If you’ve ever had to go from Wicker Park to Bucktown, or from Humboldt Park to Logan Square, you probably passed under a railroad line. It is called the Bloomingdale Line. It stretches across the Northwest Side for 2.7 miles, passing between Lawndale Avenue and Kingsbury Street. And while the portion east of Kennedy Expressway is still occasionally used, the bulk of the branch has been abandoned since 2001.

The line has been around since 1873. For the most part, it was used to deliver freight to the surrounding factories. Every once in a while, a passenger train would pass through, making stops at Kimball, California and Milwaukee Avenues. During the 19^th century, the line was on the ground level, in the middle of Bloomingdale Avenue, but safety concerns prompted the city government to order elevation. By 1910, it was raised to its current height.

Bloomingdale Line remained in operation for the rest of the 20^th century, slowly petering out with each passing decade. Commuter stations vanished one by one until the passenger service simply stopped. Freight service held out for a few more decades, but as the factories it served went out business, the line saw less and less use. In 2001, it was abandoned completely.

Two years later, Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail, a non-profit community organization, set out to turn the line into a greenway, complete with a bike trail, walkways and trees. Ramps and staircases would link it to nearby streets, parks and schools. Their efforts have already received considerable coverage from a number of Chicago publications, particularly Chicago Reader.

Like many people, I read those articles. Intrigued, I decided to see what all the fuss was about. When time allowed, I took short trips across the portion of the trail. I wanted to explore it more thoroughly, but something always got in the way. One summer day, I decided that enough was enough. I poured over old maps and modern satellite photos. Once I felt ready, I headed off to the western edge of Humboldt Park. Armed with nothing but a map, a packed lunch and a bottle of water, I set out to explore it from beginning to end – no matter how long it took.

I arrived at the western end of the Bloomingdale Trail at about 12:15 PM. The sky was clear, and the weather was warm without being humid. From past experience, I knew that one couldn’t just climb up to the embankment. Most of it is either too steep, and parts that weren’t steep were blocked off by a fence of some kind. And, as I learned the hard way, those fences had sharp, pointy tips. According to Google maps, Lawndale Avenue was the one place where I could reach it without any trouble. All I would have to do was walk up a nice, gentle hill. Still, I was nervous. What if the maps were out of date? What if the hill was steeper then it looked? I passed by a group of workers on lunch break, crossed a small alley and looked around.

Google maps didn’t lie to me. Thank God.

First thing I noticed was that the tracks were almost brand new. The tiles were intact and the rails sparkled against the midday sun. For a moment, I wondered if I made a mistake, if somehow, all my research was wrong and the trail was still used. After walking a bit further, I noticed the usual signs of abandoned passageways – broken beer bottles, random wrappers, glass shards and cigarette buds. All this suggested that it was used, but not often. When I thought about it later, I remembered that the sprawling Pacific Junction was pretty close by, and it was still very active. With all the trains passing through it, there were probably times when someone needed to get a train out of the way, so they used the abandoned line.

The embankment was a study of contrasts. To my left, trees and bushes blossomed and grew – judging by their size, they’ve been here for a while. To my right, modest houses and disused factories lined the thin alley – the small remains of Bloomingdale Avenue. There was no fence of any kind. It suddenly dawned on me that, if I fell, I would probably survive, but I would break more than a few bones. I inched to the left - just in case.

As I walked, I kept looking for signs of old train stations. I noticed that, in a couple of places, the embankment got a few feet wider, but that was about it. There were no remnants of old platforms, no decaying stairs, not even uneven grass growth patterns. If I didn’t know better, I never would’ve guessed that the stations existed at all.

However, I did find something interesting between Drake Avenue and Kimball Avenue. It took me a few moments to realize, but the northern part of the embankment suddenly dipped downward, descending towards the nearby apartment complexes in a gentle slope. A closer examination revealed the closest row of the buildings rested on the slope itself. The complex sat behind a wooden fence, so I couldn’t take a good look of it. I found several graffiti-ridden blocks of concrete resting along the tracks. They were tall enough to be platforms, but they looked too short to be particularly useful. Piles of construction materials were scattered nearby for no apparent reason.

Further east, right atop of Kimball Avenue, the embankment got particularly wide. As I went to explore it, I almost stumbled over something small and metal. The grass was so tall and wild that it was barely visible, but I could still make out a pair of thoroughly rusted rails. A closer look revealed a set of wooden ties that was utterly rotted through. There were several more tracks just like that, all in various states of decay. They reached towards the apartment complex, stopping right in front of the fence.

To this day, I am still not quite sure what I saw. Clearly, the rails led to whatever building the apartment complex replaced, but what was it? A rail depot? A large factory? When I got back home, I looked through several old maps, but I couldn’t find an answer.

I wondered if the people who lived in the apartment complex knew about the rails. Did the kids come here to play? Or did they keep to the courtyard, oblivious to the treasure trove of mysteries hidden right behind the fence? Maybe they had stories about the spooky ghost trains that ran through their apartments on dark, stormy nights, looking for buildings that were no longer there.

By that point, I already noticed a yellow freight car resting on the northern track. As I came closer, I saw that it was littered with graffiti. The inscriptions ranged from the usual (“Tommy in de house”) to bizarre (“I Fuck Your Viking”). I wondered how long the car has been sitting here. I wondered how much of the graffiti came from the neighborhood teenagers and how much of it was there for a long time. In a way, freight cars were traveling records of street culture, picking up new inscriptions everywhere it went.

