* 4/9/26 - WTTW - Geoffrey Baer on His Latest Special, 'Riding the Rails'..............................
Buzz Sawyer
Geoffrey Baer on His Latest Special, 'Riding the Rails'
Julia Maish
April 9, 2026
In the new special Riding the Rails with Geoffrey Baer, premiering Monday, April 13 at 7:00 pm on WTTW, the PBS app, and wttw.com/rails, Geoffrey Baer explores Chicago’s past and present trains and railroad lines and explains why the city was and is known as “America’s railroad capital.” Read as he shares his personal train obsession and the reasons why this was an important Chicago story to tell.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
You’re a huge train fan from way back. What about them fascinates you?
The first house where I lived was within sight of the Chicago and Northwestern commuter trains (now the Union Pacific North Line). My mom tells me that every time a train went by, I would hurry to the window to watch. I can’t really say why I was so drawn to trains. But to this day, I’ll stop and watch when one goes by. There’s something irresistible to me about them.
How have Chicago’s railroads shaped the city?
In the mid-1800s, railroads saw Chicago, with its central location and key waterways, as the hub for their rapidly expanding networks. Most lines came in from the south to get around Lake Michigan without having to build bridges across the river. So what is now the South Loop was basically one big railyard from the lakefront all the way to the river’s south branch. And the Illinois Central was allowed to come right up the lakefront and built a massive railyard at the mouth of the Chicago River, including where Millennium Park is today. The entire north bank of the river’s main branch (think today’s Merchandise Mart and Marina City) was another massive swath of rail lines. And wherever streetcar and ‘L’ lines were built, development followed, stretching out into neighborhoods and suburbs.
You always introduce us to some colorful historical characters who left a mark on our city. Tell us about one that we meet in this show.
Charles Tyson Yerkes for sure. Yerkes was a classic robber baron of the Gilded Age. He had already served time in jail out east before coming to Chicago. Using deception, bribery, and blackmail, he gained control of streetcar networks and ‘L’ lines. His biggest coup was building the Chicago Loop to connect all the ‘L’ lines together. Among his underhanded tactics to secure permission to build the Loop was a promise to extend a line west of downtown along Van Buren Street. But once he completed the Loop, he left the rest of the line unbuilt. He wrote, “I am in Chicago to make money, and if it were not for what I expect to make out of it, I would take the first train to New York and never set eyes on the beastly place again.” Chicago didn’t think much of him either. After pocketing millions, he left Chicago and eventually helped build London’s famous Underground, a.k.a. “The Tube.”
What is the oddest story you uncovered?
The 19th-century menu in the dining cars of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railway! It featured loin of mutton, turtle soup, venison, ox tongue, young goose, oysters, and sweetbreads. I also think the story of the largest train robbery in American history is pretty wild. It happened in Rondout, Illinois, between Lake Bluff and Libertyville. The notorious Newton Brothers from Texas commandeered a mail train, which in those days carried millions of dollars in jewels, bonds, and cash, overseen by postal workers who were carrying guns! The whole heist was a comedy of errors, ending in the robbers shooting and wounding one of their own before fleeing with their haul, some of which was never found. All the Newton boys served time in prison, after which they promptly returned to their life of crime. One of them, near the end of his life, was interviewed by Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show!
If you could go back in time, what is the train experience you would most like to have?
Traveling coast to coast in the heyday of the mid-20th century. The food in the dining cars was excellent (and not as exotic as the 19th century food mentioned above). The sleeping cars were clean and cleverly designed to maximize space. And the views in the observation cars were spectacular for the scenic parts of the journey. That said, I think I would have been uncomfortable that there were still African Americans doing most if not all of the work as porters.
And was there a “bucket list” item that you got to cross off while filming this special?
Driving a steam engine! The show ends with that scene at the Illinois Railway Museum and you can see the giddy look on my face. I was not acting!
What do you hope viewers will take away from Riding the Rails?
Most people have heard that Chicago is America’s railroad capital. But I hope this show will give people a sense of what that has meant for the city historically as well as today. The railroads are a massive part of our economy and daily lives. We intersect with rail lines at grade crossings and bridges, but where those trains are going and what they are carrying is a mystery to most of us. In the show, I visited one of Chicago’s nine massive container railroad yards and asked the supervisor what was in all those containers. She said basically everything we use every day from paper towels to furniture. Your life is deeply connected to railroads, whether you know it or not!