The Gateway Western Railway was a Class II railroad that operated 408 miles of former

Chicago and Alton Railroad The Alton Railroad was the final name of a railroad linking Chicago to Alton, Illinois; St. Louis, Missouri; and Kansas City, Missouri. Its predecessor, the Chicago and Alton Railroad , was purchased by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1931 an ...

track between

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 ...

and

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...

. It also operated between

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City, Missouri, abbreviated KC or KCMO, is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri by List of cities in Missouri, population and area. The city lies within Jackson County, Missouri, Jackson, Clay County, Missouri, Clay, and Pl ...

, and

Springfield, Illinois Springfield is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Illinois. Its population was 114,394 at the 2020 United States census, which makes it the state's List of cities in Illinois, seventh-most populous cit ...

on the old

Alton Railroad The Alton Railroad was the final name of a railroad linking Chicago to Alton, Illinois; St. Louis, Missouri; and Kansas City, Missouri. Its predecessor, the Chicago and Alton Railroad , was purchased by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1931 an ...

line that eventually was the Chicago, Missouri and Western Railway.

History

The Gateway Western Railway began operations on January 9, 1990, after purchasing the Kansas City to St. Louis right-of-way from the bankrupt Chicago, Missouri and Western Railway. Originally the Kansas City, St. Louis & Chicago, the line came under

Chicago & Alton The Alton Railroad was the final name of a railroad linking Chicago to Alton, Illinois; St. Louis, Missouri; and Kansas City, Missouri. Its predecessor, the Chicago and Alton Railroad , was purchased by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1931 an ...

control in 1878, but never had much success under several operators of its line over the years, which included the

Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad The Gulf, Mobile and Ohio was a Class I railroad in the central United States whose primary routes extended from Mobile, Alabama, and New Orleans, Louisiana, to St. Louis, Missouri, St. Louis and Kansas City, Missouri, as well as Chicago, Illin ...

from 1947 to 1972, and Illinois Central Gulf Railroad from 1972 to 1987. On April 28, 1987, Illinois Central Gulf, divesting itself of surplus lines to get itself down to a core system, sold the Kansas City line, and the

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 ...

(actually with ownership ending at

Joliet, Illinois Joliet ( ) is a city in Will County, Illinois, Will and Kendall County, Illinois, Kendall counties in the U.S. state of Illinois, located southwest of Chicago. It is the county seat of Will County, Illinois, Will County. It had a population of ...

, then with trackage rights from there to Chicago via the

Illinois Central Railroad The Illinois Central Railroad , sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, is a railroad in the Central United States. Its primary routes connected Chicago, Illinois, with New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama, and thus, ...

) to East St. Louis mainline, to a new 633 mile regional, Chicago, Missouri and Western Railway. In 1989, the Chicago, Missouri and Western Railway entered bankruptcy. The

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the largest Class 1 railroads in the United States between 1859 and 1996. The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport; at vario ...

(ATSF) had always wanted an access to St. Louis. Seeing an opportunity, Santa Fe arranged for a New York investment firm to purchase the Chicago, Missouri and Western Railway's

to St. Louis line, thus creating the Gateway Western Railway. Santa Fe routed quite a bit of intermodal traffic via this routing during this period. However, by 1995, the

Burlington Northern Railroad The Burlington Northern Railroad was a United States–based railroad company formed from a merger of four major U.S. railroads. Burlington Northern operated between 1970 and 1995. Its historical lineage begins in the earliest days of railroad ...

(BN) and the Santa Fe merged to form the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway. With the BN already owning a

St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...

line via a couple of routes already, less and less ATSF traffic was routed this way. In 1997, the GWWR and its Illinois subsidiary Gateway Eastern Railway were purchased by Kansas City Southern (KCS). The KCS operated the GWWR as a subsidiary until October 1, 2001, when it transferred its controlling interest to its own parent company and officially merged the GWWR into the KCS. The Gateway Eastern, however, remained a KCS subsidiary. After the KCS was merged into

Canadian Pacific Kansas City Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited, Trade name, doing business as CPKC (known as Canadian Pacific Railway Limited until 2023), is a Canadian railway holding company. Through its primary operating railroad subsidiaries, Canadian Pacific Railw ...

, the ownership GWWE from the KCS fell into the new company. In 2022, during the hearings before the STB for the CP-KCS merger,

Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway Company () is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN is Canada's largest railway, in terms of both revenue a ...

(CNR), which had lost the battle against CP for the acquisition of KCS, presented a plan to acquire the GWWR line and thus create both via Springfield and via St. Louis, a new corridor between Kansas City and St. Louis with

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

and Eastern Canada, bypassing Chicago, and which, according to the plan presented by CN, would divert 80,000 long-haul truck shipments to rail annually. A few months later, CN resigned its intentions to purchase the Springfield Line in order to try to obtain trackage rights on the line, always with the same intention of creating the corridor proposed in the original plan to purchase the line filed with the STB. Both the initial plan to purchase the line and the subsequent plan to acquire trackage rights included the execution of corridor improvement works, valued at more than US$250 million. The STB would ultimately reject plans submitted by CN to operate on the Springfield Line.

References

* (February 2002), Flags fall in corporate shuffles, ''Trains Magazine'', p. 17.

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gateway Western Railway Defunct Illinois railroads Defunct Missouri railroads Predecessors of the Kansas City Southern Railway Former regional railroads in the United States Railway companies established in 1990 Railway companies disestablished in 2001