50 Fun Facts About Chicago "L"

Chicago's rapid transit trains, running since 1892, are nicknamed the "L" as short for which word?

Elevated is the word, because the first lines ran on structures built above the city's streets and alleys. Parts of the system now run in subways and expressway medians, but the name stuck.

Which superhero sequel filmed its runaway-train fight on the Chicago "L"?

Spider-Man 2 needed tracks high above the street for its battle with Doctor Octopus, and Manhattan has very few. The crew shot in Chicago's Loop for two days in November 2002.

In March 2014, a CTA Blue Line train overran the end of the track at O'Hare and climbed what?

An escalator at the end of the platform caught the lead car after it jumped the bumper block. The operator had fallen asleep at the controls, and 34 people were injured.

Which CTA Red Line station on Chicago's North Side directly serves Wrigley Field, home of the Cubs?

Addison gets so crowded after Cubs games that many fans walk to the next station north, Sheridan, to board there instead.

In which romantic comedy does Sandra Bullock play a lonely fare collector on the Chicago "L"?

While You Were Sleeping opens with Lucy in her token booth on Christmas Day, when she rescues a commuter who has been pushed onto the tracks.

The CTA Orange Line, opened in 1993, links the Chicago Loop with which Southwest Side airport?

Midway International gained its rail link on October 31, 1993, with tracks laid along existing railroad corridors.

Whose votes in a 2006 essay contest gave the CTA Pink Line its color name over gold and silver?

Schoolchildren from kindergarten to eighth grade sent in their choices, and one young essay writer who argued for pink won a $1,000 savings bond.

Which Chicago building, owned for decades by the Kennedy family, has its own Brown Line station?

Merchandise Mart was the largest building in the world when it opened in 1930, with about four million square feet of floor space.

What pulled the wooden coaches of the first Chicago "L" trains when service began in 1892?

Steam locomotives hauled the South Side line's trains for its first six years, until it switched to electric power in 1898.

Which Chicago team plays beside the CTA Red Line station at 35th Street on the South Side?

The White Sox ballpark is next door, and the stop first served old Comiskey Park, which stood across the street until it was demolished.

The South Side "L" was extended to Jackson Park in 1893 to carry crowds to which event in Chicago?

World's Columbian Exposition crowds rode straight to the fairgrounds, where a short electric railway inside the fair showed that such trains were practical.

Which city has the only rapid transit system in the Americas older than the Chicago "L" of 1892?

New York had a railway running above Greenwich Street as early as 1868. Boston, a common guess, opened North America's oldest subway tunnel only in 1897.

Chicago "L" trains draw their 600-volt direct current from what, instead of overhead wires?

A third rail beside the running rails feeds every train, and it is left uncovered. Newer cars even send power back into it when they brake.

The CTA Purple Line serves which university, whose official school color it shares?

Northwestern has purple as its official color, which is thought to be why the old Evanston Line was given that name when color coding arrived in 1993.

A CTA Green Line station opened at Cermak Road in 2015 to serve which lakefront destination?

McCormick Place got its own stop after Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced the project in 2012. The platforms sit inside a steel tube that works as a windbreak.

The CTA Green Line's Damen station opened in 2024 chiefly to serve which West Side sports arena?

United Center crowds now step off where one of the original Lake Street line stations stood from 1893 until 1948.

A platform about 3,500 feet long links three Red Line stations under which Chicago thoroughfare?

State Street has had a subway beneath it since October 1943, and riders can walk underground from Lake to Jackson without leaving the platform.

The CTA Green Line runs west from the Loop into which suburb known for Frank Lloyd Wright houses?

Oak Park is where Wright settled in 1889 and built his home and studio. Trains there ran along the ground until the 1960s, when the tracks were lifted onto a railroad embankment.

South of Chinatown, CTA Red Line trains run down the middle of which Chicago expressway?

Dan Ryan trains began running in the highway's median in September 1969, on one of three branches the CTA laid along freeways after World War II.

Which fare card, launched in 2013, replaced the Chicago Card on CTA trains and buses?

Ventra is said to be Latin for windy, although the actual Latin word is ventosa. The card also works on suburban Pace buses.

The CTA Pink Line's mural-covered 18th Street stop serves which Mexican-American neighborhood?

Pilsen takes its name from the Czech city of Plzeň, a reminder of the Czech immigrants who lived there before it became predominantly Mexican-American.

The CTA Pink Line ends at 54th/Cermak in which suburb, where Al Capone once based his operations?

Cicero became Capone's refuge when he moved there to escape the reach of Chicago police. It is the only suburb the Pink Line enters.

The CTA Yellow Line began in 1964 as a nonstop "Swift" shuttle to which northern suburb?

Skokie got its Swift as a two-year federal experiment, and so many people rode it that the CTA made the shuttle a permanent part of the system.

Which station at Chicago's northern edge is where the CTA Red, Purple and Yellow lines meet?

Howard sits just south of the Evanston border, and it is the end of the line for Red Line trains coming up from the South Side.

Which Chicago mayor's name is carried by a Loop "L" station beside the city's central library?

Harold Washington backed the new central library after his election in 1983, and the stop outside was later renamed to match the building.

The CTA Green Line's Conservatory stop is named for a glasshouse garden in which West Side park?

