Watch | Riding the Rails

Lifelong train enthusiast Geoffrey Baer hops aboard to tell the story of how railroads shaped our city. Along the way, he uncovers clues all around us to railroads of the past, recalls the colorful characters who built them and the unsung workers who toiled on them, and reveals why our current rail system remains just as vital today. Audio-narrated descriptions of key visual elements available.

Once upon a time – time wasn’t standardized. And that was a big problem for the booming railroad industry. So in 1883, railroad companies came together in Chicago to create a standardized time system in the United States.

Geoffrey Baer tours an old Union Pacific freight caboose with the help of Phil Hehn at the Illinois Railway Museum.

In the first half of the 20th century during the golden age of rail travel, railroads exuded a sense of glamour for passengers. Geoffrey Baer chats with Northwestern University transportation librarian Rachel Cole about how railroad companies made travel an experience. Lounges, dining cars and observation cars offered diversions, drinks, fancy menus, and ever-changing decor just out the window.

George Pullman’s elegant sleeper cars transformed the rail experience in the 19th century. But the lives of the porters who tended to them were anything but glamorous, as Dr. Lionel Kimble tells Geoffrey Baer. Often formerly enslaved Black men, porters carried luggage, made the beds, served in the dining car, and even shined shoes while working long hours and staying in cramped quarters.

Ogilvie Transportation Center and Union Station still delight rail passengers in Chicago, but back in the day, downtown was home to six historic train terminals. Geoffrey Baer talks with DePaul University professor Joseph Schwieterman about how Chicago served as an essential passenger rail hub for the United States.

Trains played a major role in the Great Migration – the period between 1910 and 1970 that saw more than 7,000,000 Southern Black Americans move to Northern cities. Geoffrey Baer interviews author, poet, and professor Eve Ewing to discover how the train became a symbol of freedom and opportunity.

Geoffrey Baer visits America’s busiest rail intersection on the South Side of Chicago, where crews are working to relieve a perpetual traffic jam that frustrates the flow of freight, Metra and Amtrak trains.

So many rail fans gathered regularly at a busy railroad crossing 90 minutes west of Chicago that the town of Rochelle created a small park for them. Geoffrey Baer chats with rail fans and joins in on the trainspotting.

Near Chicago’s Midway Airport, the CSX container yard is one of 19 intermodal rail terminals in the Chicago area. Geoffrey Baer hops aboard a five-story-tall gantry crane to see how the pros get containers from trains to trucks.

On a summer night in 1924, a group of thieves brought a mail train to a halt at a rural junction called Rondout near Lake Bluff, Illinois. The infamous Newton Gang and their co-conspirators made away with $2 million, or approximately $37 million today. Geoffrey Baer explores how the robbers almost got away with it, were it not for one crucial error.

In the late 19th century, Chicago had the largest cable car network in the nation, with some 3,000 cable cars and 80 miles of rails. Unlike electric trolleys, these were motorless streetcars pulled by a steam-powered moving cable under the tracks. Charles Tyson Yerkes – known for shady business dealings – is the man who made it happen, as author Greg Borzo tells Geoffrey Baer.

The Kenosha Streetcar Society maintains a fleet of nostalgic and colorful streetcars. Geoffrey Baer visits Kenosha and also explores the history of Chicago streetcars, which ran until the late 1950s.

CTA historian Graham Garfield joins Geoffrey Baer to discuss how Charles Tyson Yerkes got the Loop built – bribes and all.

Chicago’s Yellow Line train is a curious little train with a hidden history. It is the last surviving fragment of the Skokie Valley branch of the old North Shore Line – a rail line to Milwaukee with speeds up to 90 miles per hour.

Before the explosion in popularity of the automobile, electric interurban railroads were an easy way to get from nearby city to city. Geoffrey Baer takes a ride on the South Shore Line, which runs between Chicago and South Bend.

May Theilgaard Watts, a naturalist and educator who lived in and around Chicago, helped spark a rail reuse movement across the country as she sought to transform the old Chicago, Aurora and Elgin right-of-way into a walking trail.

The Illinois Railway Museum is the largest railroad museum in the country. Geoffrey Baer stops by for a close-up look at vintage trains and gets the chance to drive a steam train.