Fifty miles of underground tunnels 40 feet under the Loop wereone of Chicago's best-kept urban secrets. Until Monday's flood.
Now the tunnel system, nearly a century old, is infamous.
The subterranean labyrinth was built to relieve trafficcongestion in the Loop. Think of it as a sort of Seven Dwarves' minedeep under the central city.
In tunnels just 7 1/2 feet high and less than 7 feet wide,electric train cars shuttled mail, merchandise and coal to downtownbuildings. The trains, which stood about 6 feet 7 inches tall andmeasured 4 feet across, also hauled away ash and trash.
Construction started in 1899 and the tunnel system officiallyopened in …
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