Hypothetical Chicagoland Transit Question - Interurbans

[curiousgent31385]

I had a hypothetical question about transit in the Chicagoland area.

What if the interurbans from the early 1900's didn't cease to exist and continued to provide service to this day. Would they have been absorbed by Metra as additional commuter lines? Or would they instead be managed by a separate agency/Service Board? I couldn't imagine they'd continue to be operated by private companies.

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/648.html

I'm specifically talking about these interurbans (here's a map of them).

• Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee Ry.
• Chicago, Aurora & Elgin Ry.
• Chicago & Joliet Electric Co.
• Chicago Interurban & Traction Co.
• Joliet & Eastern Traction Co.
• Joliet, Plainfield & Aurora RR.
• Aurora, Elgin and Fox River Electric Co.

[artthouwill]

1 hour ago, curiousgent31385 said:

I had a hypothetical question about transit in the Chicagoland area.

What if the interurbans from the early 1900's didn't cease to exist and continued to provide service to this day. Would they have been absorbed by Metra as additional commuter lines? Or would they instead be managed by a separate agency/Service Board? I couldn't imagine they'd continue to be operated by private companies.

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/648.html

I'm specifically talking about these interurbans (here's a map of them).

• Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee Ry.
• Chicago, Aurora & Elgin Ry.
• Chicago & Joliet Electric Co.
• Chicago Interurban & Traction Co.
• Joliet & Eastern Traction Co.
• Joliet, Plainfield & Aurora RR.
• Aurora, Elgin and Fox River Electric Co.

I would suppose that some of these would have merged or been eliminated .  The parent railroads probably would have abandoned the commuter routes and if the commuter routes survived would be under the Metra system.  The

In the case of the case of the Chicago  North Shore and Milwaukee, that could be tricky.  If the RR were still in existence,  maybe Metra subsidizes the Illinois portion with Wisconsin subsidizing the Wisconsin portion. I don't know how travel between the two areas would work.   Add to that the fact that these trains ran on the L system complicates matters.  Perhaps the fact that there are multiple commuter lines along the corridor, what we have now in the Skokie Swift ( Yellow Line) would still be the end result.

[Busjack]

3 hours ago, curiousgent31385 said:

I had a hypothetical question about transit in the Chicagoland area.

What if the interurbans from the early 1900's didn't cease to exist and continued to provide service to this day. Would they have been absorbed by Metra as additional commuter lines? Or would they instead be managed by a separate agency/Service Board? I couldn't imagine they'd continue to be operated by private companies.

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/648.html

I'm specifically talking about these interurbans (here's a map of them).

• Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee Ry.
• Chicago, Aurora & Elgin Ry.
• Chicago & Joliet Electric Co.
• Chicago Interurban & Traction Co.
• Joliet & Eastern Traction Co.
• Joliet, Plainfield & Aurora RR.
• Aurora, Elgin and Fox River Electric Co.

chicago-l.org and other sources note plans for CTA to take over the North Shore Line, but it (except for the Skokie Swift) was deemed infeasible. While CTA was supposed to be a metropolitan transit authority, and also studied taking over west suburban bus companies, Krambles's book, in somewhat contradictory terms, said that the bond covenants when CTA took over the Chicago L and surface companies required that any further acquisitions provide a certain rate of return, which those bus companies could not do, even though West Towns survived into the  1970s. So, CTA wasn't going to acquire anything.

The two main impediments to Metra acquiring anything were (1) other than the Skokie Valley Line and maybe the CA&E, the interurbans were essentially streetcar lines, and Metra doesn't do that,* and (2) the North Shore and CA&E were mostly parallel to Metra (C&NW) lines.

In effect, Pace took over whatever traffic remained.

_____________________________

*Unlike the interurbans, Metra didn't run the feeder buses.

2 hours ago, artthouwill said:

If the RR were still in existence,  maybe Metra subsidizes the Illinois portion with Wisconsin subsidizing the Wisconsin portion. I don't know how travel between the two areas would work

Aside from the UP-N to Kenosha, there was the proposal to extend Metra to Milwaukee or start a service between Milwaukee and Kenosha, but nothing happened.

[cplanner13]

42 minutes ago, Busjack said:

Krambles's book, in somewhat contradictory terms, said that the bond covenants when CTA took over the Chicago L and surface companies required that any further acquisitions provide a certain rate of return, which those bus companies could not do, even though West Towns survived into the  1970s. So, CTA wasn't going to acquire anything.

