Halsted station is an "L" station on the CTA Orange Line, located near the intersection of Halsted Street and Archer Avenue in the

Bridgeport Bridgeport is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Connecticut and the fifth-most populous city in New England, with a population of 148,654 in 2020. Located in eastern Fairfield County at the mouth of the Pequonnock River on Long Is ...

neighborhood of Chicago. The station opened in 1993 as part of the extension to Midway Airport. A previous railroad station just to the east opened in 1902 and served the

Metra Metra is the primary commuter rail system in the Chicago metropolitan area serving the city of Chicago and its surrounding suburbs via the Union Pacific Railroad, BNSF Railway, and other railroads. The system operates 243 train station, stati ...

Heritage Corridor The Heritage Corridor (HC) is a Metra commuter rail line in Chicago, Illinois, and its southwestern suburbs, terminating in Joliet, Illinois. While Metra does not refer to its lines by colors, the Heritage Corridor appears on Metra timetables as ...

until 1984.

History

Alton Railroad station

Halsted Street station opened in 1902 on the

Alton Railroad The Alton Railroad was the final name of a railroad linking Chicago to Alton, Illinois; St. Louis, Missouri; and Kansas City, Missouri. Its predecessor, the Chicago and Alton Railroad , was purchased by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1931 an ...

, replacing the 23rd Street station to the east, which was closed due to elevation of the tracks. By 1911, it had three separate island platforms east of Halsted Street serving the lines of the Alton Railroad (now the Joliet Subdivision), the

Illinois Central Railroad The Illinois Central Railroad , sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, is a railroad in the Central United States. Its primary routes connected Chicago, Illinois, with New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama, and thus, ...

(now the

Freeport Subdivision The Freeport Subdivision is a railroad line in Illinois which runs from 16th Street in downtown Chicago to Freeport, Illinois. It is owned and operated by the Canadian National Railway (CN). the line is almost exclusively freight-only, with only a ...

), and the

Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the largest Class 1 railroads in the United States between 1859 and 1996. The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport; at variou ...

(now the

Chillicothe Subdivision The Chillicothe Subdivision or "Chillicothe Sub" (slang "Chilli Sub") is a railway line running about from Chicago, Illinois, to Fort Madison, Iowa, in the United States. It is operated by BNSF Railway as part of their Southern Transcon route ...

). Each platform had a separate set of stairs from Halsted Street; the station building was located on the Alton Railroad platform. The station was served by Illinois Central West Line commuter trains until they were discontinued in 1931. The Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) began subsidizing remaining commuter service in 1974, including the Alton Railroad service as the

. The RTA closed the station on May 15, 1984, along with neighboring and eleven other stations in the system, due to low ridership.

"L" station

Construction of the $410 million Midway Line began in 1987. The line largely used existing railroad rights-of-way, including the Joliet Subdivision though the Bridgeport neighborhood. It opened as the Orange Line on October 31, 1993. The new Halsted station is located west of the Halsted Street overpass. Like all stations on the line, it was built with an elevator for accessibility.

References

External links

CTA – Halsted
Bridgeport, Chicago CTA Orange Line stations Railway stations in the United States opened in 1993 {{Illinois-railstation-stub