I'm not a former railroader but my being a model railroader got me on the
first outbound train out of Union Station in the AM after the storm (or at
least I think it was the first outbound).
I had a college buddy who lived in South Chicago Heights. I picked the
night of the storm to go over to his house to play trains and spend the
night. After work on the night of the storm we stopped in a bar downtown
for a libation, then moseyed over to IC Station, blissfully unaware that
anything was amiss. The great crowds of people awaiting departure did not
trigger any alarm bells either (I was twenty and even dumber than I am now,
if you can believe such a thing!)
We finally departed about 8pm on the electric. After running back and forth
trying to find an open route, the train terminated at 211th Street where the
local bar had already run out of any consumables.... word was the only thing
moving was a National Guard 6x6 taking people to the "Midlothian Town Hall".
This did not sound like the Hilton, so we opted to wait for the next inbound
and take our chances downtown. We finally caught a train heading north
about 2am, which arrived in Chicago about 5:30.... After a trudge down the
middle of Randolph and other streets we made it to Union Station.
I don't remember the exact times, but sometime after 6 the first inbound
came in with about five feet of snow on the END of the cabcar. The train
departed on time if I remember about 6:30. The run out to Brookfield was
uneventful and near on time, except for seeing, as Aeolus3 mentions, snow
being loaded onto and into any empty at Western Avenue and Clyde (to be
routed to somewhere warm for self unloading, I guess). We arrived at
Prairie Avenue pretty much on time, the Q not allowing a little snow to
interfere with commerce.
The following days were really wild commutes, with Standing Room Only on
both decks Japanese Style passenger loading. Conductor and Trainmen made
little attempt to lift fares....just getting back on the train after a stop
so they could operate the doors was an accomplishment!
Charlie Vlk
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Aeolus3@a... [mailto:Aeolus3@a...]
> Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 10:35 PM
> To: BRHSlist@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [BRHSlist] Chicago's winter of 1967
>
>
> In a message dated 1/28/02 7:23:53 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> jworones@y... writes:
>
>
> > With all you former railroaders on board here, I thought maybe you
> > could share some of your memories on how the Burlington made it
> > through.
> >
>
> One story that I have heard over the years....... the
> railroads loaded up
> gons and open hoppers to get the snow out of town and headed south.
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
|