My friend and noted train fetishist Jim Ellwanger recently brought to my attention the website http://www.chicago-l.org/, which is, as it says on the front page, Your Chicago Rapid Transit Internet Resource!

Within this site is an almost frighteningly complete and detailed history of Chicago’s rail transit system, known to some as the “el”, and to others who are clearly smarter as the “L”. I have been an avid “L” rider for the past few years, and I am sincerely interested in learning about this subject. Already I have spent many hours curiously combing through the site’s artifacts, looking at pictures of old cars that are no longer in service, reading about stations that have long since been abandoned and demolished, and looking at maps of the crazy twists and turns a railroad track can go through while wending its way from one end of the city to the other.

Why, did you know that the Yellow (Skokie Swift) Line, which is now an express train running between two stations only, used to have several stations along its route? Did you know that on the Purple (Evanston) Line, there was once a station called Calvary next to the large cemetery just north of Howard? And that that station was abandoned and left boarded up for the better part of a century before it was finally demolished just a little while ago? It’s all true!

Did you know the north branch of the Red Line used to be connected to the south branch of the Green Line, and that the west branch of the Green Line used to be affixed to the south branch of the Red Line? And they didn’t even change that until the early nineties! Of course, this was before they named the lines for colors, so they had no idea the trains were mismatched!

Why, with all this exciting transit history to learn, I can almost understand train fanaticism!

I said almost, Jim.