Fox River Trail Detours, South of Elgin
Old and New Railway Tunnels

The condition of the original Fox River Trail (FRT) before it goes under the bridge in South Elgin. I did ride on this on my ride but it was terrible and I would suggest going around this part on the side streets (it's really easy to do that and much nicer).

The side street that I took to avoid the worst part of the trail here was Center St. You can see this with the link to the GPS map of the ride below.

Most of the original trail going north out of South Elgin is either closed or in pretty bad condition at this time. You can ride a lot of it but the parts that you can ride are not maintained and not in very good shape.

If you do ride this part of the FRT you will eventually get to the construction and trail closed  sign above. I was exploring on this ride so sometimes I will ride past the trail closed signs (cautiously) just to see what is going on and if you can make it through.

Well the trail is just gravel here (past the trail closed sign, as in this photo), really difficult to ride (especially on a road bike) and you will not get anywhere anyway because the old stone bridge tunnel is blocked and being re-built.

This photo shows the original Galena & Union Railroad Stone Bridge that the trail used to go under. I used to love the way this stone bridge and tunnel looked and the style of it but it looks like it is going to get a totally modern make-over as you can see in one of the photos below.

OK getting back to the trail and the detours, the photo above is Riverview Dr. which is the road that you need to take to get around the section that is closed for the trail and tunnel work. You get on this road just by going left, over the tracks at the trail closed sign. This is a nice very bike friendly road.

Riverview Drive ends at Raymond (shown above) which is a much busier road. Fortunately, you do not have to go on this road for long at all. You only need to go the the yellow trail crossing sign that you can see in the photo, so it is only that far (I took the photo from Riverview and Raymond).

If you go right on the trail ahead you are on the Illinois Prairie Path that heads south towards South Elgin. If you go left you get back on to the Fox RIver Trail north into Elgin.

This photo shows where I got on to the trail heading north towards Elgin. This is also the intersection of the Fox River Trail and the Illinois Prairie Path (IPP) so this is what you need to be aware of depending on which trail you want to take at this point.

I accidentally got on the IPP on my previous trip and took that to the Stearns Road Trail and back to the FRT at the Stearns Road Bridge (that is the green bridge with the bike path under it). This is actually a much better ride (easier and faster) to South Elgin. It is just flat and kind of a boring ride with little scenery but much easier than the original FRT, that is in such bad shape, into South Elgin.

OK the photo above is the actual intersection of the 2 trails with the big construction sign.

I took a photo of the construction sign that was posted here so you can see what the trail improvements are that are going on here if you blow up the photo large enough to read.

I also blew up the future tunnel photo that was on the sign here so you could just see it easily and also to compare it to the original old stone bridge photo below. Of course, I know that they have to be all safety conscious but walking your bikes though the tunnel, really??? :-)

Personally, I like the original bridge and tunnel style and look much better but oh well, it looks like that is going to be history now. At least we have photos. BTW: I am including a link below with some additional photos of the old bridge.