The (
AAR reporting mark '''CGW''') was a
Class I Railroad that linked
Chicago ,
Minneapolis ,
Omaha , and
Kansas City . It was founded by
Alpheus Beede Stickney in
1885 as a regional line between
St. Paul and the
Iowa state line called the '''Minnesota & Northwestern Railroad'''. Through mergers and new construction, the railroad, named Chicago Great Western after 1909, 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 because of its operating area in the
Midwestern United States , 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 .
It was merged with the
Chicago And North Western Railway (CNW) in
1968 , which abandoned most of the CGW's trackage.
Alpheus Beede Stickney was a lawyer-turned-railroad magnate who had found work in management of several railroads before striking out on his own. In
1854 , the Legislature of the
Territory Of Minnesota had chartered the Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad (M&NW) to be built between
Lake Superior , Minneapolis and
Dubuque, Iowa . However, it stayed dormant until purchased by Stickney and another investor in
1883 . Immediately, the railroad began building, and by
1886 had constructed a line between
St. Paul, Minnesota and Dubuque.
By
1888 , not only had the railroad changed its name to the (CStP&KC), it had finished a continuous line all the way across Illinois to
Forest Park, Illinois , except for trackage rights with the
Illinois Central across the
Mississippi River . At Forest Park, the railroad made a connection with the ancestor of the
Baltimore And Ohio Chicago Terminal for the last nine miles into Chicago's
Grand Central Station . The new construction included Illinois' longest railway bore, the
Winston Tunnel , south of
Galena .
Through merger and construction, the CStP&KC then added lines between
Oelwein, Iowa , on the Chicago-to-St. Paul mainline, and
Kansas City, Missouri , by
1891 , and between Oelwein and
Omaha, Nebraska by
1903 . Thus, Oelwein became the hub of the railroad, and its main locomotive repair shops were soon located there. The mammoth facility was said to have inspired
Walter Chrysler , who worked as the supervisor of the shops between
1904 and
1910 .
The Great Western also expanded its assortment of feeder branch lines in Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois, but plans to continue expanding the railroad north to
Duluth, Minnesota , west to
Sioux City, Iowa or
Denver, Colorado , or south into
Mexico , never came to fruition.
The railroad survived the
Panic Of 1893 to become the , and with Stickney at the helm soon developed a reputation for being an innovative and progressive competitor for traffic between the terminals it served. However, the
Panic Of 1907 forced it into
Bankruptcy , and the road was purchased by financial interests connected to
J. P. Morgan . One of the first casualties of the buyout was Stickney, who was forced out and replaced by
Samuel Morse Felton, Jr. in
1909 . Felton realized that the railroad could not survive in the fiercely competitive markets it served without an ambitious and sustained effort to innovate and modernize. New rails, new locomotives including several
Mallet Locomotives (which set a precedent for the railroad acquiring huge locomotives with huge horsepower) pulled ever-longer freight trains over the system, and gasoline-powered motorcars to replace steam power on the lightly used passenger trains, were hallmarks of this rehabilitation.
Felton retired in
1929 due to failing health. At the time he stepped down, investors friendly with
Patrick H. Joyce had purchased a controlling interest in the Great Western from J. P. Morgan and had placed him in charge of the Great Western. The
Wall Street Crash Of 1929 threatened these financial interests, so Joyce and his friends, along with the
Van Sweringen Brothers , embarked on a stock-manipulation scheme to keep the price of CGW stock high. The inevitable happened in
1935 , when the railroad declared bankruptcy once again. It was reorganized and re-emerged in
1941 .''Chicago Daily Tribune'' February 16, 1941.
