It’s no coincidence that a train track looks something like a spinal column, with the rail ties standing in for vertebrae.
The railroad long has been the backbone of the villages of Homewood, Flossmoor and Olympia Fields, simultaneously a connection to the city, the origin of their histories and, especially now, a focal point for redevelopment.
The railroad has its deepest roots in Homewood, where the Illinois Central Railroad first stopped 151 years ago. At the time, only a few houses were in view, and the area was named Thornton Station, for the nearby town of Thornton, 3 miles east.
“Obviously, in 1851 very little existed in Illinois,” said Jim Wright, chairman of the Homewood Illini Rail Corridor Committee and author of the forthcomingbook “Homewood Through the Years.”
“Most of the towns were in southern Illinois, along the Ohio River, because that’s how people came out of the east, down the rivers. The idea behind the railroad was to put it out in areas that didn’t exist, to make it accessible to settlers.”
The plan worked.
In 1869, three years after Jabez Howe was stranded at Thornton Station and decided to settle there, the U.S. Post Office approved his suggestion to change the town’s name to Homewood. One of the houses Howe built still stands at 2137 Cedar Rd.
The Illinois Central had established itself as one of the world’s premier railroads. When it was completed, the Illinois Central was the longest anywhere and soon became the first to offer sleeping cars, ship fruit in refrigerated cars and burn coal rather than wood for fuel.
Tracking history
The milestones of Homewood’s history are railroad milestones, and Wright recites them like stops on a train line. In fact, it may illustrate how synonymous the railroad is with the village’s history that Wright doesn’t consider himself a rail enthusiast.
But you can’t write the history of Homewood without immersing yourself in the story of the railroad.
The story begins in 1853, when the train first stopped and the town was first named. Three years after the Illinois Central added commuter service from Chicago in 1890, Homewood was incorporated. When the Markham Yards were completed in 1926, and the Illinois Central replaced the last of its steam engines with electric trains, the trip was faster and the village grew more.
At that time, Flossmoor was starting to make the transition from summer golf destination to year-round village. It was incorporated in 1924. Another golf outpost, Olympia Fields, was incorporated three years later.
“To a large degree, the existence of the town can be directly traced to the railroad,” said Patrick Finn, Flossmoor’s assistant village manager. “The train provided ready means of access between downtown Chicago and the community. Back then, automobile traffic was somewhat uncommon. Having quick, reliable transportation to the downtown area was a large part of the village’s early growth.”
The Flossmoor connection
Flossmoor’s rail history is embodied in Flossmoor Station, the restaurant and brewery housed in the village’s former train depot, circa 1906.
“It’s a very unique aspect of our downtown, to have a train station building privately owned…since the 1970s,” Finn said. “That approach has really preserved the railroad character of the building…as the centerpiece and anchor of downtown.”
He added: “The area around the train station is essentially built out to a large degree, so those larger sites available for development tend to be toward the outskirts of the city.”
Homewood is the hub
Today, Homewood remains the intersection of three main lines–the Canadian National Railway Co., which acquired the Illinois Central in 1999; Metra, which assumed commuter service from the Illinois Central; and Amtrak, which makes Homewood its first stop outside Chicago on its way to New Orleans.
“We’re seen as a pretty major rail hub,” Wright said.
Despite the volume of trains, the railroad doesn’t intrude, Wright said, because it runs over viaducts in the south suburbs.
“When the train comes through, it’s not a disruption to people’s lives,” he said. “In another community, people may be constantly thinking of it, sitting in traffic and not terribly happy about them coming into town. We benefit from having a lot of traffic, but we don’t have the bad side of it, the inconvenience and accidents.”
Last October, perhaps the most visible symbol of Homewood’s rail livelihood was dedicated on Ashland Avenue–Canadian National’s gleaming, new national headquarters.
“It’s a big benefit to the town,” said Bill Ernat, Homewood’s community development director.
“We were up against Naperville, Rosemont and other communities. … We’re seeing renewed interest in downtown.”
“Homewood has been a part of our history, part of the way we’ve evolved,” said Rick McFadyen, CN’s director of U.S. real estate. “Railroad presence in Homewood has been a big influence. We like where we are, and we’re treated well. Why not stay?”
“The area is now busier than it’s been in 20 years,” Wright said. “CN is consolidating a lot of operations into the area.”
Metra news
While Canadian National is the dominant corporate presence in the area, Metra remains the vital link to Chicago for south-suburban commuters.
The Metra Electric line is one of the busiest in the system; no line has more trains or stations. And arguably none has been as controversial lately, as Metra has taken measures to battle the perception that one of its busiest lines is also one of its most neglected.
“There has been widely shared regional concern along the Metra Electric line about the quality of service,” Finn said.
In November Metra announced it would remove the turnstiles along the Metra Electric line, the only line that had them. Since then, all turnstile arms have been removed, though the machines that held them will not be removed until this summer.
