Railroad Forums 

Discussion related to commuter rail and rapid transit operations in the Chicago area including the South Shore Line, Metra Rail, and Chicago Transit Authority.

Moderators: metraRI, JamesT4

 #89479  by bill haithcoat
 
I checked a 1957 Offical Railroad Guide and came out, roughly, not exactly, to something ltike this:

Burlington route 18 trains
Milwaukee route 19 trains
Gulf Mobile & Ohio 6 trains
Pennsylvania RR. 9 trains.


This is counting each train as one--not twice as in both in bound and outbound. To add outbound and inbound together would of course double the above numbers. There may have been commuter operations in addition to the above. Never lived there, I do not know Chicago as a resident would.

Other major long distance stations in Chicago, in addition to Union, were Dearborn, Grand Central, Central, La Salle Street and Chicago and Northwestern.
 #89514  by eddiebear
 
The Burlington and Milwaukee had extensive commuter operations which are part of today's METRA network. The Q had the single route to Aurora and the Milwaukee had two routes, one on the line to Omaha that had service as far as Elgin and the other started out on the passenger main to Milwaukee and then branched off to Fox Lake, Illinois and Walworth, Wisconsin. The Q's was by far the larger of the two.
 #89529  by bill haithcoat
 
I am glad Eddie Bear stepped in and helped me out. I would not know much about the commuter business.

Thus, my focus was on long distance trains. You may wonder, Amtrak Fan, why I was not more exact. It is like this-- a lot of trains were combined with other trains for part of their trips, but would be listed twice in the timetalbes...and things would change from season to season and year to year, thus an approximate figure.

The whole passenger trin business was more complex back then. Hope that makes senese.