Equipment Information

During the first half of the 20th century, a network of narrow-gauge, freight-only subways connected most of the buildings in downtown Chicago. The Chicago Tunnel Company, whose tunnels lay 40 feet below the city’s streets, carried coal, ash, building supplies, and general merchandise between many of the large buildings in the Loop. This car, number unknown, is a typical flat car from the tunnel system. Cars like this were used to carry a wide variety of supplies and merchandise to and from buildings in downtown Chicago. IRM volunteers removed this flat car, and one other like it, from the fourth sub-basement of the Steele-Wedeles Building at 310 North Dearborn in Chicago when the building was demolished in 1983.

Builder: Kilbourne & Jacobs?
Year built: ??
Length: 12ft 7in
Width: 3ft 11in
Height: 1ft 5in
Weight: 3300
Brakes: N/A
Trucks: Bettendorf
Description: Steel Flat Car / 2ft Gauge
Arrived: 1983
Condition: Complete / restored / not operational

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