Category: Photography

At long last, I have photographed all 145 stations on the Chicago L! If you just want to see the pictures and not read the rest of this post, check them out here.

My first published photo was taken on March 9, 2019 at Adams/Wabash:

…and my last published photo to complete the set was taken at Morgan on November 6, 2021:

This was a really fun project, even if exhausting at times, especially near the end where I was trying to finish before it started snowing and we were less likely to get clear skies so I had to take advantage of the chances I got. This involved a lot of days getting up, eating breakfast, loading a day pass onto my Ventra card, and heading out the door to the Red Line then spending most of the day out on the train in parts of the city far from home and ending the day with an hour or two of sorting photos and choosing which ones to upload.

In the course of this project I really came to appreciate the diverse nature of the system. It ranges from utilitarian like Bryn Mawr (for now) to very old-fashioned like Ashland (Green Line) and Quincy to modern like Washington/Wabash and Wilson and everything in between. Meanwhile, the track structures range from elevated to embankment to ground-level to freeway median to open-cut to tunnels. Adding to that, the scenery ranges from industrial to suburban to medium density to ultra-high density as well. Really a big mix of everything.

This project also was a really cool way to experience the city, since I didn’t just go to the stations and take some photos and leave, but instead often walked between adjacent stations and on occasion got lunch on the go (best one was Italian Beef at Nicky’s near 35th/Archer). Walking through the neighborhoods really helped me get a good feel for the area. This also helped me improve my photography skills and figure out more about what conditions are/aren’t good and which techniques work and which ones don’t.

Going forward, I do have a few gaps to fill, between certain parts of stations I couldn’t/forgot to get to for various reasons or stations that received significant changes since I originally photographed them (for example, the three Blue Line stations under Milwaukee Avenue received new flooring). I’ll hit those as I have time, but am not in any hurry. I also of course will continue photographing the ongoing construction in my part of the city. I want to photograph Metra stations (I already have photographed all the stations on the South Shore Line), but am in less of a hurry to do that. After all, Metra doesn’t run anywhere near as frequently as the L does (and some lines don’t run on weekends at all).

I have now photographed every station on five of the eight lines of the L: Blue, Brown, Orange, Purple, and Yellow! Of the three remaining lines I have eleven stations left if I’m counting correctly.

My most recent expedition was to photograph the rest of the Blue Line, and in keeping with the blue theme the sky also was a very deep blue. I photographed the rest of the Congress Branch:

In particular I got one very nice photo at UIC-Halsted, juxtaposing the station with the downtown skyline:

I also photographed Washington, which somehow I had never photographed all this time despite its central location:

I also photographed two abandoned stations along the Congress Branch in the process:

Then I headed up to Logan Square to get lunch, and on the way home photographed the new flooring at Chicago:

Compare this to the flooring in 2019:

Definitely an improvement, looked like they were doing the same thing at Grand and Division too.

Honestly not much more to say, this was just a status update and some more pictures. Eleven stations to go if I’m counting correct, and I’ll hopefully get them done in short order.

My ongoing project to photograph the Chicago L unofficially started on March 9, 2019, when I took a spring break trip to the city, unaware I’d live there a year and a half later. The first photo taken in Chicago (at least that I deemed worth publishing) is this one, of the entrance to Millennium Station:

Interestingly, the first four train stations I photographed in Chicago were all Metra, on March 9, 2019: Millennium Station, McCormick Place, 55th-56th-57th Street, and Museum Campus/11th Street. The situation there was I was going to the Museum of Science and Industry but stopped at McCormick Place along the way to photograph it, and then headed back to 11th Street to visit the Field Museum. The first photo I took and deemed worthy of publication on the L was at Adams/Wabash:

The date on Flickr is listed as March 10, but it was actually taken very late on March 9 since my camera was still set on Eastern Time due to coming from Cleveland. Little did I know that this would start my most ambitious photography project so far. I photographed a number of stations in/near downtown as part of that trip, and then returned to Cleveland.

In December 2020 I flew out to Chicago to interview for the company that ended up hiring me, and photographed two stations: O’Hare (where I flew in) and Chicago (Red) (near my hotel).

In March 2020, I had been hired for my current job in Chicago and came back to visit apartments. At that point I knew I would be moving here and had in the back of my mind that I eventually wanted to photograph all the L stations. I stayed in Rogers Park (near Morse) and toured apartments all over the north side. I photographed a number of stations in the process, but knew I would come back.