Shortly after I passed the freight car, the two tracks merged. The remains of the gravel bed indicated that the northern track used to go much further, all the way to end of the trail. The passage of time flattened and split the once-sharp rocks, turning the former track into a comfortable walking trail. At first, I assumed that rails were taken apart a few decades ago. But as I kept walking east, I noticed a few rusted rails here and there. Maybe it survived longer then I thought.

As I kept walking east, the trail grew more and more decayed. The ties became increasingly cracked and rotted. The grass grew taller and wilder until, at the end of the trail, the rails were barely visible. The houses around it, on the other hand, began to look nicer and newer. When I crossed Kedzie Avenue, I spotted the first few condominiums. Gradually, the small houses all but vanished, and condos, apartment buildings and renovated lofts took their place. More often than not, the sides of the buildings that faced the trail had few windows and bare walls, creating a sense of isolation and exclusion. Every once in a great while, I saw wire-tipped fences standing in front of those walls. This didn’t stop people from painting the walls with graffiti – if anything; the fences seemed to have encouraged them.

Bloomingdale Trail provided a unique vantage point of the city and it’s landmarks. It revealed the finer details of St Mary of the Angels cathedral and the surrounding streetscape, making it looks all the more beautiful. A walk under the Blue Line overpass revealed an impressive view of Wicker Park and the Loop’s skyscrapers. I took the time to study a web of steel and rivets that made up the elevated structure, marveling at the fact that it endured for over a hundred years. Asphalt peeled away at portions of Bloomingdale Avenue and some nearby streets, revealing older, crimson brick-like pavement. Sometimes, this went on for an entire block. Looking on, I felt like I’ve gone back in time. I got to see the decorations that dotted people’s backyards and balconies, little creative touches that normally remain completely invisible.

There were a few other sights that deserved special attention.

Near Mozart Street, a rooftop garden sat atop a gray industrial building. Its flowers bloomed in a rainbow of colors, and the drabness of the structure below made it look all the more vibrant. A few bushes and trees grew throughout, adding a little variety to the composition. A delicate gate marked the entrance to the garden, while an old-fashioned lamppost rested right in the middle.

A few blocks east, I stumbled onto a pile of beer bottles, beer cans, broken CDs, cigarette buds and wrappers scattered across the tracks. Somebody stuck a cone off to the side, as if to issue a warning. But that wasn’t the strangest part. Further to the left, I saw a tiny tricycle. At first, I thought it was brand-new, but when I looked closer, I realized that it was completely rusted.

Past Western, right before the ‘L’ overpass, I saw two tall black poles connected by a piece of rope, with a pair of black sneakers dangling in the middle. The whole thing reminded me of the towering gates at the entrances to Shinto shrines. I almost wanted to clap and pay homage. Maybe the Spirit of the Lost Footwear would be merciful and bring me my lost slippers.

There was a similar “gate” on the other side of the overpass. No shoes this time.

Over by the condominiums on Damen Avenue, the embankment got wider again. Somebody took the time to turn the resulting space into a lawn lined with three rows of bushes. Like the apartment complex west of there, the condominiums were partially blended into the embankment, but in this case, there was no fence to block it off. In all likelihood, the “lawn” was the work of one of the residents. It occurred to me that if the Bloomingdale Trail project would go forward, the lawn would probably not survive.

Finally, near the end of the trail, I spotted a densely grown patch of wilderness. It developed between a partially torn chain link fence and a warehouse wall. Plants and berries grew under the canopy of trees unrestricted and unabated, making the walking nearly impossible. As I tried to wade through it all, I was ready to conclude that I was the first person to visit this piece of unspoiled wilderness – until I saw a an old, broken Macintosh laptop, complete with the rainbow-colored Apple logo.

On the opposite side of the embankment, the blank white wall was covered with graffiti. One particular inscription caught my eye - “Crime Is More Fun,” written out in stenciled red paint next to a stenciled image of a Red Army soldier. Somebody took the time and effort to assemble and spray-paint that. The mind boggles.

What struck me most during my trip was the fact that so few people noticed my presence. People walked, ran, biked, lounged around and talked on their cell phones without so much as looking up, even when I passed right above them. In a dog park near Damen, a group of fashionably dressed women chatted away until their pets started barking in my direction. Near Humboldt Park/Bucktown border, two little kids spotted me and told me to get off the embankment. Their mother told them not to bother me. Another time, I was spotted by a construction worker and an ice cream vendor. But other than that, I proved to be very easy to overlook.

Almost two hours after I climbed the embankment, I reached the end of the trail. North Avenue traffic zoomed under the steel viaduct. Kennedy Expressway loomed overhead, busy and remote. A very tall chain link fence kept me from going any further. The rails stopped right in front of it, it’s ends crudely severed from the track on the other side. A homeless man slept under the expressway, surrounded by bags of clutter. An old signal post stood near the viaduct, serving as a poignant reminder to the Bloomingdale Line’s busy past.

When I rejoined the pedestrian world, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of loss. I could always come back, but each time I return, the abandoned railroad and the city around it would be a little different. If the Bloomingdale Trail project succeeds, it would provide new opportunities, new sights and a new perspective. But some of the things that made my trip so interesting – the random blocks of concrete, the thought-provoking graffiti, the modest lawn, the small patch of unrestrained wilderness - will be gone forever. In the end, it would probably be worth it. But that doesn’t make their passing any less sad.