The OTHER End of Track

As a contrast to my posting from a few days back, here is the OTHER end of track. I'm in Northwestern Station, Chicago Illinois. While the western end of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad track in Wyoming was a run down branchline that saw little train action, this end is just the opposite.

Northwestern Station was a busy place! Many dozen commuter trains a day used the facility, hauling thousands of suburban Chicagoans inbound mornings and homeward at night. I wouldn't be surprised if more people rode on the rails in this building in one day than had ridden the Wyoming branch for its entire existence. Until 1971 the station also served long distance intercity trains of the Northwestern, and before 1955 if you boarded a train in Portland for points east you would have ended up here. At the time I took this picture, about 1978, the trains were still privately operated by the Northwestern, using classic equipment from the 1950s. Takeover by the regional transit authority, METRA was a few years away.

The actual end of C&NW tracks was a few feet behind the last car on this train. This was as far as you could go on the system.