Is there any way I can get down in the tunnels?
Since the 1970s, the city has been granting tunnel access to telecommunications firms and utilities, but rarely to common citizens. Surprisingly, the city now seems to be more receptive towards letting non-commercial visitors into the tunnel system!
Because the City of Chicago is responsible for the upkeep of the tunnels, all persons and businesses must gain official permission from Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) before going forty feet below. [Note: Funny thing is, the last train ran in the tunnels in 1959, yet, the tunnels are controlled by a "Transportation" department!] The CDOT can be contacted at the following address:
Chicago Department of Transportation
121 North LaSalle Street
Chicago, Illinois 60602 USA
If the CDOT responds to your inquiry, expect to receive about 17 pages of forms and releases which must be filled out for consideration. The CDOT also requires proof of insurance (what ever that means), and an "administration fee" of $50 per person if entry is granted. One of my website visitors actually received the forms from CDOT, but he got bogged-down in the requirements and abandoned his efforts to gain entry. Talk about red tape!
Did the Museum of Science and Industry use part of the freight tunnels for their coal mine exhibit?
No. The freight tunnel system never reached that far south. The museum's coal mine exhibit includes a ride on a 30-inch gauge mine train which consists of a battery powered "electric mule" (locomotive) with two four-wheeled passenger cars. The train runs in a loop through a small tunnel made up to look like a coal mine. As the train plunges through the dark, the cars rattle, the locomotive grinds, and the gong clangs. It is probably about the best way to experience how it actually felt to ride a train through the freight tunnels. Visitors to the museum can find the coal mine exhibit in the main rotunda of the building. It's worth the wait in the long lines!
Do you know where I can get a copy of Bruce Moffat's book Forty Feet Below?
This great book has been out of print for many years and it is now a collectors' item. A few years ago, I managed to find about a dozen copies of the book, and I used to sell them on my website. Unfortunately, they were all sold out by the end of 1998. But, there is good news! Bruce is currently working on a new, expanded edition of his book and he hopes to publish it sometime in 2001. Keep watching this website for more information.
I think that my grandfather worked in the tunnels in the early 1900s. Do you know how I can find out if he really did work down there and what his job function was?
To the best of my knowledge, the employee records from the Illinois Tunnel Company and the Chicago Tunnel Company no longer exist. They were probably destroyed after the system was abandoned in 1959. Since the Chicago Tunnel Company was a common-carrier railroad, its employees were probably vested by the US Railroad Retirement Board like their brothers on the full-sized railroads up on the surface. As such, there may be some records for a particular employee in their archives.
While exploring, did you see rats and bugs down there?
When the tunnels were in operation, they were connected to many buildings and there may have been a significant vermin and insect infestation. After abandonment, most connections were closed off, and there was no food present, so the tunnels became completely devoid of macroscopic life.
Why were the tunnels under State Street and Dearborn Street demolished to make room for the rapid transit subways? Didn't the Tunnel Company have any say so in the matter?
The Chicago Tunnel Company owned only the locomotives, rolling stock, track, and overhead wire. The City of Chicago owned the tunnels. Because of this, the Tunnel Company didn't have much choice but to give up their most profitable trackage when subway construction was started by the city. You can't fight City Hall!
When the State Street and Dearborn Street rapid transit subways were built, how did the tunnel trains get from one side to the other?
Since the subway tunnels were built at the same level as the freight tunnels, the city had to built some underpasses. These underpasses connected up with the original freight tunnel route on either side. The underpasses for the Dearborn subway (built in the twilight years of the Chicago Tunnel Co.) have crudely formed concrete and the rails were laid on wooden crossties. I was walking through one of these underpasses and I could hear the subway trains roaring only a few feet above my head!
Can the CTA use the abandoned freight tunnels to run their subway trains in?
No. The freight tunnels are only about 6 feet wide and 7 feet high. They are just a little larger than one of the doors in your house! CTA rapid transit cars require tunnels about 10 to 15 feet in diameter for each track.
Are there a lot of cracks in the tunnel walls?
