(Photos) Abandoned suburban Chicago rail bridge with wooden pilings

As I posted last month, the Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad was an interurban rail whose last trains ran in 1963. The Chicago & Northwestern took over the right-of-way, but it abandoned the tracks in 1995.

The southern end of the old line is now operated by the Chicago Transit Authority--it's the CTA's Yellow Line, also known as the Skokie Swift.

In Northfield, an old bridge with wooden pilings survives. Yesterday afternoon I trudged through knee-high snow to capture these pics.

Amazingly, the North Branch of the Chicago River is not iced over, but I suspect that the outflow from the Skokie Lagoons has something to do with that.

Standing just east of the old bridge--the clouds were different when I took this picture.

Related post:

(Photos) Abandoned line: Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad and rails-to-trails

Technorati tags: Chicago North Shore transportation trains history Illinois photography Skokie photos nature Chicago