424/153, State & Randolph, Jan. 6, 1978
Trainspotting—that passionate hobby of sighting specific trains on their routes—is one of the best-known examples of an “anorak subject.” Only truly dedicated railfans have the fortitude to don heavy parkas for hours-long expeditions in inclement weather just to catch a photo of a passing locomotive.
The product of one such enthusiast’s fascination with trainspotting, and the less common (but equally passionate) anorak subject of bus spotting, was recently digitized for the Northwestern Transportation Library. The Ronald J. Sullivan Collection is now available in its entirety online for study by researchers and anorak specialists alike. Browsing these digital images, one imagines Mr. Sullivan wearing a heavy parka, sitting in wait in a snowstorm on an expressway overpass, or standing in knee-deep snow at a busy Chicago intersection, to capture the perfect shot of a CTA bus or train.
9633/82, Kimball & Argyle, Jan. 1, 1978
Sullivan, an amateur photographer, documented Chicago-area transportation and the city’s changing streetscapes over the course of more than five decades in this collection comprising over 1,100 photographs and slides. He supplemented hundreds of original photographs, the bulk of the collection, with slides and photos that he collected, documenting Chicago’s transit history. The details of each shot were meticulously documented by the photographer, who recorded information on the bus or train number, route number, street intersection or station, and date for nearly all images in the collection.
5340/70, Oakley & Division, April 24, 1972
The collection was donated to the library by an associate of Sullivan’s, so we don’t know whether Mr. Sullivan had intentions beyond personal use with this collection. But it is an example of how one’s lifelong dedication to a personal hobby can result in the production of a tool with incredible research value to the general public. And beyond being a tool for researching Chicago-area transportation, there’s something fascinating that these photographs say about the dedication that trainspotters have to their craft.
2058, Lake & Harlem, Jackson Lake, Feb. 28, 1993
View our StoryMap online for a map tour featuring a selection of photographs from the collection, mapped according to Sullivan’s original titles and descriptions. And be sure to visit our Digital Collections portal to view the entire collection online.
For more information on this collection, or on the Transportation Library’s services or collections, please visit our website or contact us at transportationlibrary@northwestern.edu. You can also find us on Instagram and Twitter.
