FIFTY YEARS AGO. Chicago's last streetcars lowered their poles on Midsummer Day. (With video.) The last streetcars to run were relatively new, and the Chicago Transit Authority salvaged some electrical equipment and all the window cranks for use in rapid transit cars. The last example of those streetcars is car 4391, which occasionally transports visitors around the Illinois Railway Museum.

Illinois Railway Museum, 1 September 2007.

The museum also operates several Chicago Surface Lines cars, a number of which required extensive work to convert them from work motors (particularly salt cars) back into streetcars.