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The Chicago Great Western Railway was a
Class I railroad Railroad classes are the system by which Rail freight transport, freight railroads are designated in the United States. Railroads are assigned to Class I, II or III according to annual revenue criteria originally set by the Surface Transportatio ...
that linked
Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
,
Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...
,
Omaha Omaha ( ) is the List of cities in Nebraska, most populous city in the U.S. state of Nebraska. It is located in the Midwestern United States along the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's List of United S ...
, and
Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more t ...
. It was founded by
Alpheus Beede Stickney Alpheus Beede "A.B." Stickney (June 27, 1840 – August 9, 1916) was the first president of the Chicago Great Western Railway, from 1884 to 1909. Youth and education Alpheus Beede Stickney was born in Wilton, Maine, on June 27, 1840, the f ...
in 1885 as a regional line between St. Paul and the
Iowa Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...
state line called the Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad. Through mergers and new construction, the railroad, named Chicago Great Western after 1892, quickly became a multi-state carrier. One of the last Class I railroads to be built, it competed against several other more well-established railroads in the same territory, and developed a corporate culture of innovation and efficiency to survive. Nicknamed the Corn Belt Route because of its operating area in the
midwestern United States The Midwestern United States (also referred to as the Midwest, the Heartland or the American Midwest) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It ...
, the railroad was sometimes called the Lucky Strike Road, due to the similarity in design between the herald of the CGW and the logo used for Lucky Strike cigarettes. In 1968 it merged with the
Chicago and North Western Railway The Chicago and North Western was a Railroad classes#Class I, Class I railroad in the Midwestern United States. It was also known as the "North Western". The railroad operated more than of track at the turn of the 20th century, and over of t ...
(CNW), which abandoned most of the CGW's trackage.


History


Predecessor railroads

In 1835, the Chicago, St. Charles & Mississippi Airline railroad was chartered with the intent of building a railroad west out of Chicago. The railroad never began construction, and its rights to build were transferred in 1854 to a new company, the Minnesota & North Western (M&NW), which eventually began construction in 1884 of a line south from St. Paul, Minnesota to Dubuque, Iowa. In 1887, the Chicago, St. Paul & Kansas City Railroad acquired the M&NW, and by the end of the decade, under the leadership of St. Paul businessman A.B. Stickney, it had established routes west to Omaha, Nebraska, south to St. Joseph, Missouri, and east to Chicago, Illinois, via the Winston Tunnel near Dubuque. In 1892, the railroad was reorganized as the Chicago Great Western. During the construction period, mogul locomotives (
2-6-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle, usually in a leading truck, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles and no trailing wheels. T ...
wheel arrangement), which were large engines for the time, were used. They could pull 25-30 cars (of 40,000 pounds capacity), which was a long train for the time. These and all the railroad's other engines had red stacks, so the railroad became known as the "Red Stack Line." The Chicago Great Western was not the only railroad with red stacks on its engines. In the 19th century, typically engine crews were assigned to specific engines, and one of the fireman's duties was to keep the stack and smokebox (which got quite hot) painted. Some of them customized their engines with red paint on the stacks, and some railroad shops painted stacks red, but so far as is known, the Chicago Great Western was the only American railroad to paint all of its engines' stacks red.


