The History of the West Suburban Transit District

by T. G. (Ted) Schuster

Chapter 1: Reasons why WSMTD was Formed

In the early summer of 1969, I had reached a point in my railroad career that on certain occasions I would be invited to attend weekly staff meetings of officers of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company (CB&Q). That year, Mr. William Quinn was president of the company. In 1969, everyone at CB&Q was sweating out the pending merger of the “Hill Roads,” namely the Great Northern, the Northern Pacific, CB&Q, and the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railroad (SP&S). Extended hearings before the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) had been held in Washington for much of the summer of 1968. In those days, it often took 18 months for the ICC to make a decision, particularly where contested railroad mergers were at issue.

During CB&Q staff meetings, all five vice presidents were in attendance, plus the company’s chief civil engineer. Each would take turns reporting their department’s activities, accomplishments, capital needs, and/or emergencies happening since their last staff meeting. At one such meeting I attended in early summer of 1969, Vice President/Comptroller William Ernzen provided his listeners with a forecast of what he expected the net profit for the company would be for 1969, based on preliminary results during the first five months of that year. Budget time was approaching, and heads of departments needed to know what kind of capital expenditures the Company could afford the following year. Mr. Ernzen stated he expected net profits for the entire railroad to be $12 million in 1969, down from $15 million in 1968.

Other vice presidents heard that sobering news, realizing, as they absorbed its meaning, that the size of their capital budgets for 1969 would have to be trimmed as they had been in all recent years. Then Bob Taylor, Vice President—Mechanical Department, took the floor to discuss performance of company-owned rolling stock, both freight and passenger. He next talked about freight car and locomotive needs. During that discussion, he revealed that during the first hot spell of the new summer season, some 40% of the commuter cars leaving Union Station, on one afternoon and evening, had experienced air conditioning failures. He reminded his listeners that when the first of Burlington’s new stainless steel, double-decked commuter cars had been purchased in 1950, those cars were state-of-the-art at the time of purchase. They not only introduced the galley car double deck concept to the Chicago area but were also the first to offer air conditioning for passenger comfort on any commuter road operating in or out of Chicago, if not the entire nation. Air conditioning for each of those new cars was furnished by a compressor mounted under each car. Each compressor was powered by a separate propane-fueled Waukesha motor, also located under each car. The mechanical reality for 1969, however, was that the manufacturer who built Waukesha motors had discontinued that line of equipment. Replacement parts were rarely available. If a part broke, it had to be refashioned in a Burlington shop or cannibalized from another Waukesha motor. In 1969, those discarded motors were in very short supply. Mr. Taylor stated the reason for repeated air conditioning failures in commuter train service was the failure of those Waukesha motors once the weather turned hot in May or June.

At that moment in time, Chicago’s largest commuter rail operation was that provided by the Northwestern Railroad (C&NW). A Mr. Ben Heinemann had gained control of that ailing railroad in the mid-1960s. All C&NW commuter coaches were then at least a half century old. None were air conditioned. One of the first things Mr. Heinemann did to prove to the investment community, and to his own investors, that he could turn C&NW around was to replace the railroad’s commuter fleet in its entirety.

Borrowing from Burlington’s double deck fleet and air-conditioned car successes, and using commuter car technology that was new state-of-the-art at that time, his people placed car orders with the Pullman Standard Company of Chicago, which incorporated a brand-new feature: electric (AC) heating and air conditioning. He further introduced a new operating concept into the manufacture of the new C&NW fleet, one called a “push-pull” operation. That feature, first of its kind in the nation, was designed to reduce end-of-the-run operational costs. In Heinemann’s new C&NW push-pull operation, the locomotive always faced west, north, or northwest during train operations because Northwestern’s commuter service traveled in those three separate directions during its commuter operations. On eastbound, southbound, or southwest-bound C&NW commuter operations, the train engineer in push-pull service controlled his train from an enclosed compartment located in the upper deck of the leading inbound car on trains bound for downtown Chicago. Huge cost savings could be realized from that operational method because switch engine expense at both ends of the commuter line could be reduced, if not eliminated, depending on an operator’s operating agreements with its rail unions. Under labor agreements then in effect on diesel freight railroads, over-the-line train crews were allowed to back commuter trains from passenger terminals at either end of a run and take them into commuter yards for servicing and cleaning. Switch engines with 4-person crews were needed to break up commuter trains in the yards. Additionally, yard personnel at that time called “hostlers” removed commuter engines from their trains after being brought them to the commuter yard. The hostlers in Chicago train yards then turned those commuter engines around on turntables for outbound movements to the suburbs. Should that push-pull concept be adopted by CB&Q, the need to turn engines around bound for Aurora would be unnecessary because they’d always face west.

Mr. Taylor finished his remarks about the CB&Q commuter fleet air conditioning problems, by observing that the cost of converting Burlington’s commuter fleet and engines to a C&NW 1969 state-of-the-art philosophy of AC electric air conditioning and heating would be approximately $25 million. That projection, he said, did not include the cost of new cab control cars nor locomotive conversions necessary for a “Q” push-pull commuter operation between Chicago and Aurora, which would allow CB&Q to capitalize on labor economies, then being realized by the C&NW service.

The silence was deafening as the gist of Mr. Taylor’s remarks sank in. Here was a company, then in its 110th year of existence, faced with a prediction it would net only $12 million profits in the next year. But in that same year, the same company would face a $25+ million capital outlay for a commuter service making no profits at all.

In those days, the CB&Q commuter service was being operated as an advertising “loss leader” of some $2 million a year in an attempt to prove to freight shipping executives living on the commuter line (and there were many) that because Burlington operated a modern and efficient on-time commuter service, it could also be trusted to operate a timely and efficient freight service. Everyone in the room that day knew commuter fare increases couldn’t be realized from a simple decision of rail management. Instead, should the company want to raise commuter fares, a petition needed to be filed with the Illinois Commerce Commission first. Then Commission approval would have to be gained for the fare increase proposed. That was a lengthy process. It involved public hearings, where the company was required to prove its losses and otherwise justify the proposed increase. In addition, the commuting public was free to testify at length. Mostly they opposed whatever fare increase the company proposed. Everyone in the meeting room that day also knew a decision by the Railroad to seek a fare increase would offer uncertain results, particularly if air conditioning failures should continue, and commuter protests derail the increase. Along with that concern, everyone’s mind was focused on the recent decision of Illinois Central to seek a 15% commuter fare increase from the Commission. Everyone in the meeting room was fully aware that at that time, the IC was operating its commuter service with 50-year-old cars, wicker seats, and no air conditioning. The fallout from that filing had created a commuter protest group which later hardened into a formal organization. That group passed the hat among its constituents and hired a lawyer to fight the IC’s rate increase. The IC was at wit’s end because it could neither afford new commuter cars nor the continuation of its commuter operating losses.

After Mr. Taylor completed his remarks, Mr. Quinn, who was a lawyer himself, and understood the practical realities of commuter operations and the uncertainties of Commerce Commission decisions, summarized the mood of Mr. Taylor’s audience with the following remark: “I guess we’re going to have to do something different about our policies for financing commuter train operations.” Looking directly at me, he said— “Ted, why don’t you come up with some recommendations?”