Surprisingly no. I say this, because the walls are not reinforced concrete. For the most part, they look just as good today as they did eighty years ago. Occasionally, we came across some gashes in the wall where trains had derailed.
How long were typical tunnel trains?
Trains had anywhere from one car to fifteen cars. Since only the locomotives had brakes, it must have been very challenging to control a train of more than a few cars.
How fast did the trains go?
I really don’t know for sure, but probably not more than twenty miles per hour. Even at a slow speed like that, it probably was quite a ride through the darkness with the squealing wheels, rattling cars, sparking trolley pole, grinding gears, and humming motors. You can get a good idea about how it must have been by watching the vintage silent movie footage of trains in action in the Chicago Tunnel Video. This video is for sale through the Railroad Freight House.
The tunnels didn’t seem too safe. Was there a lot of accidents down there?
By today’s standards, the freight tunnels were extremely dangerous and employees had to contend with some very unpleasant working conditions. Nevertheless, there really didn’t seem to have been many major injuries and there were few fatalities. The Chicago Tunnel Company was quite proud of its safety record, and provided safety training for its employees. It payed off because, most of the employees worked down there from the early days right up until abandonment in March, 1959!
When they dug the tunnels, where did all of the excavations go? Also, what did they do with all of the cinders from the heating boilers?
Most of the clay dug out during tunnel construction was brought to the surface and dumped into Lake Michigan to from Grant Park via incline tracks leading from the Michigan Avenue tunnel to the surface. Also, the Chicago Tunnel Company had two foot gauge surface tracks which started at the Field Museum (13th Street) and ran south to 31st Street along the lake front. Cars were brought to the surface using the Field Museum elevator, and small steam locomotives (and later gasoline and electric locomotives) pushed the cars down the line for unloading into the lake. McCormick Place, Soldier Field, and the Field Museum were built on top of these tunnel excavations! Cinders from building heating boilers were loaded in ash cars and run over to the Grand Avenue disposal station. Here they were raised to the surface with two elevators, and unloaded into barges moored in the Chicago River. The barges were towed 16 miles out into Lake Michigan and the cinders were dumped. No one thought of pollution hazards in the early days! In later years, the cinders were loaded into standard gauge steam railway cars for dumping on land.
One of the two Morgan third rail locomotives is pushing some differential dump cars up the incline at Michigan Avenue and Congress Street to dump tunnel excavations into Lake Michigan to form what is now Grant Park. This picture was probably taken around 1907. The Grant Park underground parking garage is now where this picture was taken. The structure in the upper left was a covered bridge over the Illinois Central R.R. main line which ran along side Michigan Avenue.
Where did the tunnel trains get their power from?
Commonwealth Edison supplied the electricity and the Chicago Tunnel Company maintained four substations to convert the electricity to 250 volts direct current for powering the trains, elevators, and lights. Like streetcars on the surface, the trolley wire was positive and the rail was the negative ground. Because the energized trolley wire was only about six and a half feet above the rails, special care had to be taken to avoid electrocution. This was especially critical while sitting on a metal locomotive, standing in a metal car, or standing in a puddle of water. Some buildings built special wooden guards around the trolley wire in their basements to help workers avoid electrocution while loading and unloading cars.
This early postcard view shows a test train passing through an intersection on third rail cog tracks. The one foot gauge track in the right foreground was used during construction to remove clay excavations with small mine cars. A brass plaque in the center of the photograph reads: "Illinois Telephone and Telegraph Co., By Illinois Telephone Construction Co., J. B. Russel & Co. Fiscal Agts., A.D. 1902, Albert G. Wheeler, Pres., Geo. W. Jackson, Genl. Mgr. & Engr., Alfred Slade, Asst. Engr." These plaques were placed throughout the system, and some remained into the 1980's. The device mounted to the ceiling above the plaque is a set of knife switches and fuses for power to the electrified third rail cog and the lights. (Thanks to Walter Fabian for this photo.)
How did the trains get into building basements?