What is this book you are referring to?

[EdwardL803]

Weren't some of the interurbans in direct competition with the railroads? I'm pretty sure sections of the CA&E ran alongside today's UP-W line and a good portion of the North Shore Line was parallel with today's UP-N line. 

I would think the railroad companies would've bought out those parts of the interurban systems.

[Busjack]

On 2/1/2023 at 5:22 PM, EdwardL803 said:

Weren't some of the interurbans in direct competition with the railroads? I'm pretty sure sections of the CA&E ran alongside today's UP-W line and a good portion of the North Shore Line was parallel with today's UP-N line. 

I would think the railroad companies would've bought out those parts of the interurban systems.

That's what I said above, except they would and did let them go out of business.

Edited February 3, 2023 by Busjack

[Busjack]

2 hours ago, cplanner13 said:

What is this book you are referring to?

CTA at 45.

[Busjack]

Later reading the report on chicago-l.org reinforced the following points:

• On @artthouwill's point on what about Wisconsin, the report said that there was not enough ridership in Wisconsin in 1958 to even consider it.
• There was a discussion of bus substitution, which reinforces my Pace point.
• Mentioned was that some other agency would have to undertake the capital improvements, which predated the RTA by 16 years.
• Ridership other than rush hour was so low that they proposed essentially the same type of service that was in Evanston through at least the 70s, with a single car in the off hours. It's one thing to do it for 4 miles in Evanston; another to do it for maybe 40 miles between Roosevelt Road and Waukegan.

[trainman8119]

On 2/1/2023 at 4:33 PM, Busjack said:

 

Aside from the UP-N to Kenosha, there was the proposal to extend Metra to Milwaukee or start a service between Milwaukee and Kenosha, but nothing happened.

Actually what became know as the Amtrak Hiawatha Service being created is what happened.

[Busjack]

13 hours ago, trainman8119 said:

Actually what became know as the Amtrak Hiawatha Service being created is what happened.

No, that was there from pre-Amtrak times; only thing new is that the Midwest consortium bought the Chargers, supposedly to make it high speed (although I don't know how that's possible south of Gurnee). I was referring to the KRM proposal on the UP, which was proposed when the Marquette (I-94, I-794) Interchange was being rebuilt, was killed in 2011, but, according to US DOT, has been revived as a New Start.

[artthouwill]

3 hours ago, Busjack said:

No, that was there from pre-Amtrak times; only thing new is that the Midwest consortium bought the Chargers, supposedly to make it high speed (although I don't know how that's possible south of Gurnee). I was referring to the KRM proposal on the UP, which was proposed when the Marquette (I-94, I-794) Interchange was being rebuilt, was killed in 2011, but, according to US DOT, has been revived as a New Start.

At this point, the proposal seems to indicate that WisDOT is building its own line from Kenosha to Milwaukee with a connection to the UP-N at Kenosha.  I could be wrong,  but that seems to be different than previous proposals for UP-N,  or really CNW to operate a thru service connecting Chicago and Milwaukee ( especially pre- Amtrak).

On the Wisconsin side, whatever commuter bus service is left that operates between Kenosha, Racine. and Milwaukee may be eliminated.  Wisconsin Coach Lines/ Coach USA Wisconsin  operates or operated many commuter routes from many Milwaukee area suburbs ( mainly PNRs) to downtown Milwaukee.   They also still operate service from O'Hare to Kenosha, Milwaukee Gen Mitchell Airport,  downtown Milwaukee Intermodal and Marquette University.

[Busjack]

2 hours ago, artthouwill said:

At this point, the proposal seems to indicate that WisDOT is building its own line from Kenosha to Milwaukee with a connection to the UP-N at Kenosha.  I could be wrong,  but that seems to be different than previous proposals for UP-N,  or really CNW to operate a thru service connecting Chicago and Milwaukee ( especially pre- Amtrak).

The 2006 report (at page 61 of the pdf) outlined 2 alternatives. with the UP being the only feasible route: (1) a Wisconsin only service, probably with DMUs and a transfer point with Metra in Kenosha (although an extension to Waukegan as a transfer point was also mentioned), and (2) a Metra through service. This one is the former, with hydrogen power (with the recent train wreck in Ohio, good luck with that).