When I was in high school in Downers Grove in the early 1960's (it was
simply DG High School then, not DG North HS!), the population of
Downers Grove was about 25,000 while Naperville was just a small burg
at around 14,000 people. Now, Naperville is way over 100,000 people and
Downers, which ran out of land to annex, is somewhat smaller. I have
photos that I took of Q trains in the late 1950's or early 1960's at
River Road, at that time west of Naperville. It was a country crossing.
There wasn't a house or business to be seen. Now, it is built up all
around there. Even the configuration of some of the roads has been
changed. Route 59, just west of River Road, is a state highway, which
was wide open in those days. Now, it is lined with fast food
restaurants and other businesses and the traffic is bumper to bumper.
In addition, there are now huge commuter parking lots on either side of
the Q main line at the new station and there are homes everywhere to
support the commuter business.
All of this change is why I would never live there again. It is just
not the way I remember it as a kid. As Thomas Wolfe wrote, "you can
never go home again".
As for the delay in adding cab cars to the commuter trains, when the
first gallery cars were delivered in 1949 or '50, nobody had ever
thought about a cab at each end of a commuter train. The cars weren't
built with m.u. control cables running their length. I believe that
C&NW developed the first cab cars for commuter trains, probably around
the late 1950s or early 1960s. Q recognized their value and followed
with their version in 1965. For the Q, it provided a number of
operational savings, not the least of which was the "per car" charge in
CUS. As I understand it, if a non cab car train went in to the station
and was then pulled out to be turned around and then re entered the
station for it's next run, the railroad was charged based on each
entry. By having the crew walk to the other end of the train and depart
on the next run without turning the train around, the Q saved half of
the car charges.
Bill Barber
On Thursday, August 4, 2005, at 07:01 AM, CBQ@yahoogroups.com wrote:
> Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2005 19:50:35 -0700 (PDT)
> From: James Becker <jimdandyaussies@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: Commuter questions.
>
> The Q didn't buy any cab cars until the mid-60's. 1965 I think is the
> first cab car purchase.
>
> Also the suburban sprawl of today has more or less happened in the
> last 30 years or so. Look at pictures of Naperville curve in the late
> 1950's and early 60's.....There is a CB&Q publicity photo of people on
> horseback watching the Denver Zephyr pass and I think it says that it
> is either Lisle of Naperville. Things sure have changed!
>
> The Q could get by with one and two car trains simply because there
> wasn't that much population outside of the closer in more established
> suburbs such as Brookfield, Cicero, etc. Even with CUS charging a fee
> per car if the ridership was present the Burlington would have had the
> extra equipment to handle it.
>
> Jim
>
> Jim Becker
> Mokena, IL
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
<font face=arial size=-1><a
href="http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=12huo489b/M=362131.6882500.7825259.1493532/D=groups/S=1706043004:TM/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1123191280/A=2889190/R=0/SIG=10r90krvo/*http://www.thebeehive.org
">Put more honey in your pocket. (money matters made easy) Welcome to the Sweet
Life - brought to you by One Economy</a>.</font>
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CBQ/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
CBQ-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
|