Yeah, that’s what intrigues me so much about Chicago-bound railroads. Yes, there are the well known ones like Santa Fe, Chicago & North Western, Illinois Central, B&O, Wabash and Erie, just to name a few, but the lesser-known roads have their interesting history as well.
Rich
wasn’t Chicago the main railroad hub to the west?
Chuck
It was, and in many ways still is. There are guys on this forum who know the history a lot better than me. Since there was no true transcontinental railroad in the U.S., Chicago became the mid-point for trains from the east and trains from the west. Chicago became not only a destination but also a major transfer point between east and west.
Rich
I thought it was , NYC ,the PRR,the B&O, all from the east then the Santa Fe from the west. even trains from small towns ran to Chicago.
Chuck
Until the 1970s, when the city of Chicago began foolishly demolishing historic train stations, there were six large downtown passenger train stations servicing 24 different railroads. My best count is that 13 roads came from the east and 1 road, the Santa Fe, came from the west. The remaining 10 roads either originated in Chicago or came into Chicago from the north or south.
Rich
WOW six stations ,I had no idea it was that big .
Chuck
Here is a snapshot that I posted on a different thread on the Classic Trains forum from the July 2003 issue of Trains magazine with the permission of Firecrown Media.
Rich
that’s amazing no wonder Frank Sinatra sang ''it’s my kind of town".
Chuck
I have always had an interest in both of these lines. As a B&O and C&O modeler, the history and operations of all four of these lines is highly connected.
The NKP in particular is well represented on my ATLANTIC CENTRAL.
And yes they both have cool names
Sheldon
I grow up in the Chessie time they always ran thru my town, the main B&O station down town is still there it’s a community college, and the small B&O station just north of the city is also still there it is a vet. office. but all the tracks are gone “rails to trails”
Chuck
The interesting thing would have been the ‘fifth system’ of the Twenties, which would have combined the Nickel Plate with the Erie (and furnish a railroad by the early Thirties with high-speed bridge service with very fast Berkshires and a sensible motive-power policy).
Chicago was not of course the only ‘gateway’, and in fact in a number of respects St. Louis was a better potential choice. In my opinion, financial manipulations (like the one that took down the McLeod Syndicate and crashed the whole economy for years) were much more significant in assuring the absence of a transcon south of the Canadian border. In this era of runthroughs, power-by-the-hour, and commodity pricing, there’s no more reason to need a true transcon than there was in the Joe Eastman days of government-manipulated rates…
There very nearly was a true, if somewhat circuitous transcon: George Gould’s, a sort of alphabet route with only a couple of comparatively short breaks in line. Where this acquired its greatest interest was that the Ramsey survey (the same ‘Ramsey’ as in the familiar town in New Jersey) for a high-speed electrified line across northern Pennsylvania, with extension east through the Watchungs and across Northern New Jersey to the New York area. This was initially finished in 1906, and it might have been interesting to see what would have happened if Morgan’s railroad guy hadn’t died that year. The Panic of 1907 killed it, but very interestingly it came alive again at the end of the New Era, actually filed with the ICC as late as 1930… but with extensive foreign capital, which dried up in the early Depression and then was directed, ah, elsewhere for a while.
Yeah, a quick glance at a U.S. map makes you wonder why the railroads chose Chicago over St.Louis which is much more geographically centered.
Rich
You have to remember that 60-100 years ago, the northeast and midwest were the main manufacturing and population centers.
Well, yes, those are the two main reasons and very good reasons at that. It is somewhat amusing though to look at the routes taken by the railroads coming from the east to swing around the south end of Lake Michigan. Only Santa Fe coming from the west had a straight shot into downtown Chicago.
Rich
Not really. Chicago was the best interchange point for the Hill Lines. The NP and GN forwarded traffic to the Burlington at the Twin Cities. Any other place than Chicago would’ve been too far south. The original “transcontinental railroad” was the CP(SP)/UP. It started at Council Bluffs, which is almost due west of Chicago. At various times, the main interchange partner was the Rock Island, Milwaukee Road or the C&NW.
Yeah, you’re right, Backshop. When I think of St. Louis as a geographical spot on the map, I think of an imaginary east-west connection. But that disregards Chicago as a logical point for north-south destinations for railroads such as Illinois Central, Chicago & North Western, Milwaukee Road and Soo Line.
Rich
If geography is destiny, then Chicago was meant to be a great city, for that’s where the Great Plains meets the Great Lakes. The amazing agricultural production of the 19th century Midwest was largely shipped via boats for many years–that’s an important reason why Buffalo became a large city. Railroads were important to Chicago from the beginning, but the lakes traffic is not to be discounted.
Something else to consider is that the Mississippi had to be bridged–no easy or inexpensive task–before St. Louis could be a major transcontinental hub. That gave Chicago the advantage of time to develop as a “player with railroads and the nation’s freight handler.”
Yeah, those are two very good points in favor of Chicago as a major railroad center.
Rich
Don’t forget St. Louis hung onto the riverboats for dear life and spurned the railroads for many years. Also, the powerful Wiggins Ferry Company stopped every attempt at looking at a bridge for a long while… and I believe almost stopped the Eads bridge from being built too.
Interesting that St. Louis did not have the foresight to anticipate the growth of the railroads way back when. That sure was not an issue for Chicago.
Rich
