Skokie Shops
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Skokie Shops is a heavy maintenance facility for the
Chicago "L" The Chicago "L" (short for "elevated railway, elevated") is the rapid transit system serving the city of Chicago and some of its surrounding suburbs in the U.S. state of Illinois. Operated by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), it is the four ...
system, operated by the
Chicago Transit Authority The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) is the operator of public transport, mass transit in Chicago, Illinois, United States, and some of its suburbs, including the trains of the Chicago "L" and List of Chicago Transit Authority bus routes, CTA bu ...
and located in
Skokie, Illinois Skokie (; formerly Niles Center) is a Village (United States), village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. According to the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, its population was 67,824. Skokie lies approximately north of Chicago's dow ...
. The Skokie Shops are equipped to perform comprehensive inspection, servicing, and rebuilding for the CTA's fleet of railcars. The shops opened in 1926 along the
Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad The Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad (reporting mark CNSM), also known as the North Shore Line, was an interurban railroad that operated passenger train, passenger and freight train, freight service over an route between the Chicag ...
's Skokie Valley Route, part of which also had local service provided by the
Chicago Rapid Transit Company The Chicago Rapid Transit Company (CRT) was a privately owned firm providing rapid transit rail service in Chicago, Illinois, and several adjacent communities between 1924 and 1947. The CRT is one of the predecessors of the Chicago Transit Aut ...
. The CRT used the Skokie Shops to maintain its fleet for the Chicago "L", and the CTA (its successor) continued to use the shops after "L" service to Skokie ended in 1948. The shops are connected to the "L" system by the present-day Yellow Line, which began operation in 1964.


Services

The Skokie Shops are the CTA's main heavy maintenance facility for "L" trains used in revenue (passenger-carrying) service. The shops employ a staff of skilled tradespeople, including electricians, carpenters, machinists, and blacksmiths. The Skokie Shops are equipped to perform comprehensive heavy maintenance on "L" trains, including collision repairs and mid-life overhauls. The shops feature heavy machinery for removing, inspecting, pressing, and truing
train wheels A train wheel or rail wheel is a type of wheel specially designed for use on Track (rail transport), railway tracks. The wheel acts as a rolling component, typically press fitted on to an axle and mounted directly on a Railroad car, railway ca ...
. The CTA Holiday Train is decorated and assembled at the Skokie Shops. The Holiday Train features a custom-built
sleigh A sled, skid, sledge, or sleigh is a land vehicle that slides across a surface, usually of ice or snow. It is built with either a smooth underside or a separate body supported by two or more smooth, relatively narrow, longitudinal runners ...
for
Santa Claus Santa Claus (also known as Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle or Santa) is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring gifts during the late evening and overnight hours on Chris ...
, which rides on a
flatcar A flatcar (US) (also flat car, or flatbed) is a piece of rolling stock that consists of an open, flat deck mounted on trucks (US) or bogies (UK) at each end. Occasionally, flat cars designed to carry extra heavy or extra large loads are mounted ...
in the middle of the train as it travels around the "L" system. Preparation work for the train takes approximately three months, supported by Skokie Shops staff and CTA employee volunteers.


History

The Skokie Shops were built in the mid-1920s, as part of a partnership between the
Chicago Rapid Transit Company The Chicago Rapid Transit Company (CRT) was a privately owned firm providing rapid transit rail service in Chicago, Illinois, and several adjacent communities between 1924 and 1947. The CRT is one of the predecessors of the Chicago Transit Aut ...
and the Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad. Both the CRT and the CNS&M were partially controlled by businessman
Samuel Insull Samuel Insull (November 11, 1859 – July 16, 1938) was a British American business magnate. He was an innovator and investor based in Chicago who helped create an integrated electrical infrastructure in the United States. Insull created hold ...
, who led the consolidation of the entire Chicago "L" system in the early 1920s, and who also invested in utilities and property development throughout the region. The CRT began operating local passenger service over the CNS&M's newly constructed Skokie Valley Route in 1925. Service operated between Dempster Street station and Howard Street station, with 7 intermediate stops. The CRT opened the Skokie Shops shortly afterwards to service its fleet of cars, supplementing its facilities elsewhere in the "L" system. The CNS&M operated
interurban The interurban (or radial railway in Canada) is a type of electric railway, with tram-like electric self-propelled railcars which run within and between cities or towns. The term "interurban" is usually used in North America, with other terms u ...
service from Chicago to Milwaukee, and used the Skokie Valley Route as a high-speed bypass of its congested main line through downtown Evanston. During the early years of interurban service on the Skokie Valley Route, the Skokie Shops also serviced CNS&M cars. The
Chicago Transit Authority The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) is the operator of public transport, mass transit in Chicago, Illinois, United States, and some of its suburbs, including the trains of the Chicago "L" and List of Chicago Transit Authority bus routes, CTA bu ...
took over the operation of the "L" system from the CRT in 1947, and discontinued the local service on the Skokie Valley Route in 1948. The CTA retained the rights to use the tracks to access the shops. In the early 1950s, the CTA consolidated more of its maintenance services at the Skokie Shops, reassigning skilled craftspeople employed at its other railyards to Skokie. The CNS&M ceased service in January 1963, and abandoned its rail lines. As a result, the CTA was forced to purchase of track from the CNS&M to retain access its access to the Skokie Shops. Passenger service over the Skokie Valley Route resumed in April 1964 as a demonstration project, supported by federal funding. The service was marketed as the Skokie Swift, and operated nonstop from Dempster Street to Howard Street. The staff of the Skokie Shops developed an automatic
pantograph A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a Linkage (mechanical), mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a se ...
control system to replace the manually operated trolley poles on previous rolling stock, which enabled
one-person operation One-person operation (OPO), also known as driver-only operation (DOO), one-man operation (OMO), single person train operation (SPTO), or one-person train operation (OPTO), similarly to driver-controlled operation, is operation of a train, bus, ...
on the Skokie Swift. The service exceeded expectations and was made a permanent part of the "L" system. During a systemwide reorganization in the early 1990s, the Skokie Swift was renamed the Yellow Line. The Skokie Shops were extensively remodeled in the late 1990s, as part of a larger program of improvements to the Skokie Swift service. The remodeling of the Skokie Shops included the demolition of the oldest buildings in the complex. In 2003, the Skokie Shops employed a staff of approximately 350. The Skokie Shops were cut off from the rest of the "L" network from May to October 2015. An embankment collapsed at a Metropolitan Water Reclamation District facility east of the shops, damaging the Yellow Line tracks. Yellow Line service was suspended, but the shops remained operational, continuing their acceptance inspections of new 5000-series cars and overhaul work on 3200-series cars. During the track closure, "L" cars were trucked from Skokie to the Lower 63rd Yard, the only other CTA facility equipped to transfer railcars to trucks.


References


External links

* Chicago "L" yards {{Chicago L