Since then, I have photographed all but about 25 stations. I have photographed all stations on the Loop, North Side Main, Ravenswood Branch, State Subway, Kennedy/O’Hare Branch, Evanston Branch, Skokie Branch, Englewood/Ashland Branch, and Jackson Park/East 63rd Branch. I also have photographed all but one station on the Milwaukee-Dearborn Subway and at least half of the stations on the Dan Ryan Branch, Cermak Branch, South Side Elevated, and Congress Branch. The big ones remaining are the Lake Street Elevated (just under half done) and Midway Branch. I am taking advantage of every good weather opportunity I get, so with any luck I will have this in the bag soon. If not, I’m not in any hurry. Once this is done, it will be without a doubt my most ambitious photography project so far.

I’m not sure what will come next – maybe photographing as much of Metra as I can? I’m not sure how realistic photographing every Metra station is given that there are over 200 of them and Metra doesn’t run anywhere near as frequently as the L (I don’t have a car) and some lines don’t run at at all on weekends.

At around 6pm today (June 7, 2021), a Purple Line train derailed just south of Bryn Mawr. Fortunately, no injuries were reported, and there wasn’t any major damage that I’m aware of from what I saw either in person or on the news.

Living in that area put me in a unique position to photograph the aftermath. While I was obviously not there photographing at the exact moment of the derailment, I was able to get some photos not long afterwards. I still can’t afford a drone and use a stepladder instead, which did limit my photographic capabilities, but I made do.

Specifically, the second car of the train derailed. The cars behind it and the front car seemed to remain on the tracks. The tracks on elevated structures have an additional rail in the middle for the purpose of keeping derailed trains from falling off the structure:

Anyway, without further ado, here are some pictures:

I then headed to a parking lot by the site of the derailment, and while I was walking there they removed the four rear cars of the train that did not derail:

You can definitely see that the rear car in the picture is not properly lined up with the front car.

Later that evening, they re-railed the train and brought a “rescue train” to pull the affected cars back to the Howard Yard.

They then restored power to the affected cars:

I attempted to take a video of the coupling of the rescue train to the derailed cars, but another train passed by in the process (a number of trains passed by on the other track during this time, presumably the trains that were taken out of service as a result of the derailment).

Finally, I got a video of the rescue train pulling the derailed cars away from the scene, presumably to the Howard Yard to be inspected.

From there, a number of CTA workers were looking at the site of the derailment with flashlights to see if there was an obvious cause in the track, such as a broken rail.

This was an interesting event to see unfold. Thankfully nobody was hurt and there doesn’t seem to be any major damage (any damage would just be to the one railcar, and even that would probably just be to the trucks, and any damage to the structure would just be the rails in that one spot). This was also one of my first times being able to document something like this in real time, the only other similar things being the last day of operation at 11th Street in Michigan City and the opening of the temporary stations at Argyle and Bryn Mawr. Hopefully I will get more chances to document interesting things in real time, though hopefully they won’t be derailments.

Two weeks after heading to Michigan City for a station about to close for reconstruction, two other stations closed for reconstruction, this time much closer to me. At midnight on Sunday, May 16, 2021, the North Side Main Line started heavy construction for the Lawrence to Bryn Mawr Modernization Project. This is, to put it lightly, a massive project. They will be rebuilding the track structure between Lawrence and Bryn Mawr (and a little bit past each of those stations) to modernize it. The current structure is an embankment, which basically consists of two retaining walls with earth fill and ballasted track:

They will be replacing this with a more modern elevated structure. They have similar structures in a few places, but unfortunately I don’t have any ground-level pictures (now that I’m writing this and realize it, I will quickly remedy that), but from above the tracks look like this (Wilson in this case, just south of the work zone):

This new structure will be open underneath, since it will be supported by concrete pillars rather than a solid earth fill. In the process, they will also be rebuilding the four stations (Lawrence, Argyle, Berwyn, and Bryn Mawr). All four of those stations are fairly similar to their original 1920s designs, with narrow platforms, a single entrance (with a second exit-only staircase at the north end of Bryn Mawr), and not being accessible to passengers with disabilities. Lawrence and Bryn Mawr still feature wooden platforms, with the Bryn Mawr one particularly showing its age:

Berwyn and Argyle had their platforms replaced with concrete several years ago, but otherwise are pretty similar to Lawrence and Bryn Mawr.

