>>1309553>Wait the El used to have through services with interurbans? Why were they discontinued?In the 1910s an electric utilities tycoon named Samuel Insull acquired all of the Chicago “L” lines as well as a handful of Midwestern interurbans. He consolidated the former into a single operator (Chicago Rapid Transit) and arranged trackage rights over the “L” for two of his interurbans: the Chicago Aurora & Elgin (which ran between the Loop and the western suburbs) and the Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee (which ran all the way between the Loop and downtown Milwaukee via the northern suburbs). Insull invested a ton of money into these properties, so despite his eventual collapse and ruination, the CA&E and the CNS&M outlasted most other interurbans, and transitioned into more “standard” commuter railroads after WWII.
Unfortunately, by the mid-to-late 1950s, both interurban properties had become financially insolvent. There were no public funds available to subsidize continued operation, and they were further hindered by the fact that their competition was modernizing with diesel locomotives and air-conditioned rolling stock (the C&AE was still running wooden cars in revenue service all the way to the end). To make matters worse, the Chicago Transit Authority (public successor to the private CRT) hated sharing tracks with the suburban trains, and both companies would likely have needed to find alternate routes into Chicago if they had continued operating.
The CA&E threw in the towel in 1957 and sat dormant for several years while they tried to create a public agency to fund its continued operation, but the measure was killed at the ballot box in 1960, and the railroad along with it.
The CNS&M tried to follow suit in 1958, but the riders were so opposed to abandonment, they fought it in court for 5 years, but were unsuccessful, and service ended in 1963.
