Midlothian & Blue Island Railway
Midlothian & Blue Island Railway May 4, 2015 at 4:12pm There was another railroad from Blue Island to Midlothian ? Well not exactly, it actually started at the location of the current day Midlothian Rock Island Station and ended at Midlothian Country Club. Below in a picture of the train:
Back in 1898 the golf craze was underway in the Chicago area and several prominent business men purchased 240 acres of land and opened the Midlothian Country Club on 147th, just west of current day Cicero Ave. There were 27 holes for golf, a polo field and fox hunting offered at the club. The roads from the Blue Island and Rexfords Crossing stops on the Rock Island to the Country Club were unpaved and difficult to travel. So the founders of the club decided to build a short railroad from the Rock Island Blue Island station to the new Country Club. The Rock Island intervened and proposed building the line from the current site of the Midlothian Station on 147th Street to the club at cost plus 10%. So the Rock Island built the short line from Midlothian to the country club and moved the Rexford Crossing train stop from Crawford Avenue to the new site near the 147th Street crossing and it was named Midlothian as the stop to go to the Midlothian Country Club. Here is a map of the route:
The railroad was about two miles long, it cost 25 cents for a round trip ticket and and took 5 minutes to get from the Midlothian stop to the Country Club on the M&BI train. There were as many as 14 roundtrip trains scheduled per day at peak times. The train started running in 1901 and ended in 1928 when a paved 147th street was extended to the Country Club. The railroad was dismantled in 1928. Here is the route overlayed on aerial photos from 1939:
For more info on the Midlothian & Blue Island Railway, follow the link below: