The Chicago Elevated Railway is known as "The L" which is short for "elevated." The system is a rapid transit system similar to the subway in New York or the Underground in London. It serves commuters at 144 stations, making it the second largest rapid transit network in the U.S after New York's subway. When it was originally constructed, the L rail system was completely elevated, hence the name. Today, however, the system is a mixture of elevated, overground and underground tracks.
The L dates back to 1869 when the city saw the first attempts and designs to create an elevated rail system. The L didn't open until 1892, however, when the South Side Rapid Transit took passengers for the first time from a station at Congress Street to 39th Street, 3.6 miles away. By 1900 four more lines had opened, including the Lake Street line, Metropolitan West Side line, the Union Loop, and the Northwestern line. At first steam-powered locomotives were used to transport passengers, but these were replaced within a year by electric-powered trains.
In 1919 the North Shore and Milwaukee lines, which belonged to an electricity magnate called Samuel Insull, were linked into the Union Loop line via the Northwestern line. At this time passengers could now take a train from the center of Chicago all the way to Milwaukee. Five years later, Insull incorporated the companies that ran the lines into a single company called the Chicago Rapid Transit Company, or CRT.
In 1937, Chicago's request for government loans to build a subway system were approved and work commenced the following year. The subway was designed to work in unison with the elevated Union Loop line, which was seeing an increasing amount of passenger use. In 1943 the State Street tunnel opened, followed in 1951 by the Dearborn tunnel--which had seen work halted due to U.S involvement in World War II. The subway stations were famous at the time for their use of fluorescent lighting, escalators and turnstiles in addition to having excellent ventilation.
The state of the L by the mid 1940s meant that it could no longer be maintained by private ownership, with all five operating companies being managed by receivers and trustees due to bankruptcy. The result was the public takeover of the L in 1947 by the Chicago Transit Authority. By 1960, a quarter of the system had been shut down with the most uneconomical stations being abandoned as a way to cut costs. The Chicago Transit Authority also saw that the old wood and steel cars were replaced by a fleet of modern cars.
By 1993 the system was once again in need of urgent updating, with many of the 100-year old lines becoming a safety hazard due to deterioration. That year a $300 million project commenced, with the focus on overhauling the South and Lake Street lines. This included the replacement of aging structural steel, installation of new tracks and signals and the building of new up-to-date stations. The overhaul was completed by 1997 and the L introduced magnetic strip fare cards for the first time. These cards could be recharged in the vending machines situated in every station, and by September 1997 ticket agents were no longer distributing tickets for cash.
