On July 3rd, 1957, the CA&E abandoned passenger service without warning shortly after noon, stranding thousands of commuters in Chicago. As we have for more than twenty years, IRM will be holding an authentic re-enactment of this event on Friday, July 3rd, 2009. CA&E cars 308 and 309 will be operating until noon, when passenger service will be suspended, stranding passengers at Seeman Road. They will then have to take the next Diesel coach train to get home. Don't be taken in by imitations. Visit IRM this Friday! (Photo by Dave Mewhinney from 2007)
Update: I dug out a couple of slides of the re-enactment on July 3, 1987. I believe this was the first. The arrow (R) points to Frank, who's standing there with my aunt and uncle and cousin and so on.Another Update: From the Chicago Trib, "Whatever Happened to the CA&E?"
Curiously enough, the photo of the 309 that was used in the printed Tribune article was an old picture showing the 309 and 321 when the latter was still painted blue! I found the photo here - in the "old" photos section of the IRM website. Obviously someone from the Trib just clicked on the "Photo album" link from the IRM homepage and ended up with a grainy shot from 1998!
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