Main
900N
732W
732W
Main is a station in Evanston on the Purple Line alongside the Main Metra Station on the Union Pacific North Line although the design of the station's exit requires passengers to circle around the 'L' Station to reach the Metra station. Davis, (two 'L' stops north, one on Metra) is better designed for transferring passengers and is announced as a transfer. The station is located on a raised embankment of vegetation. The stop has two wooden side platforms: the Chicago-bound platform can handle six cars and the Linden-bound platform could once handle seven or eight and extends farther south. The northern end of this platform though has been fenced off (since only six car trains can operate on the Purple Line) and trains now stop offset of each other. They are canopied across from each other for the middle third of their lengths, which is at the northern end of the open portion of the Linden-bound platform. The platform walls are canopies have wooden railings with plexiglass above for windscreens. The exposed portions have a simple wooden fence. Just south of the canopy on each platform is a generic black bus shelter with a white plastic roof.
To leave the platforms there are two staircases in the center of the canopies. From the Loop-bound platform these that lead down to a concrete tunnel with white walls through the planted embankment to the east side of the embankment, where they meet the two from the Linden-bound platform. There are then a few more steps down and a single set of doors into a brick station house built in 1908 with a white, slightly gabled and overhanging roof. The little station house even has a short chimney. Inside are just two turnstiles along the former cashiers booth that lead two a single set off doors out to the west side of Chicago Avenue between Main and Washington Streets. The address is 836 (with numbers above the doors) Main street. There is a single old wooden high exit turnstile outside of the station house so exiting passengers can avoid entering.
All photos taken on 25 October, 2011
