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| Railfanning CTA Brown Line (927842) | |||
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Railfanning CTA Brown Line |
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Posted by ChicagoPCCLCars on Sun Apr 25 14:25:47 2010 The Brown Line of the Chicago Transit Authority has always been a railfan favorite...its preceived as "safe", has direct access to the Loop, and winds it way through real interesting neighborhoods. An added bonus is the outer mile and a half....on the ground with six grade crossings.Many Chicago "L"s were extended at the outer ends by building the tracks on the ground...much cheaper than steel structure. Several lines had streteches of three track structure, sort of a poor mans' storage yard. A NB Brown line train roars on the three track stretch closing in on the Western AV station, end of the steel structure when the line opened in 1907.  As soon as the line opened, the surface extension was started and Kimball Av was reached in seven months. The extension went through vacant land all the way, except for a crossing of a branch of the Chicago River. The land owners financed much of the extension, and the vacant tracts were soon city blocks of bungalows and apartment buildings. The "L" right of way could be described as close...really close, as these two photos at Rockwell station show.   In between the stations, the "L" line was basically sandwiched in the middle of two alleyways. Three in-line stations are on busier cross streets where the alleyway turns to parallel the busier street alowing buildings to come right up to the "L" property line.  My favorite station/grade crossing is Francisco AV....apartment buildings right up to the tracks, 100 foot high trees, and no, the trains don't blow for the crossings, although a short warning toot might be heard.   This photo was posted on SubChat in a set last Friday (4/23/10) and shows for one thing how "L" trains move through grade crossings...they coast through. http://www.subchat.com/read.asp?Id=926854  David Harrison |
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