The renovations to the stations will allow them to be fully accessible to passengers with disabilities, and also generally modernize them by making the platform wider, replacing the wood with concrete, and other things.

In the past when undertaking major reconstruction projects, the CTA has closed the line for several months with shuttle buses, like when they rebuilt the Dan Ryan Branch in 2013. In that case, they rerouted Red Line trains via the South Side Elevated (Green Line southern leg). However, in this case, since so many people take the Red Line (or at least did before the COVID-19 pandemic, and this project was planned long before then) and there aren’t any alternate routes, they still will run trains through the work zone. Since the line has four tracks, they will close two tracks at a time. The Purple Line Express will continue to run but will share tracks with the Red Line (I imagine this will be a dispatching nightmare). Lawrence and Berwyn will temporarily close, while Argyle and Bryn Mawr will remain in service, but using a temporary platform to accommodate trains running on different tracks than usual. Here is a very crude Microsoft Paint drawing explaining the situation:

The Last Hurrah

I set out to see the preparatory work in the afternoon on May 15 and take a photos of the stations about to close (Lawrence and Berwyn) as a sort of last hurrah.

The Transition

That evening, I periodically checked around the four affected stations to see what sort of preparatory work was being done. Nothing much seemed to be different until about 10:30pm, when they removed the wood covering over the Bryn Mawr temporary entrance:

The Argyle entrance was still closed at the time, so I returned home to post that photo and charge my camera. Then, I headed out again to check if there was anything new at Argyle, and unfortunately there was not, so I walked back to Bryn Mawr and then back to Argyle, at which point the wood paneling had been removed, making the fare mezzanine visible:

I then headed to Berwyn, aiming to catch the last train at that station (which by my guess was the last one listed on Ventra to arrive prior to midnight). The train ended up arriving just after midnight, so this probably was the last train ever to stop at Berwyn (no southbound trains were listed on Ventra for a while and I couldn’t see any headlights coming from the north).

From there I took it one stop to Bryn Mawr, where it stopped at the old station (now only used for northbound trains). From there, I hightailed it to the temporary southbound entrance. They were still in the process of removing the wrapping from the Bryn Mawr sign, so I waited for that, then got a photo.

At that point, I just started photographing everything I could. A photographer from the construction contractor noticed me and explicitly invited me to take as many pictures as I can (and also informed me I was the second customer ever to board at that station). That was a nice change of pace, since usually employees get mad at me for taking photos (even though non-commercial photography is allowed without any form of permit). I took a bunch of photos of the mezzanine and passage to the platform:

Unfortunately around this time it started raining, so I was only able to take photos with my good camera under the canopy, and was limited to using my phone outside of it.

From there, I caught a train (the second one ever to stop at this temporary platform) to Argyle:

At Argyle I resumed photography, but the rain had intensified, limiting me again to under the canopy.

However, it eventually stopped raining, enabling me to photograph the rest of the platform.

While I was there, I also got to talk to some of the construction crew and learn a bit more about the project, and a few guys asked me to take a photo of them (I did make sure they were aware I would post it online):

From there, I headed out of Argyle, photographing the exit along the way:

Interestingly, Argyle has the temporary mezzanine and regular mezzanine connected (and they both lead to both platforms), but closed the main mezzanine when opening the temporary one:

From there, I walked up to Bryn Mawr, stopping at Berwyn to see what it looked like after they closed it:

Then I continued up to Bryn Mawr, noticing a sign at the corner of Bryn Mawr and Broadway that was not there earlier in the evening. Since Bryn Mawr now has a separate station and entrance for each direction (about a block apart), it’s important that people know which one to use, so they put up a sign at the corner to help out.

I also photographed more of the station since the rain stopped:

Moving Forward

Now a massive four year construction project has really kicked off. Berwyn and Lawrence are closed for four years and will probably be demolished relatively soon (I will provide photos as I am able once that happens). I really look forward to seeing the end result, even if the intermediate process is going to be a challenge. I don’t currently have a commute to work, but probably will long before this project is over, so I will be boarding at this station. I do also have the 147 Outer Drive Express bus as an alternate if this becomes too difficult.

The day after I visited Lawrence to see the station one last time before it closed.

I also noticed there was a mural across the street from the entrance, and sadly that mural will probably be lost with the construction.

It’s going to be quite the adventure, that’s for sure.