

Chicago Tunnel Company Railroad Home Page - slapshot
http://users.ameritech.net/chicagotunnel/tunnel1.html

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slapshot
For the record, the original title was:

"The tunnels that did not revolutionize delivery in Chicago."

The point was to tell a lesson for current startups: it is about tunnels, the
tunnels were supposed to revolutionize delivery, and they did not do so. It's
a story about a bold vision to change the world--very relevant to a lot of
startups that think they will change the world but might end up being
abandoned in a few years.

~~~
dotBen
Delivery tunnels were useful in other cities, like in London:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Post_Office_Railway>

~~~
dotBen
Love the fact that I got de-karma'd for this for some reason.

It's totally true, the London Post Office Railway was modeled after Chicago
and it was useful.

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jordanb
Most of the CTC's business was in hauling coal in and hauling ash back out of
the Loop, back when all the buildings were heated using coal.

Marshall Fields contracted them for deliveries for a while, and they
experimented with some other things, but that was the core of their business.

They were also devastated by the building of the subway tunnels through the
loop, which cut many of the CTC tunnels.

So while they're a cool aspect of Chicago's history, it's not hard to see why
they failed. They were an artifact of the coal heating era -- and not a very
robust one at that.

As an aside, a tunnel project also was a plot device in Upton Sinclair's The
Jungle. It's a long time since I read it, but if I recall correctly, the
tunnels were being built to break a trolley worker's strike.

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jrockway
They did provide a convenient way for the Chicago River to flood the basements
of many buildings downtown, though.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Flood>

~~~
jcapote
Totally the city's fault, from the page:

Early in 1992, a contractor working for the city, near the Kinzie Street
bridge, drove a wooden pile next to the wall of a drift under the river. The
pressure from the pile began to cause a leak in the wall. The leak was small
at first. A cable television employee spotted the leak and even captured it on
video tape. The cable televison company then brought the problem to the
attention of the city. Unfortunately, the city allowed the leak to continue
for several months without repair. Eventually, the drift wall gave way, and
the river poured into the tunnels. The water completely flooded the system,
including many basements that were still connected to it. The Loop was shut
down for days, and the flood caused millions of dollars in damage. The torrent
of flood water, silt, and debris probably destroyed most of the remaining
Chicago Tunnel Company freight cars and artifacts. If the city acted quickly
and if the water tight doors had been left in place and maintained, the flood
may have been prevented.

~~~
mschy
Yes, it was totally the city's fault that the Chicago Tunnel Company built and
abandoned a collection of illegally dug tunnels under the city.

It is also totally the city's fault that the previous participants in the
Chicago Tunnel Company's experiment didn't protect themselves against a flood
in that infrastructure.

It is totally the city's fault that despite the tunnels not being a public
responsibility, they had started a bidding process to get the leak fixed,
though it wasn't completed before the flood.

Yeah... totally the city's fault.

Reader's note: There are elements of sarcasm in my post.

~~~
anthonyb
It was totally the city's fault because the city _owned_ the tunnels. See the
FAQ: <http://users.ameritech.net/pokeefe571/ctcfaq.htm>

Q: Why were the tunnels under State Street and Dearborn Street demolished to
make room for the rapid transit subways? Didn't the Tunnel Company have any
say so in the matter?

A: The Chicago Tunnel Company owned only the locomotives, rolling stock,
track, and overhead wire. The City of Chicago owned the tunnels. Because of
this, the Tunnel Company didn't have much choice but to give up their most
profitable trackage when subway construction was started by the city. You
can't fight City Hall!

~~~
mschy
Well that weakens my point substantially, but I still think that 'totally' is
too much blame.

If you leave your building hooked up to an open tunnel line, something could
come in through it. And that something could be water (or gas, or rodents...).

Claiming that's "totally" the city's fault strikes me as a dangerous
abdication of personal responsibility.

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trevorturk
If you like this, you'll love Hidden Chicago 2. They have a nice segment about
it, and lots more. I'm not sure what you can find online, but a quick Google
turned up:

<http://video.wttw.com/feature/102/>

and

<http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=1,60>

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jodrellblank
I expected the link to be to a different tunnel which failed to revolutionise
delivery:

[http://www.idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda-
weehawken_burri...](http://www.idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda-
weehawken_burrito_tunnel.htm)

