates
Passenger Service on the Chicago Terminal!
Monday, November 10, 2008 by Tom Burke
Chicago Terminal runs a passenger excursion on the former C&E and Goose Island trackage!

Deering/North Line Photos
Friday, September 05, 2008 by Tom Burke
These images are from scanned slides and show the C&NW’s own Deering Yard in the Deering Industrial Area on a bright, sunny day in June of 1990.

Rare Goose Island Photos
Friday, September 05, 2008 by Tom Burke
Recently rediscovered slides show glimpses of Goose Island industries National Tea, Klemp Corporation, and the track arrangement used to access the building used by Pickens-Kane.

YouTube Videos
Thursday, July 03, 2008 by Tom Burke
Tom Burke captures the CP crew switching Peerless.

Accounting Office Spur
Thursday, May 29, 2008 by Tom Burke
Follow along with Tom Burke as he explores a spur once leading to Milwaukee Road's accounting office.

Navy Pier Photos
Monday, March 03, 2008 by Bob Feldman
New contributor Bob Feldman sends some images from UP crews working the Sun-Times job.

Switching Aetna Plywood
Tuesday, November 13, 2007 by Tom Burke
See a switch job at Aetna Plywood.

News
Arthur Gerber Website
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Drop by Tom Burke's excellent site on famed Chicago transit architect Arthur Gerber.

MRHA's The Milwaukee Road in Chicago book now available
Thursday, December 06, 2007
The Milwaukee Road Historical Association is now selling a book covering the Milwaukee's operations in Chicago. ChicagoSwitching's Tom Burke is the lead author.

New Version
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Version 5 of the Chicago Switching site is now live. In this version, we've integrated our photos with Google Maps. Beneath the article title is a link to view all of the photos in the article on a map, and below each photo is a [map] link that plots the individual photo onto a map. The Interactive Map page now displays all of our photos organized by location.

C&E South Line Reopens
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
The Chicago Terminal Railroad tonight, February 12, 2007, opened up the stretch of the C&E South Line from the cutoff at the Goose Island lead all the way down to where the tracks end near Halsted St.

The railroad's SW-8 by itself made its way down these tracks which had not seen a train since the late 1990s. The last time I recorded any action on this section was in 1998 when a boxcar was spotted at Midwest Zinc on Kingsbury two blocks south of North Avenue. Midwest Zinc is now a vacant lot.

The locomotive pushed asphalt out of the flangeways and off the rails where the city had paved over the track, leaving pieces of broken pavement in its wake.

Finally, the crew made a second run back with a gondola which they placed on Kingsbury St.

Hopefully the new shortline will be able to attract new rail shippers to this section of the line.



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