Happy Third of July!

This is the anniversary of the sudden abandonment of CA&E passenger service in 1957.  When service was cancelled at 12:17PM, thousands of passengers were stranded, mostly in downtown Chicago, and had to find other ways to get home.  We've been re-enacting this event for a long time.

I believe the first time was in 1987, for the 30th anniversary.  At that time, the main line had just reached Seeman Road, giving us a place to "strand" the passengers.  And we had only two operating CA&E cars: the 431, and the partly-restored 309.  I took a couple of slides of the occasion.  In the first picture, the arrow points to Frank, who was five years old.

And since the passing siding wasn't finished yet, as I recall we just had the passengers reboard the cars for the trip back.

Since that time, we've added a passing siding, so the stranded passengers can ride railroad equipment to get home, and there's a platform, of course.   Here's a picture from 2007 for the 50th anniversary:

And since then, we've been documenting the process here.  

Of course, nothing is happening today, but just wait till next year!