Is it safe to say that, at one time, more class-1 railroads ran to or through Illinois than any other US state? I’m also guessing that Chicago would have been the major place to switch railroads if you were traveling wide swaths of the continent.
Any info on this?
A hog can travel through Chicago without changing trains, but you can’t.
Chicago being the railroad hub that it was, and is, I’d say that’s a safe assumption.
Perhaps another question might be if you took Chicago out of the mix, was Illinois served by more railroads than any other state?
One might also wonder what might have been if a point further west, ie, St Louis, had been the eventual railroad hub instead of Chicago.
Thank you. My question seemed like a logical one, but I didn’t know for sure.
I can tell you that I will randomly look up an old railroad on Wikipedia and look at their map. Whether they are north, south, east or west of Illinois, many of the big ones at least went to Chicago.
This should give you an idea of how many class 1 railroads served Illinois. Streator Illinois at one point had the Santa Fe NYC CB&Q Rock Island IC Wabash GM&O all in this town at once.
That must have been a great time and place to be a railfan!
All current 8 Class 1 railroads, including Amtrak, serve Illinois. Missouri technically can make the same claim, but I dont believe CN currently operates any trains across the Mississippi River into St Louis proper. Illinois is also second only to Texas in terms of railroad route miles, even though Texas is almost 5 times larger in terms of area. Any way you look at it, Illinois is a heavy hitter in terms of rail activity. True, most of that is due to Chicago, but even in St Louis most of the largest rail terminals are on the Illinois side of the Mississippi. Peoria even rated as major gateway into the early 1960’s.
https://idot.illinois.gov/transportation-system/Network-Overview/rail-system/index
The Peoria Gateway!
But will it play in Peoria?
Even when my husband was a child up until the Staggers act they still had BN the old CB&Q Santa Fe ICG Rock Island until 1980 using trackage rights for both of them plus the NW still served their customer and Conrail. They had 2 major glass plants that shipped out hundreds of cars a month recieved cars plus a fertilizer plant and other plants that all shipped by rail.
Illinois? It’s possible.
If so, New Jersey may be a close second, or might possibly beat Illinois in the “was” department. Just off the top of my head I can list several that if not serving NJ directly certainly passed through it.
The New Jersey Central
The Pennsylvania
The Reading (With Jersey Central trackage rights.)
The Baltimore & Ohio (Same as above.)
The Lackawanna
The Lehigh Valley
The Lehigh & New England
The Lehigh & Hudson River
The Susquehanna
The New York Central (West Shore Line)
The New York, Ontario & Western (With trackage rights on the West Shore.)
The Erie
The Raritan River (A short line industrial 'road.)
The Pennsyvania-Reading Seashore Line
Mind you, the list is from what you might call the “Glory Days,” long before mergers, Conrail, and abandonments.
Don’t believe the B&O actually made it into New Jersey. The end of B&O trackage when their trains operated between Washington and New York was B&O Park Jct (Philadelphia) RDG Bound Brook CNJ to Jersey City.
They did, both freight and passenger, but as I said with trackage rights on the Jersey Central.
The B&O also had a fleet of NY harbor tugs that operated out of the CNJ freight yards in Jersey City and their own small yard on Staten Island.
B&O passenger service to the CNJ terminal stopped in 1958 however, as did their passenger service north of Philly.
As I said, my list reflects the good old days.
PS: Those tugs were beautifully painted in the B&O blue, grey, and gold color scheme! VERY handsome vessels!
By past definitions of a Class I road, some terminal roads (BRC, IHB, TRRA) may have counted as such in Illinois.
Racking my brain over my current home of Virginia there was also a good representation of railroads in the old days.
The Norfolk & Western
The old Norfolk-Southern
The Southern Railway
The Chesapeake & Ohio
The Atlantic Coast Line
The Seaboard
The Virginian
The Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac
And on the Delmarva Penninsula, the Pennsylvania.
You are overlooking the B&O operating down the Shenandoah Valley with its line from Harpers Ferry to Strasburg.
Fair enough! I didn’t know about that one! Thanks!
Rock Island pooled power on a run through trains (Gemini trains) with NYC, and later PC, that would’ve gone through Streator using the old Kankakee Belt (NYC). Those trains ended in the 1970s. Other than that, the Rock Island didn’t go to Streator. Possible detour moves excepted.
Jeff
Here’s what I can come up with for class one railroads that have operated in Illinois. I acknowledge some of the belt switching roads around Chicago may have qualified, but I omitted them. I also admit that some operation may have only been a handful of miles, or by trackage rights, to access the Chicago area. And it’s also chock full of historical names.
The list, in no particular order:
Santa Fe
B&O
C&O
GTW
Soo Line
CB&Q
CGW
C&NW
CMStP&P
CRI&P
GM&O
IC
C&EI
PRR
NYC
L&N
Southern
Monon
Erie
NKP
Wabash
M&StL
Missouri Pacific
If you want to include operation by trackage rights, you could include the Cotton Belt.
Jeff
Illinois had it all:
All of the eastern trunks
All of the grangers
Two western transcons directly (AT&SF and MILW)
Three other western transcons via subsidiaries (GN/NP-CB&Q, SP-Cotton Belt)
Both Canadian transcons via subsidiaries (CN-GTW, CP-WC/Soo Line)
Two major southern carriers (L&N, SOU)
The southwestern carriers (MP and SSW directly, MKT and Frisco trains could be seen from the Illinois side of the Mississippi River)
Large terminal and switching roads (BRC, IHB, EJ&E, A&S, TRRA, and B&OCT if you want to count it seperately from parent B&O)
Regional Class I’s (C&EI, C&IM, GM&O, IC, IT, M-I, M&StL, PM, TP&W, Monon, NKP, Wabash, etc.)
Oddballs - Pocahontas coal carrier C&O comes to mind. And, after the 1964 NKP merger-Wabash lease, the N&W also served Illinois. Plus, UP ran passenger trains to/from Chicago via arrangements with the C&NW and later MILW).
Thanks all for the replies! Great details!