The Chicago & Northern Pacific was leasing the Wisconsin Central. In my 1893 Official Guide, through trains were not in the time table. You had to get off and get on at either St.Paul or Minneapolis.
Art-
This was during the short period of time 1890-93 that the Northern Pacific owned the Wisconsin Central (via lease throught the Chicago and Northern Pacific)- the Northern Pacific was attempting to merge the WC to gain a full entry into the Chicago gateway. The Panic of 1893 put an end to the NP-WC affilliation and the WC was freed from it’s lease by NP. The C&NP was then placed under ownership of the WC which they held until the C&NP’s bankruptcy- the line was then purchased by a company called the Chicago Terminal Transfer Railroad in 1897- the CTT survived in part until 1910 when it was purchased at foreclosure by the Baltimore and Ohio, under a new company formed to make the purchase- the Baltimore and Ohio Chicago Terminal Railroad.
The WC continued to access Grand Central Station via a trackage rights arrangement over the CTT, and later the B&OCT.
It should also be noted that the General Managers Association of Chicago is the head of the Chicago Railroad Association- which is one of their subdivisions that includes the Chicago Car Interchange Bureau, the Stock Yards District Agency, the Railroad Business Mail Clearing House and the Chicago Railroad Association.
Excerpt from 1894 New York Times article, Aim At Twenty-Two Lines
CHICAGO, June 29. – President Debs and his associates of the American Railway Union made a radical move today when they formally boycotted every road represented in the General Managers’ Association. Commissions were given to committees representing the employees of each road with orders to call out the men the instant sufficient support was obtained to warrant a strike.
The roads represented in the association and subject to the boycott are the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific; Illinois Central; Chicago and Grand Trunk; Santa Fe; Chicago and Alton; Chicago and Erie; Chicago and Eastern Illinois; Chicago and Northwestern; Western Indiana; Chicago, Burlington and Quincy; Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul; Chicago Great Western; Louisville, New Albany and Chicago; Chicago and Northern Pacific; Lake Shore; Michigan Central; New York, Chicago and St. Louis; Pan Handle; Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago; Wabash; Wisconsin Central; and Baltimore and Ohio.
As rapidly as possible the men will be ordered out on the roads named, and it is the intention of union officials to begin strikes on the roads mentioned in preference to roads throughout the country which haul Pullman cars. According to the official announcement, the Managers’ Association has been organized for the sole purpose of crushing the American Railway Union, and, waiving all other first claims, the union will proceed to do battle with the associated lines.
I’ve got to put a plug in for the second largest rail center at that time-my home town of St. Louis.
Our Union Station was built in 1894 and is still in existence as a hotel and shopping center. Amtrak
uses a small station a few blocks from there. They just built a new one this year, after using what we called Amshack since 1978 when Union Station was closed for the renovations. Amshack was supposed to be temporary, it was for 30 years. They did get a newer building a few years ago, but
nothing like the grand terminal back in the day. But we only have a few trains now, nothing like
the old days. All the trips I took with my parents started at Union Station. When it was reopened in 1995, folks were asked to contribute memories. Mom and I both wrote letters that on display there today, she rode trains all her life with her dad working for Frisco, then she worked for them and married my Dad, who was a Frisco man too. He was dead by the time it reopened. At least, we had one station for travelers and not a bunch scattered all over like Chicago.
Sunnyland, (OT), I have as one of my many fond railroad memories of the past, a trip I took on the Katy from my home in Oklahoma to St Louis in the summer of 1951 (great floods that summer ). I was 15 yrs old and my dad had planned to go with me to watch the Cardinals. He worked for the Katy but at the last minute could not go because, in addition to his regular job on the yard engine, he was on the extra board for the north/south/& mine run local crews. They had a need for him that week but he let me go. (That is the way I remember it). Anyway, I got to go by myself. I arrived at the Union Station, 1894 version. I had never seen a place like that before; trains backed up to a solid glass entry wall (seems like there were 40 tracks side by side). I stayed in a cheap hotel near the Station that had a greasy grill on the bottom floor. Took the buses to the ball park and an amusement park called Happyland. Stayed almost a week then caught #5 back home on Friday. I got to see your station when it was still a fairly active place.
That’s the part that strikes me about Chicago - 7 stations !
I remember reading that although the users = passengers didn’t like all the shuffling between them, Parmalee Transfer and the local merchants were all in favor of it because of the business that resulted. I suppose with that degree of fragmentation among the carriers, the comparatively high number of passenger trains, and the high costs of any permanent construction changes in the very developed urban area to improve the situation, none of the railroads or the City had an incentive or realistic expectation that much could be accomplished.
Does anyone else remember reading about the anti-status quo railroading (and pro-passenger) advertising campaign by Robert R. Young of the C&O and later NYC back in the 1950s ?
“A hog can cross Chicago without changing trains - but you can’t !”
Since we’re telling stories about St. Louis Union Station I’ll add one of my own. It was just before Christmas in 1955 and I was going home in uniform on leave from Ft. Leonard Wood, MO. When I arrived in StL on the Frisco’s local from Newburg it was almost dusk. I had maybe a half hour before boarding the IC’s Green Diamond to continue my trip home so I stepped outside the station to stretch my legs, A not so young lady of the night promptly sidled up to me and said, “Follow me soldier”. I told her I had a train to catch and didn’t have time for that kind of action and hastened back inside the station. I was glad to get on the GD and headed for the observation lounge where several passengers offered to buy me a drink. Long before we got to Chicago I wasn’t feeling any pain what with all the free drinks and had a most pleasant though slightly inebriated trip the rest of the way home.
Most of what I’ve read about Robert R. Young made me consider that he was all talk, and not much else. In my mind, he kind of falls into that category of postwar, unbridled optimism, mixed with not paying too much attention to what was really going on.
Nordique72, your added info was interesting and informative. That’s the trouble with the Official Guide; doesn’t have the whole story and sometimes not up-to-date.
The February 1901 Guide has added the Chicago Terminal Transfer which brags about “owning the Grand Central Passenger Station - the finest passenger station in Chicago”.
The depressions or Panics back then sure played heck with the fortunes of railroads.
Paul, I was either working for the railroad or living in Chicago when Mr. Young was ranting about hogs. Until a real ‘Union’ or ‘Central’ station could be built, transferring a car from one station to the other was the only other means possible, and I couldn’t fathom how a car arriving on the C&NW could easily be shunted to New York Central’s LaSalle Street station, or to any other station except perhaps Union Station.
I think he enjoyed ranting, though; made good publicity.