Riders had long complained of the inconvenience of the turnstiles and the distrust they seemed to represent, though Metra spokesman Dan Schnolis noted it was the Illinois Central that installed them in 1966. Metra acquired passenger service on the line from the Illinois Central in 1987.
A more urgent issue for riders is the lack of restrooms in trains and stations along the line, the only Metra line without them.
Metra has ordered 26 new restroom-equipped cars and expects them to arrive later this year.
Schnolis added Metra hopes to replace its entire 165-electric-car fleet within eight to 10 years.
In the meantime, he said Metra has or will negotiate with shops and restaurants near stations on the Electric line to allow passengers to use their restrooms.
At the Electric line’s terminus, Randolph Station, which has been undergoing renovation since 1996, new restrooms opened last month etra estimated the new waiting area, pedestrian walkway, and ticket windows will open in November and the renovation completed in 2006.
Although the south suburbs continue to grow, Metra does not expect to add more trains to the line anytime soon, Schnolis said. Schnolis pointed out that since the Electric line was acquired, it has received the most money of any line in the Metra system, and has the best on-time performance.
Meanwhile, in Olympia Fields…
In Olympia Fields, Metra continues to be the driving force behind development.
After carrying passengers from the city for last summer’s U.S. Open, Metra is the focal point of a more long-term transformation of the town, Mayor Linzey Jones said.
A transit-oriented development is planned for the 52 vacant acres north of the U.S. Post Office on 203rd Street. Last April Metra approved a plan for a 526-space parking lot at the station there and plans to break ground on it this year. Completion is scheduled for 2005.
The village hopes the development, which will include single-family houses, condominiums, retail and a site for a new village hall, will provide Olympia Fields with its first bona fide village center.
Construction on the residential units is expected to begin this summer. When completed in 2007, the residential portion will include more than 100 hundred units; one quarter will be single-family houses. The parking lot construction will begin in 2004 and be completed in 2005. Jones hopes the first stores will open in 2006.
In addition, Kedzie Avenue, which borders the development, will be resurfaced beginning in 2005, with a completion date in 2006.
The target completion date for everything is 2009, Jones said. This does not include a new village hall, he added, though he hopes some municipal services and perhaps the post office will be relocated to the development by 2009.
“We believe this will be a destination for our residents…to gather in the center of town and enjoy the amenities of the village together,” Jones said.
“The great transportation amenity that draws people to this village is our railroad. We’re blessed to have two stations and will definitely use that asset as an economic development engine.”
…And back in Homewood
In Homewood, Wright’s rail committee of more than 10 rail enthusiasts plans to make the village’s rail heritage more visible to residents and better known to tourists.
The committee has drawn up plans for a rail platform along Harwood Avenue, south of the passenger entrance to the trains, to give visitors a place to watch trains pass. Already, Wright noted, rail watchers gather in parking lots to see the trains.
Across the tracks and to the north, the committee hopes to open a rail park where historical engines and cabooses will be displayed.
Wright also hopes to install display boards near the platform that describe the history of the railroad in the village.
Perhaps the best place to celebrate Homewood’s rail history is the train station, built in 1923.
The Spanish Renaissance structure–which is across the tracks from where the original depot stood before it was moved and later torn down–is the only passenger depot along the old Illinois Central route owned by the railroad and not the town, Wright said.
Canadian National owns the depot and leases it to Amtrak for ticket sales, but the building is only open in the afternoons.
Calling it “underutilized,” Wright envisions the depot becoming a community center, housing artifacts currently stored in the attic of the Homewood Historical Society, and hosting community meetings.
Homewood Mayor Richard Hofeld said he is waiting for federal funds to purchase the building from Canadian National.
Calling all rail enthusiasts
Homewood will hold its inaugural Homewood Heritage Rail Day on May 2:
More than a dozen rail clubs and groups, including the National Railway Historical Society and the Train Collectors Association, will set up displays in the fire station and village hall.
Metra will connect its four remaining cars that use the orange-and-brown color scheme of the old Illinois Central and run them together throughout the day as a tribute to the Illinois Central.
Art students from Homewood-Flossmoor High School may begin a rail-themed mural in the pedestrian tunnel to the Metra platform.
Hofeld hopes ground will be broken that day on the rail-watching platform.
Wright hopes the day will help establish Homewood as a rail destination in the minds of visitors. He recently visited the rail platform in Rochelle, Ill., where more than 30 people had gathered on an overcast Friday morning, including half a dozen tourists from Europe, and saw the potential drawing power of a town’s rail heritage.
“We want the community to be a destination for rail enthusiasts,” he said.
So does Hofeld.
Noting that Rochelle draws 60,000 people a year to its platform, Hofeld is aiming for half as many visitors to Homewood’s platform.
“My feeling is, you have to have something to build on in a town,” Hofeld said. “Naperville has done a marvelous job with its Riverwalk.
“What do we have? We have a railroad.”
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For more information on Homewood Heritage Rail Day, call Dan Gunderson at 708-957-7944.
