English: Original captions: Trainman: "THE CHICAGO UNDERGROUND ELECTRIC RAILWAY"; World: "A LOADED FREIGHT TRAIN FORTY FEET BELOW CHICAGO STREETS"; Independent: "Loaded Trains in the Chicago Subway Tunnel"; Great Central Market: "LOADED FREIGHT TRAIN AT INTERSECTION"; Brownings (written on negative): "(illegible) 1-2-04 Illinois Tunnel Co. Loaded Freight Train at Street Intersection"; System: "The first freight ever carried below the streets of Chicago; the intersection of the tunnels at Congress Street and Wabash Avenue, showing freight in transit".
-- This is one of the most widely printed and reprinted photos of the Chicago freight subway. It is undoubtedly a test train since the system carried no commercial freight before 1905. The cargo is probably cement barrels. The tracks in the foreground are 14-inch gauge construction tracks. With reference to the 1932 system map at the end of Bruce Moffat's book, Forty Feet Below, Interurban Press, 1982, the view must be looking north on Wabash with eastbound Congress to the right.