Early 20th century

The first repair shops for locomotives and freight cars were built at the original terminus in
St. Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (often abbreviated St. Paul) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 311,527, making it Minnesota's second-most populous city a ...
, known as the South Park Shops. In 1892 the city of
Oelwein, Iowa Oelwein is a city in Fayette County, Iowa, Fayette County, Iowa, United States. The population was 5,920 at the time of the United States Census, 2020, 2020 census, a decrease of 11.5% from the 2000 census. The largest community in Fayette County, ...
was chosen as the headquarters and primary shop site due to its central location on the mainline. Construction was completed in 1899, and soon Oelwein became known as "Shop City" for its mammoth shop site. The two-story combination machine, boiler, and coach shop alone measured 700 feet (213 meters) long and had 27 pits for overhauling locomotives. In 1907, the
panic of 1907 The Panic of 1907, also known as the 1907 Bankers' Panic or Knickerbocker Crisis, was a financial crisis that took place in the United States over a three-week period starting in mid-October, when the New York Stock Exchange suddenly fell almost ...
caused Stickney to lose control of the railroad, and ownership passed to financier
J. P. Morgan John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. As the head of the banking firm that ...
. In 1910, the CGW introduced four
McKeen Motor Car Company The McKeen Motor Car Company of Omaha, Nebraska, was a builder of internal combustion engine, internal combustion-engined railroad motor cars (railcars), constructing 152 between 1905 and 1917. Founded by William R. McKeen, William McKeen, the Un ...
self-propelled railcars, its first rolling stock powered by internal combustion engines. In the same year, the railroad also purchased ten large 2-6-6-2s from the
Baldwin Locomotive Works The Baldwin Locomotive Works (BLW) was an American manufacturer of railway locomotives from 1825 to 1951. Originally located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it moved to nearby Eddystone, Pennsylvania, Eddystone in the early 20th century. The com ...
. Two years later, the railroad acquired an experimental battery powered motorcar from the Federal Storage Battery Car Company. In 1916, the railroad began standardizing on
2-8-2 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle, usually in a leading truck, eight powered and coupled driving wheels on four axles and two trailing wh ...
steam locomotives, which served through the 1920. In 1923 CGW purchased from the soon to be dominant company EMC, two of EMD's first gasoline-powered cars. During the 1920s, as ownership changed again to the Bremo Corporation, a group of investors led by Patrick Joyce, an executive at the Standard Steel Car Company, the railroad expanded its use of self-propelled vehicles. At the end of the decade, 36
2-10-4 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, a locomotive has two leading wheels on one axle, usually in a Bissel truck, ten coupled driving wheels on five axles, and four trailing wheels on two axles, usually in a bog ...
steam locomotives were purchased from Baldwin and the
Lima Locomotive Works Lima Locomotive Works (LLW) was an American firm that manufactured railroad locomotives from the 1870s through the 1950s. The company's name is derived from the location of its main manufacturing plant in Lima, Ohio ( ). The shops were located be ...
.


Mid 20th century

During the
Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
, the railroad trimmed operations by closing facilities and abandoning trackage. It purchased its first diesel-electric locomotive, an yard switcher from Westinghouse, in 1934. In 1935, the CGW began trial operations of trailer on flatcar trains, which were expanded the following year into regular service, initially between Chicago and St. Paul, but rapidly expanding across the system by 1940. In 1941, it was reorganized in bankruptcy, and late in the decade a group of investors, organized as the Kansas City Group, purchased the CGW. In 1946, a demonstrator
EMD F3 The EMD F3 is a B-B freight- and passenger-hauling carbody diesel locomotive produced between July 1945 and February 1949 by General Motors’ Electro-Motive Division. Final assembly was at GM-EMD's La Grange, Illinois plant. A total of 1, ...
diesel locomotive set operated on the CGW, immediately prompting the company to purchase a wide variety of diesels, and by 1950 the railroad had converted completely to diesel motive power. In 1949, William N. Deramus III assumed the presidency, and began a program of rebuilding infrastructure and increasing efficiency, both by consolidating operations such as dispatching and accounting and by lengthening trains. In 1957, Deramus left the company, and Edward Reidy assumed the presidency.


