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Chicago's First "L" (PHOTOS) |
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Posted by ChicagoPCCLCars on Mon Mar 7 23:34:53 2011 Two of the photos showing 59th ST JCT in the All Day Tour thread gave me the idea that a lot of the history of Chicago's first "L" is contained in them. The first "L", two tracked, was nicknamed the Alley L, from Congress ST south to 39th ST NEXT TO the alley along State ST. I emphasize "next to".....only from 12th ST north to Congress was the "L" actually over the alley. The line opened in 1892 and within a year five miles of extension was thrown up allowing the "L" to reach the Worlds Fair in Jackson Park. Photo one at 59th ST shows that the alleys in Chicago are just as straight as the streets and that original extension is on the left. Latice uprights, centered under the tracks supported the solid steel girders. You can only do this type of erection on private property and Chicago's first "L" took advantage of our gridded streets with an alley in between. The "L" company had only to buy the rear 25 ft to put together the needed right of way. Ten years later when the Englewood branch starts construction, upright solid steel H columns are the new technology and the "L" trestle uses tower bents with "X" sections every third bent. Examine the Englewood turning off to the right in Photo one. Look more carefully and you can see the third rail is on the outside at the switch. But the third rail doesn't start at the switch points because electrically going off onto the branch is a section break. Because the alley grid was perpendicular to the Englewood right of way, the "L" had to purchase entire city lots, all in a line, across the street from each other to assemble a right of way. Lining up lots when lot sizes vary from 20 to 30 feet gives slight deviations to seemingly straight stretches of tangent tracks. What might be expected to be straight has little twists in it.  Turning the camera around we see the approach to 59th ST JCT. The outside third rail is providing 600 v DC through a crossover switch. All of the upright colums were reworked during the Green line rehab a decade ago. The steel uprights used to go all the way down to concrete footings just inches above ground level. In the rehab the columns were cut,, new footings were installed two feet high and a new splice piece matched up both ends. No measuring was really needed.  The "L" extension from 40th ST to 63rd ST follows the alley all the way. Evidently the property owners wanted too much money south of 49th ST so the "L" builders crossed their structure from one side to the other.  At 63rd ST the tracks turned east to go straight to Jackson Park. The street was utilized with permission from the adjoining property owners, rare in Chicago. In Chicago over the street running is confined to the downtown area, the only place where bribing property owners from permission was cheaper than buying expensive land. The Lake Street "L" was an exception. David Harrison |
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