The Field Museum of Natural History was connected to the rest of the system by a short segment of tunnel just a few feet below what is now the west parking lot. The tunnel led from the boiler room at the south west corner of the building to an elevator shaft next to the Illinois Central Rail Road (ICRR) yards. The elevator brought cars down about 45 feet to a tunnel that went under the ICRR yards to link up with the rest of the system.
Because it was cheaper to dump coal down to the basement from a truck on the street above, the museum stopped receiving coal via the Chicago Tunnel Company in 1947. The museum did continue to rely on the company to remove ashes and cinders for another ten years. Because of the boiler room produced a significant number of loads per day, a locomotive was permanently assigned to the Field Museum, and it was operated by museum personnel.
By 1957, the financially-strapped Chicago Tunnel Company lost most of its customers near the Field Museum, and it was no longer cost effective to provide freight service for the museum facility. In June, the last shipment of cinders was loaded into a handful of battered ash cars. The cars were coupled together and pushed into a siding near the elevator, and locomotive 508 was uncoupled, and run back near the boiler room.
The railroad was struggling to survive, and it was in no hurry to retrieve the train. In the mean time someone stole machinery and copper wires from the elevator hoist house. This act of vandalism made it uneconomical for the railroad (or the scrappers) to bring the locomotive and cars down to the rest of the tunnel system, so number 508 became one of only two locomotives out of a fleet of 146 to survive scrapping. The stranded little train sat high and dry in the museum tunnel for nearly forty years!
Chicago Tunnel Company locomotive 508 was the first artifact that I encountered after entering the Field Museum tunnel connection. The rusted-out round object on the top is all that remains of the headlight. The grille on the front was to let cool air pass over the resistor grids that were used to control the locomotive's two 15 horsepower electric traction motors. 508 was built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works.
Although existence of the train was not well known to the general public, the Field Museum staff still received a significant number of requests from individuals to gain access to the tunnel to view the equipment. In order to get there, visitors would have to walk down narrow stairs to the boiler room, walk past dangerous machinery, and climb over pipes. Once in the dark tunnel, visitors could fall down the open elevator shaft or get crushed if one of the loaded ash cars collapsed. Although the museum wanted to show off the train, it was forced to deny access to the general public for safety reasons.
About 1984, the museum asked me to build a diorama of the tunnel which showed the boiler room, locomotive, cars, and elevator. In order to build it, I was allowed to go into the tunnel to get photographs and measurements.
I had been in the tunnels under the loop, but this tunnel was much different. It was very dry, dusty, and relatively warm. The museum installed lighting in about the first 75 feet to facilitate inspection and repair of a water main which had been installed in the tunnel. Locomotive 508 was sitting in the lighted area, derailed and pushed against the wall to give room for the water main. It was dirty and rusty, but appeared to be intact and possibly operational (I would have loved going for a ride if only the 250VDC trolley wire was still intact!).
A few feet beyond the locomotive, the tunnel was dark. I walked on, probing the darkness with my flashlight. As I came around the curve, I saw the end of the ash car train ahead near the elevator shaft. The cars sat there coupled together since 1957. They were battered and rickety looking, and still fully loaded with ashes and cinders. My museum guide warned me not to disturb the cars. He feared that the wooden bodies may have rotted enough to cause a car to collapse and spill thousands of pounds of cinders on top of me.
The loaded ash cars stood near the elevator shaft for nearly forty years. The wooden bodies were battered and deteriorated. I suspect that the frames were salvaged from flat cars (note the stake pockets), which were no longer needed when package freight business dried up by the late 1940's.
There were two elevator shafts at the end of the tunnel. The ash cars were sitting on the switch track leading to the south shaft. The south shaft was probably abandoned by the Chicago Tunnel Company long before 1957, and steel beams were bolted across the entrance to keep the cars from rolling over the edge. The elevator cars were gone from both shafts, and my flashlight beam reflected on the water in the tunnels down at the bottom.
This view shows the cars coupled together. Note the deteriorated condition of car 714. Cast lead car numbers were nailed to the wooden car bodies. Chicago Tunnel Company couldn't pay to repair the cars in the last years of service.
It is truly ironic how an act of vandalism lead to the preservation of the tunnel equipment in the Field Museum tunnel. Had the elevator remained operable, the railroad or the scrappers probably would have removed the locomotive, and it would have been made into beer cans or an Edsel. The cars would probably have been left behind because the Chicago Tunnel Company couldn’t pay to have them emptied, and the scrappers wouldn’t bother to empty them to get to the steel frames and trucks.
Epilogue
Tunnel explorer, Phil O'Keefe sits in the motorman's seat of locomotive 508 near the Field Museum of Natural History in 1988. The locomotive was derailed in the 1960s by the museum and pushed against a wall to facilitate installation of the water main on the right. The locomotive and several cars were eventually removed from the tunnel for preservation at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois.
Government bureaucracy created an unfortunate sequence of events which transformed the freight tunnels into an aqueduct in 1992. This event was known as the "Great Flood". The flood waters, the resulting cleanup, and the on-going installation of telecommunications cables have destroyed much of the fragile rail equipment left behind by the Chicago Tunnel Company in 1959. Nevertheless, the freight tunnels continue to intrigue people from all over the world.
Since this site was created, many of you have sent me e-mail messages to thank me for presenting information on this little known part of Chicago. A few people have even sent me accounts of their personal experiences in the tunnels when the railroad was still in operation. Your input is always welcome.
I would like to express my thanks to many of the visitors who have contributed valuable facts, figures, statistics, and photographs to enhance the content of this site. In particular, I would like to thank Bob McQuown of the C&EI Railroad Historical Society for providing a copy of the 1928 Chicago Tunnel Company booklet entitled: What The Freight Tunnels Mean To Chicago. I had no idea that this booklet ever existed, and it is chocked full of all kinds of information about the freight tunnels. I am very excited about this, and I intend to keep expanding this site as time goes by.
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Click on the picture at the left or the button below to take the elevator up to the Railroad Freight House. Here you can purchase the Chicago Tunnel Company Video , that tells the complete story of Chicago's freight tunnels. Also offered are unique collectibles, unavailable anywhere else, such as, Chicago Tunnel Company kerosene railroad lanterns. I am also working on some scale models of Chicago Tunnel Company locomotives and cars which I will sell through this website. |
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This page was built, and is maintained by Phil O'Keefe
Photographs are from the collections of Phil O'Keefe and Bruce Moffat
Do you have any comments or tunnel information that you would like to share?
You can e-mail Phil O'Keefe at: chicagotunnel@ameritech.net
