The El Photos

In 2006 more than 195.2 million people rode the El (the highest number since 1993).

Initially, the network was built and operated by competing companies. They were unified in 1924, keeping the older companies as divisions of the new unit which went public in 1947. Since then, there have been many changes to the system before taking the present form.

It consists of a network of eight heavy rail lines totalling 106.1 route miles (57.1 miles elevated, 36.9 miles surface, and 12.1 miles – a little less than 12% – subway) on over 242.6 miles of double-track rail line.

It is one of the few rapid transit systems in America to provide 24/7 service, even if only on the two busiest lines.

It is the third busiest rail mass transit system in America, after New York City and Washington, D.C.

On average, more than 650,000 people ride the El each weekday, more than 400,000 each Saturday and more than 300,000 each Sunday.

State St subway station is 3,300 ft long from one end to the other which is a Guinness Book record.

The “El” name comes from the fact that most of the system runs on elevated tracks.

The first El tracks ran entirely above city owned alleys (thus the first nickname of the system – “Alley El”) due to the difficulty of obtaining consent signatures from all property owners along the streets of the track (as required by the law at that time).

The highest number of stations the network has ever had is of 223.

The official inauguration took place on June 6, 1892 when a steam locomotive pulling four wooden coaches (all belonging to Chicago & South Side Rapid Transit Railroad) left the 39th St station and arrived at the Congress St station 14 minutes later on a straight line rail road that was 3.6 miles long.

There are a total of 144 stations throughout the entire network.

There are no public restrooms in any of the El stations.

There have been many proposals to build an underground subway system since the beginning of the 19th century. None of them were carried out due to the high costs involved until President Roosevelt made federal money available for such public projects. Chicago has been approved a grant for the subway in 1937 and construction started in 1938 for two lines: one under State St (opened in 1943) and the other one under Dearborn St (opened in 1951).

Today’s Green Line still uses the tracks on which the first train operated.

Unlike many other rapid transit systems, Chicago’s El has shorter railcars. They are only 48 feet long. The reason is that in the beginning, the system was owned and operated by private companies which, due to financial reasons, kept the land acquired for the tracks to a minimum. This resulted in some very sharp curves which normal length cars wouldn’t be able to clear. Since these tracks are still in use today and rebuilding the whole network to accommodate longer railcars is out of question the system is stuck to using these 48 ft cars.