Garfield Park Conservatory stands just outside the station, which replaced an older stop two blocks to the east.

The CTA Blue Line's Damen station, the oldest on the line, serves Bucktown and which neighborhood?

Wicker Park's stop opened in 1895 under the name Robey, and it is one of the few stations left from the original Metropolitan West Side company.

In which thriller is Harrison Ford's Dr. Richard Kimble attacked aboard a Chicago "L" train?

The Fugitive has its hunted surgeon attacked on the train by Sykes, the man he has identified as his wife's killer.

The CTA Holiday Train carries Santa and his sleigh around Chicago each winter on what kind of car?

A flatcar sits open to the weather in the middle of the train, with Santa waving from a sleigh on top. The tradition began in 1992 as a way for CTA staff to deliver food to charities.

Which tech giant refurbished the CTA's North/Clybourn station in return for its advertising rights?

Apple agreed in 2009 to spend up to about $3.9 million on the Red Line station and its bus turnaround, and held the advertising rights for nearly ten years.

Before color names arrived in 1993, the CTA Brown Line was known by which neighborhood's name?

Ravenswood still names the branch between Belmont and the terminus, and the tracks run beside Ravenswood Avenue for part of the way.

Which 1897 station, the closest CTA stop to Willis Tower, was restored to look as it did when new?

Quincy kept so much of its wood and stamped metal that a renovation from 1985 to 1988 could return it to a look close to opening day.

The east side of the Loop "L" runs above which Chicago avenue, home of Jewelers Row?

Wabash forms the east side of a rectangle of track only 1.79 miles around, which opened in stages between 1895 and 1897.

CTA Brown Line trains cross the Chicago River on the upper deck of which street's drawbridge?

Wells is the answer: its 1922 bascule bridge has two decks, with road traffic and sidewalks below and trains above.

Which CTA station on the Red, Green and Orange lines is the closest "L" stop to Soldier Field?

Roosevelt is about half a mile west of both the stadium and the Museum Campus, and it pairs a Red Line subway platform with a raised one for the other two lines.

The CTA Green Line's 35th Street stop beside Illinois Tech serves which historic neighborhood?

Bronzeville now appears in the station's own name, which was once simply Tech–35th. The campus is directly across the road.

Morgan station opened on the CTA Green and Pink lines in 2012 to serve which Chicago district?

Fulton Market merchants and residents lobbied for years for the stop, which filled a gap of 1.3 miles between the Ashland and Clinton stations.

The CTA Green Line's East 63rd branch, cut back from Jackson Park, now ends at which avenue?

Cottage Grove became the end of the branch in 1996, after neighbors opposed restoring the tracks farther east.

What did the CTA do to its entire Green Line between January 1994 and May 1996?

The CTA closed it for repairs in what was the largest transit rehabilitation project in the city's history. Six stations never reopened.

The CTA Pink Line began running in June 2006 under what arrangement?

A 180-day trial was all the CTA promised at first. The route reused the Paulina Connector, a stretch of track that had seen no regular passenger service for 48 years.

Which financier, later a force behind the London Underground, built Chicago's downtown Loop "L"?

Charles Yerkes won the property owners' signatures he needed through cash and guile, and Theodore Dreiser later made him the model for the ruthless schemer of the novel The Titan.

Which inventor first proved his multiple-unit train control on Chicago's South Side "L" in 1898?

Frank Sprague let one operator control every powered car in a train, a system never tested before, and the South Side line became the first in the world to use it.

Which aircraft maker built the CTA's 2400-series "L" cars through its Vertol division in the 1970s?

Boeing delivered 200 of the cars between 1976 and 1979, with wide sliding doors that could admit wheelchairs in place of the folding doors on other cars.

Which architect put the CTA Green Line inside a steel tube above his Illinois Tech campus center?

Rem Koolhaas ran a 530-foot stainless steel tube over the roof to muffle the trains, and the campus center below was his first building in America.

Which Chicago architect designed the CTA's O'Hare station, with its wavy backlit glass-block walls?

Helmut Jahn gave the 1984 terminal a platform free of columns, and riders leave it through a metal wall styled to suggest an airplane fuselage.

Until 1957, a short Chicago "L" branch looped through which vast South Side industrial site?

Union Stock Yards trains circled past the Swift and Armour packing plants on a branch that had opened in 1908.

In Albany Park, the CTA Brown Line does what unusual thing for a rapid transit route?

It runs at street level between Leland and Eastwood avenues before a ramp near Western station lifts the trains onto their steel structure.

The CTA Purple Line's northern terminus in Wilmette is the stop for which North Shore landmark?

The Bahá'í Temple, formally the Bahá'í House of Worship, is the stop's best-known neighbor. The terminus at Linden Avenue also holds a small storage yard and service shop for the trains.

In April 1992, some Chicago subway routes shut after the river poured into what beneath the Loop?

Freight tunnels long abandoned under downtown filled with water after repair work on a bridge damaged a tunnel wall beneath the river. The cleanup took weeks.

An unfinished CTA station for airport express trains sits mothballed under which Chicago mall?

Block 37 hides the shell of a station meant to link the Red and Blue lines. The CTA stopped work in 2008 after costs ran over, finishing only the bare structure.