GETTING THROUGH CHICAGO. The Midwest High Speed Rail Association provides a convenient link to a recent PBS News Hour story on the troubles involved in interchanging freight in Chicago, with hints of the infrastructure projects to come. The screen with the clip provides a link to a related story on the CNR purchase of the Chicago Outer Belt. In that story, the "Winnetka trench" comes up as a possible solution to conflicts between additional freight trains going around Chicago and suburban trains on the Wisconsin Division, er Northwest Line as well as with road traffic.

The story provides little history for that trench. It is a Works Progress Administration project, completed in the late 1930s, originally for the Chicago and North Western and the North Shore Line (hence those massive concrete castings lining the bike trail in the trench). The impetus for the project might have been a fatal road crossing accident.