Merger

As early as 1946, the first proposal was advanced to merge the Great Western with other railroads, this time with the
Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad The Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad was a Class I railroad that linked Chicago, Illinois, Chicago to southern Illinois, St. Louis, Missouri, St. Louis, and Evansville, Indiana, Evansville. Founded in 1877, it grew aggressively and staye ...
and the
Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad The Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad was a Class I railroad company in the United States, with its last headquarters in Dallas, Texas. Established in 1865 under the name Union Pacific Railroad (UP), Southern Branch, it came to serve an exten ...
. Upon the failure of a later merger opportunity with the
Soo Line Railroad The Soo Line Railroad is one of the primary United States railroad subsidiaries for the CPKC Railway , one of six U.S. Class I railroads, controlled through the Soo Line Corporation. Although it is named for the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Saul ...
in 1963, the board of the Great Western grew increasingly anxious about its continued viability in a consolidating railroad market. Testifying in 1965, before the Interstate Commerce Commission in Chicago, President Reidy stated
that although it was operating in the black it would not be able to continue: The simple fact is that there is just too much transportation available between the principal cities we serve. The Great Western cannot long survive as an independent carrier under these conditions.
The CGW, therefore, was open to a merger with the
Chicago and North Western Railway The Chicago and North Western was a Railroad classes#Class I, Class I railroad in the Midwestern United States. It was also known as the "North Western". The railroad operated more than of track at the turn of the 20th century, and over of t ...
(CNW), first proposed in 1964. After a 4-year period of opposition by other competing railroads, on July 1, 1968, the Chicago Great Western merged with Chicago and North Western. At the time of the merger, the CGW operated a system, over which it transported 2,452 million ton-miles of freight in 1967, largely food and agricultural products, lumber, and chemicals, for $28.7 million of revenue. After taking control of the CGW, the CNW abandoned most of the former CGW trackage.


Trail conversion

A 20 mile section of the railroad right of way from Des Moines, IA south to Martensdale, IA was used to create a mixed use trail with the name of Great Western Trail. In addition, a section of track was converted to trail usage, also known as the Great Western Trail, running intermittently between Villa Park, Illinois and West Chicago, Illinois in DuPage County, and then through Kane and DeKalb counties to Sycamore, Illinois.


Passenger operations

The Chicago Great Western was not known for its passenger trains, although it did operate several named trains, mostly running between Chicago and the Twin Cities. Despite the railroad's small size and meager passenger fleet, it looked for ways to more efficiently move passengers, such as employing all-electric (battery powered) and gas-electric motorcars on light branch lines, which were cheaper to operate than traditional steam or diesel-powered trains. Notable passenger trains from its major terminals included: * ''Blue Bird'' (Minneapolis/St. Paul–Rochester) * ''Great Western Limited'' (Chicago–Minneapolis/St. Paul) * ''Rochester Special'' (Minneapolis/St. Paul–Rochester) * ''Red Bird'' (Minneapolis/St. Paul–Rochester) * ''Legionnaire'' (Chicago–Minneapolis/St. Paul) * '' Minnesotan'' (Chicago–Minneapolis/St. Paul) * ''Mills Cities Limited'' (Kansas City–Minneapolis/St. Paul) * '' Nebraska Limited'' (Minneapolis/St. Paul-Omaha) * ''Omaha Express'' (Minneapolis/St. Paul-Omaha) * ''Twin City Express'' (Omaha-Minneapolis/St. Paul) * ''Twin City Limited'' (Omaha-Minneapolis/St. Paul) * ''Maple Leaf Route'' (Minneapolis/St. Paul, Rochester, Stewartville, Racine, Spring Valley MN etc. to Chicago IL) On September 30, 1965, the railroad ended passenger operations when the overnight trains between the Twin Cities and Omaha arrived at their respective endpoints.


See also

*
Chicago and North Western Railway The Chicago and North Western was a Railroad classes#Class I, Class I railroad in the Midwestern United States. It was also known as the "North Western". The railroad operated more than of track at the turn of the 20th century, and over of t ...
* List of Illinois railroads


Notes


References

* * *


Further reading

* * * * * *


External links


Hub City Heritage Corporation
Oelwein Railroad Museum * There are two sites named ''the Unofficial Chicago Great Western page'': *
the Unofficial Chicago Great Western page
*
the Unofficial Chicago Great Western site

Chicago & North Western Historical Society
(includes predecessor roads) {{DEFAULTSORT:Chicago Great Western Railway American companies established in 1892 American companies disestablished in 1968 Railway companies established in 1892 Railway companies disestablished in 1968 Defunct Illinois railroads Defunct Iowa railroads Defunct Kansas railroads Defunct Minnesota railroads Defunct Nebraska railroads Railroads in the Chicago metropolitan area Former Class I railroads in the United States Predecessors of the Chicago and North Western Transportation Company Defunct Missouri railroads 1892 establishments in Illinois 1968 disestablishments in Illinois 1968 mergers and acquisitions