Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Jan. 23, according to the Tribune’s archives.
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Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
- High temperature: 65 degrees (1909)
- Low temperature: Minus 18 degrees (1963)
- Precipitation: 0.89 inches (1999)
- Snowfall: 4.4 inches (1939)
1975: The State-of-the-Art Car (SOAC), produced by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Urban Mass Transportation Administration and Boeing Veritol, arrived in Chicago for a two-week demonstration.
The stainless steel two-car system (one designed for 200 passengers and the other for 300) featured a plush interior design, carpeting and air conditioning (which probably wasn’t an impressive feature given it was here during the winter). The system, however, was too wide and too long to run on most Chicago Transit Authority lines, so it could only operate on the Skokie Swift (today’s Yellow Line). Engineers designed a retracting platform and other modifications to showcase SOAC’s capabilities.
Though the mock-up was comfortable, it never took off. Despite demonstrations in New York, Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Chicago, SOAC was never adopted.
The two demonstration vehicles now are housed at the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport, Maine.
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