Even as the CGW was being mismanaged, Joyce continued the modernization and innovation of his predecessors. The Great Western trimmed passenger service, which was never particularly profitable on the lightly-populated lines, abandoned branch lines and refurbished main lines, and continued acquisition of huge locomotives, this time
2-10-4 ''Texas''-types, which pulled enormous trains, sometimes one-hundred cars long and longer. However, the most important innovation was the so-called , the forerunner of modern
Intermodal Freight Transport , which the Great Western introduced in
1936 by moving several hundred truck trailers on specially modified
Flat Cars . The Great Western was also an early proponent of dieselization. It purchased its first diesel-electric locomotive, an 800-horsepower yard switcher from
Westinghouse , in 1934, and was completely dieselized by
1950 .''Chicago Daily Tribune'' December 28, 1934
As it had happened in 1929, a group of businessmen friendly to
William N. Deramus, Jr. , president of the
Kansas City Southern , had been purchasing up a controlling share of Great Western stock, and by
1949 , this group appointed Deramus' son,
William N. Deramus III , to head the railroad. He continued, even more aggressively than his predecessors, the modernization and cost-trimming that had become the hallmarks of the corporate culture of the CGW. Under Deramus, passenger service was almost entirely eliminated, and the railroad's offices, spread out in Chicago and throughout the system, were consolidated in Oelwein. Even longer trains than before, pulled by sets of five or more
EMD F-units , became standard operating procedure, which hurt service but increased efficiency.
In 1946, the first proposal to merge the Great Western with other railroads, this time with the
Chicago And Eastern Illinois Railroad and the
Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad .''Chicago Daily Tribune'' March 17, 1946 Investors balked and the CGW stayed independent, but even as the Great Western survived and thrived during the
1950s , it was becoming increasingly clear that the American railroad climate was changing. Railroads were merging, changing traffic patterns and threatening the delicate economic balance in which railroads of similar size and stability to the CGW could exist. By the time Deramus stepped down from the CGW in
1957 to take the presidency at the Missouri-Kansas-Texas,''Chicago Daily Tribune'' January 9, 1957 the era of the railroad super-merger had begun.
Upon his resignation, Deramus was replaced by
Edward T. Reidy . As before, innovations continued to keep the company profitable. Second-generation diesel locomotives such as the
EMD GP30 and
EMD SD40 , the largest and most powerful the CGW ever owned, found their way into the system, and the Oelwein shops stayed busy repairing and maintaining the now-aged F-units long after many other railroads had replaced theirs. Passenger service, reduced to two St. Paul to Omaha trains, was gone by
1962 . Labor costs were trimmed, branch lines abandoned, as the Great Western tried to stay fiscally viable enough to be a suitable merger partner.
Upon the failure of a merger offer from the
Soo Line Railroad in
1963 , the board of the Great Western grew increasingly anxious about its continued viability in a consolidating railroad market. Testifying before the Interstate Commerce Commission in Chicago, President Reidy claimed, "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 carried under these conditions."''Chicago Daily Tribune'' October 18, 1962; November 13, 1963; March 3, 1965
The CGW, therefore, was open to a merger bid with the
Chicago And North Western Railway (CNW), first proposed in
1964 . After a long period of regulatory wrangling, on
July 1 ,
1968 , the Chicago Great Western merged with Chicago and North Western.''Chicago Daily Tribune'' May 23, 1964; July 1, 1968 The CNW maintained the facilities at Oelwein for several years, but ultimately abandoned the yard and shops. Within a decade, most of the CGW right-of-way had been abandoned by the CNW.
Almost forty years after merger and piecemeal abandonment, some Chicago Great Western trackage and infrastructure remains in service. In Illinois, for example, the CGW mainline through St. Charles is now operated by the
Union Pacific Railroad as an industrial lead for several shippers including a lumber yard; in Byron, a small section of trackage is used for car storage. Several depots also remain, some converted to better serve their new, non-railroad owners, and others restored to their former appearance. Two long sections of the right-of-way near Chicago have been turned into a
Bicycle Path . A section of the right of way between
Red Wing, Minnesota and
Cannon Falls, Minnesota has become the
Cannon Valley Trail , and another section between
Faribault, Minnesota and
Mankato, Minnesota is now the
Sakatah Singing Hills State Trail . A handful of CGW locomotives remain operational, including all the former CGW SD40s, but all have long since been repainted and scattered nationwide. An
EMD FP7-A , CGW 116-A, has been restored and repainted and is located at the former hub of the railroad at a museum in Oelwein. Sometimes an observant train watcher will notice an old hopper or tank car still painted in CGW colors, but they are now quite rare.
