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June 2010

Chicago Traction Special

Web-only special price
$90.00 for both bulletins
Save up to $25.00

Bulletin #131 The "L"
Bulletin #138 Chicago and West Towns Railway

CERA Hoosier Electric Set
3 of our best Bulletins about Indiana Properties

Web-only special price
Cover of Northern Indiana Railway $30.00 for all 3 Bulletins. Save Up to $80.00 Cover of Indiana Railway: The Magic Interurban

Bulletin #137: Faster than the Limiteds
Bulletin #132: Northern Indiana Railway
Bulletin #128: Indiana Railway: The Magic Interurban

Click Here to Order the Special Set

Our Next Program

Friday
June 25, 2010
7:00 p.m.

“Reach out to Boston”
Third Rail Rapid Transit Lines of Boston

by Walter D. Collins
Retired Chicago Transit Authority ‘L’

Motorman and Boston-native Walter D. Collins will tour the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Orange, Red and Blue third rail rapid transit lines in history-rich metropolitan Boston. Rolling stock and route histories will be presented along with descriptions of connecting services, long gone or still operating. Walter is planning on presenting another program, on MBTA light rail lines, at a future date!

Electric Rail Highlights will follow the program.

Persons with electric rail photography or announcements are encouraged to participate. Please send your digital images in advance to Tony Coppoletta at tony@coppoletta.net

The program will held at University Center, 525 S State, Chicago, IL. Click here for a map of 525 S. State St.

Next meeting
Friday, September 24, 2010

As is customary, there are no regular CERA membership meetings in July or August. The program subject for September is to be announced closer to the meeting.

Links from "Railfanning on the Internet"

Links from the March Program presented by Tony Coppoletta are now online. Click here for that page.

For a complete calendar of events of other railroad enthusiast organizations in the extended Chicago metropolitan area, please go to http://www.railcc.org/Events.html.

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Our Latest Books

Keystone StateTraction

(sold out)

by Robert G. Lewis

Foreword by William Middleton

Bob Lewis has been taking trips to far-off railroads for all of his life. Among the earliest was a series of trips that began in the
early 1930s to explore the street railways of Pennsylvania. At that time you couldn’t have found a more diverse collection of trolley lines anywhere in the country, and Bob found just about all of them.
According to Bob’s studies, Pennsylvania at that time had more electric railways—38 of them in 1934—than any other state, and they offered what must have been a greater variety of operations than just about any other. Pennsylvania must have had more lines named for cities that you never heard of than any other, such as the Skippack & Perkiomen, Hanover & McSherrystown, or Sunbury & Sellinsgrove. Many lines were built to 5-foot, 2-1/4-inch “Pennsylvania broad gauge,” while other lines used standard gauge. Two Pennsylvania interurban lines used some of the most advanced high speed electric cars ever built, Philadelphia & Western’s famous Brill Bullets, and Lehigh Valley Transit’s 1930 high speed cars originally built for the Cincinnati & Lake Erie and the Indiana Railroad. Much more common, however, were the aging “first generation” trolleys that kept many of the little lines going until the end, or the popular four-wheel Birney cars that so many lines operated.
Bob Lewis has captured all of this and much more in his journeys in Keystone State Traction. You’re sure to learn something about the unusual or unbelievable electric railways of Pennsylvania that you’d never heard about before.

Before the North Shore Line

by Edward Tobin

Waukegan was the birthplace of the Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee Railroad, one of the nation's premier interurban electric railways. Author Ed Tobin recounts the railroad's humble origins as the Bluff City Electric Street Railway and traces its rapid evolution into the high speed Chicago & Milwaukee Electric Railway, taking the story up to the time that the company came under Insull control.

Read more about this fine book...

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