Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

THE UNDERGROUND FREIGHT RAILWAYS OF CHICAGO. This Article describes how the City of Chicago has relieved its Street Traffic by the construction of Subterranean Railways for carrying Goods and Mails. HILE London, New York, and other large cities have been busy build- ing and extending their subter- ranean railway tracks to accommodate the ever-increasing travelling public, Chicago lias been quietly constructing an underground railway for the express purpose of carrying its freight. On this unique system not a. single passenger is transported—only goods and mails. Far below the surface of the street electric locomotives are busy day and night hauling thousands of tons of merchandise, mails, coal, ashes, garbage, and debris, without noise, without dirt, doing the work well and expeditiously. When it is stated that there are now some 60 miles of track in operation, covering the whole of the business district of the city and the greater portion of the principal residential quarter, it will be under- stood that this is no ordinary railway enter- prise, but one designed to meet some special need, and for that reason it is well worthy of notice. Chicago, owing to its topographical forma-