>>1501012The North Shore Line and the Chicago, Aurora & Elgin could probably both have survived in some sort of truncated form, akin to SEPTA Route 100, if public subsidies had been available 10-15 years earlier than they were IRL (the CA&E was nearly saved by a $0.01 gasoline tax).
The biggest problem was that their markets were also served by the steam roads (C&NW, Milwaukee Road and Burlington) who were modernizing their competing commuter services and, unlike the electric lines, could offset their losses with revenue from freight.
