So what is the interest of an interurban in Illinois to Northern Ohio Railway Museum? Read on and we’ll tell you.

The Fox River runs roughly north to south, about 40 miles west of Chicago. Along that stream are a number of cities, including both Aurora and Elgin. In the 1890/s, these towns desired an interurban connection to Chicago. However, although several short north-south lines were build, connecting several towns along the river, money could not be raised for the desired Chicago connection.

Finally, in 1899, two syndicates with sufficient funding each entered the field to build that interurban. Rather than have a costly dispute, the two groups decided to cooperate. One, that for now we will call A, became the chief promotor of the Chicago line, but with minority investment by what we will call group B. Also, group B was to take over the short north-south lines and connect them into a complete line connecting the Fox river cities.

However, in the 1903 financial panic, syndicate A found itself overextended, and had to sell it’s shares in the project. Thus, syndicate B became the major shareholder of the entire operation, named the Aurora, Elgin & Chicago. This line operated until, with the general decline of interurban prosperity, it entered bankruptcy in 1919. At this point, the court separated the two parts of the system into the Chicago, Aurora & Elgin and the Aurora, Elgin & Fox River.

The connection to Northern Ohio Railway Museum is twofold. First, syndicate A was the Everett-Moore group based in Cleveland. B was the Pomeroy-Mandelbaum group, also Cleveland-based and, in addition, the builder of the Cleveland, Southwestern & Columbus interurban, of which NORM now owns a section of the line. Second, when the two Illinois lines were split, the Aurora, Elgin & Fox River purchased several fine, new steel cars of which one, #303, is today part of the NORM collection.

Pictures: 1) AE&C Map, 2) AE&C #10, 1902, 3) Everett & Moore, 4) Pomeroy & Mandelbaum — all Wikipedia — 5) #303, NORM.