There were basically two ways: via direct access if the basement was deep enough, or via elevator if the basement was at a higher level. The latter method brought one car up at a time. The elevators were owned and operated by the Chicago Tunnel Company. Sometimes, the elevators didn't stop at the basement level. Warehouse buildings and railroad freight houses had tracks in the floor at ground level, and in some cases, on the floors above. Tunnel cars were moved around in these facilities with rubber tired electric tractors.
This photo was taken on one of the upper floors of a warehouse in 1928. The rubber tired electric tractor is hooked up to a train of flat cars loaded with packages. These tractors were battery operated and operated much like modern fork lift trucks but without the forks. The tractor does not have a coupler, and it may have pulled the cars with a chain.
Do you think that someone will ever restore part of the tunnels for a tourist attraction?
No. As I said above, the tunnels were very dangerous when they were in service. The system existed in an era when mega lawsuits were unheard-of, and people took their chances when they went off to work because there were few safety regulations. Even if someone decided to bankroll an effort to restore part of the system, it would have to be drastically altered to make it safe for public conveyance.
Were the Chicago freight tunnels ever featured in any motion pictures?
Yes, a few. There were two movies that I know of: The Relic and The Blues Brothers. In the latter movie, the Blues Brothers escaped from police at a theater in Milwaukee and ended up in the freight tunnels. Go figure! The tunnels have also appeared on some television shows including Al Capone's Vault and WTTW's Wild Chicago. One visitor to my site said he had seen a movie made in the late 1940's or early 1950's entitled Union Station, which involved a kidnapping from a train that arrived at Union Station. The victim was hidden in the tunnels until the ransom was delivered.
Would you be willing to sell the Chicago Tunnel Company Police badge pictured on your website? If not, where could I buy one?
My badge is not for sale. Bruce Moffat has two in his collection, and one of my website visitors has one in his. I don't think they would be willing to sell theirs either. I found mine at a police supply store that used to sell antique police badges to collectors. Once I saw one of the Chicago Tunnel badges at a railroadiana collectors' show in Chicago. It had a price tag of $450.00 on it! Even though I am eager to collect Chicago Tunnel Company memoribilia, I had to pass on this opportunity. Your best bet is to check out antique stores, or just be in the right place at the right time. If you do find one, contact me and let me know what number is on it!
If the freight tunnels were always so unprofitable, why were they ever built in the first place?
The freight tunnels were conceived and built during the great electric railway building boom which occurred between the early 1890's and the early 1920's. At the start of the boom, electric railway technology was considered a marvel much like the internet and personal computers are today. More often than not, eager investors built electric railways all over the country with poor planning and a lot of wishful thinking. Many trolley lines were built from nowhere to nowhere, in the hope that they would develop the communities they served. The Illinois Tunnel Company was no exception to this philosophy, because 60 miles of tunnels were built in the hope that customers would connect to them. Most of these customers never materialized, and the company limped along with the few that it did manage to attract.
Although the freight tunnel concept superficially appears to be a great idea, it really was not. This is because of the inefficiencies of the system. For example, cars had to be loaded with freight at a railroad freight station on the surface. Each car would be lowered to the tunnel by elevator. The train was assembled and run over to another elevator. The train would be broken up, and each car was raised to the surface one by one to the final destination at a warehouse on the surface. The cars would then be unloaded. It would just be easier to load up a wagon or motor truck on the surface and drive it over to the final destination!
Things were even more inefficient when you consider coal shipments. Cars were loaded underground from an overhead coal chute. They were run to the basement boiler room and unloaded. The coal would then be conveyed up to a bunker. Think of how easy it was to just load up a truck with coal, drive it over to a hatch in the side of a building, and unload the coal directly from the truck into the bunker! Think how much easier it was to just burn natural gas!
In reality the system was very labor intensive, slow, and inefficient. It is really a wonder that the tunnels held on for over fifty years.
Do you know which building was the last to be connected to the tunnel system?
Yes. It was the Prudential Building which was completed in 1956. This modern skyscraper is located at Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street. It is rumored that the building's management wanted to have the option to burn coal to heat the building. The tunnel was supposedly connected to the building to facilitate ash removal from the boiler room. It was never used.
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