Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Trains.


Unless you have yet to venture to the middle of Glen Ellyn, you know we have train service that comes through our town.

The story of the train line in Glen Ellyn is actually quite interesting; but since I have 360 more entries to go with “Our Town,” I will leave that for another day. But regardless, we Glen Ellynites know trains are very much a part of our community. Yes, sometimes they are a pain to deal with, but without them we would likely be wishing they were, in fact, part of our community.

When I lived in one of the northern suburbs, we didn’t have a train line we were accessible to. Yes, there were freight trains, but METRA had yet to see the importance of our growing community. They eventually did. What happened? I moved a few years later to Glen Ellyn.

To write this entry, I needed some help to understand the impact trains have on Glen Ellyn---so I called the Fire Department to see if they potentially had an idea as to how many trains come through each day. Okay, I also called the Village, Police Department and Union Pacific---but the Fire Department had the answer.

I was told, “In an average day we have more than 120 trains travel through our town; there have been some days, where in a 24-hour period we have had up to 180 trains.” Do the math, and I can say, “That’s a lot.” 

I was told, “Union Pacific does try to stagger the trains so the crossings are not down as long as we seem to think they are, but there is little that can be done due to the need for spacing required for other trains.” (Think of O’Hare or Midway on rails and the spacing becomes understandable.) I guess in other words, during a really heavy day, you may want to stay for that extra cup of coffee at Starbuck’s or Einstein’s depending on what side of the track you happen to be on when the gates are down.

By the way, there are some games you can play while you are waiting for the trains to pass by; you can count the number of train cars—by color, size, type, etc, guess how many more trains are left to go, and my favorite---watch the car clock to see if the hour changes or how many minutes have passed until the gate goes up.

No matter what, be happy we have trains; at gas projecting to hit $4.00 per gallon this year, the train is a very economical way to travel. That is unless you are waiting for one to pass through and you run out of gas.

Thanks for stopping by.


1 comment:

  1. In 1848, big debate on path of train thru town.

    The Galena and Chicago Union Railway preferred path was along St Charles Rd from Lombard, until the Wheaton Bros and local Dr Newton had a better idea. They gave away their land IF the railroad would change their mind. They did.

    So in 1849, The Pioneer steam engine came roaring thru downtown. (BTW, this train is currently on display at a Chicago History museum).

    Dr Newton wasn't done. He knew trains needed water, so he built a watering station and ran piping to one of the many springs east of Riford & also built the 1st train station...to force the railroad to stop and pick up freight, all with his own money...when he was done, he named the town after himself!

    Tracks initially followed Crescent Blvd, but every spring would get flooded & trains had trouble making all the tight turns. So they built Taylor St underpass to drain the water (south of the under-pass was all springs and swamp land) & moved the tracks south to their current location.

    5 Corners (then called Stacey's Corners)tried to survive. The business owners created their own city, renaming it "DuPage Center" (since it was strategically located in the center of the county), to continue benifitting from cattle & farming harvest that travelled along St Charles & Geneva roads to Chicago by wagons which took 2 days! Wasn't long before the train took over and 5 Corners slowly faded away & all the businesses followed the tracks to downtown.

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