The was a railroad that operated in the
Midwestern United States . Commonly referred to as the '''Burlington''' or as the '''Q''', the railroad served a large area, including extensive trackage in the states of
Colorado ,
Illinois ,
Iowa ,
Missouri ,
Montana ,
Nebraska ,
Wisconsin and
Wyoming . Its primary connections included Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, St. Louis, Kansas City and Denver. Because of this extensive tracking in the midwest and mountain states the Q used the slogans "Everywhere West," "Way of the Zephyrs," and "The Way West."
The earliest forefather of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, the Aurora Branch Railroad, was chartered by act of the
Illinois General Assembly on October 2, 1848. The citizens of
Aurora and
Batavia, Illinois , did this out of concern for
Galena And Chicago Union Railroad bypassing their towns in favor of
West Chicago on its route, which, at the time, was the only line running west from Chicago. The Aurora Branch was henceforth built from Aurora, through Batavia, to Turner Junction in what is now West Chicago. Using a leased locomotive and cars, old strap rail, and minimal, if any, grading, the AB eventually began running passenger and freight trains from Aurora to Chicago by running its trains from Aurora to Turner and then using one of the G&CU's two tracks east from there to Chicago. The G&CU required the Aurora Branch to turn over 70 percent of their revenue per ton-mile handled on that railroad; as a result, in the mid 1850s, surveys were ordered to determine the best route for a railroad line to Chicago.
In 1862, the line from Aurora to Chicago, built through the fledgling towns of
Naperville ,
Downers Grove ,
Hinsdale ,
Berwyn , and the west side of Chicago, was opened and passenger and freight service began. Regular commuter train service started in 1863 and remains operational to this day, making it the oldest surviving regular passenger service in Chicago. Both the original Chicago line, and to a much lesser extent, the old Aurora Branch right of way, are still in regular use today by the Q's descendant
BNSF Railway .
With a steady acquisition of locomotives, cars, equipment, and trackage, the Burlington Route was able to enter the trade markets in 1862. As of that year, that railroad has been the only Class I U.S. railroad to constantly pay dividends and never run into debt or default on a loan.
After extensive trackwork was planned,the Aurora Branch changed its name to the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad and shortly reached its two other namesake cities, Burlington, Iowa and Quincy, Illinois. In 1868 the CB&Q completed bridges over the
Mississippi River both at
Burlington, Iowa and
Quincy, Illinois giving the railroad through connections with the
Burlington And Missouri River Railroad (B&MR) in Iowa and the
Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad (H&StJ) in Missouri. The first Railway Post Office was inaugurated on the H&StJ to sort mail on the trains way across Missouri, passing the mail to the Pony Express upon reaching the Missouri River at
St. Joseph, Missouri . The B&MR continued building westward into Nebraska as a separate company, the Burlington & Missouri River Rail Road in Nebraska, founded in 1869. During the summer of 1870 it reached Lincoln, the newly designated capital of Nebraska and by 1872 it reached Kearney, Nebraska. That same year the B&MR across Iowa was absorbed by the CB&Q. By the time the Missouri River bridge at
Plattsmouth, Nebraska was completed the B&MR in Nebraska was well on its way to the Mile High city of Denver, Colorado. That same year, the Nebraska B&MR was purchased by the CB&Q which completed the line to Denver by 1882, the first direct rail line from Chicago to Denver.
Burlington's rapid expansion after the Civil War was based upon sound financial management, dominated by
John Murray Forbes of Boston and assisted by Charles Elliott Perkins. Perkins was a powerful administrator who eventually forged a system out of previously loosely-held affiliates, virtually tripling Burlington's size during his presidency from 1881 to 1901.
Ultimately, Perkins' believed the Burlington must be included into a powerful transcontinental system. Though the Burlington reached as far west as
Denver, Colorado and
Billings, Montana , it had failed to reach the
Pacific Coast during the cheaper building years of the 1880s and 1890s. Though approached by
E.H. Harriman of the
Union Pacific Railroad , Perkins' felt the Burlington was a more natural fit with
James J. Hill 's
Great Northern Railway . With its river line to the
Twin Cities , the Burlington formed a natural connection between Hill's home town (and headquarters) of
St. Paul, Minnesota , and the all-important American railroad hub of
Chicago . Moreover, Hill was willing to meet Perkins' $200-a-share asking price for the Burlington's stock. By 1900, Hill's Great Northern, in conjunction with the
Northern Pacific Railway , held nearly 100 percent of the Burlington's stock.
In 1901 a rebuffed Harriman tried to gain an indirect influence over the Burlington by launching a stock raid on the Northern Pacific. Though Hill managed to fend off this attack on his nascent system, it led to the creation of the
Northern Securities Company , and later, the
U.S. Supreme Court 's Northern Securities Decision.
''Silver Grill'' passes through
Denver, Colorado on
October 24 ,
1936 .]]
With the First World War having the same effect on the Burlington as on all other railroads, during the 1920s the Burlington Route had an increasingly heavy amount of equipment flooding the yards. With the advent of the Great Depression, the CB&Q held a good portion of this for scrap. Despite the decrease of passengers, it was during this time that the Q introduced the famed ''Zephyrs.''
As early as 1897, the Q had been interested in alternatives to steam power, namely, internal-combustion engines. The Aurora Shops had built a clumsy and totally unreliable three-horsepower distillate motor in that year, but it was hugely impractical (requiring a massive 6,000-pound flywheel) and had issues with overheating (even with the best metals of the day, its cylinder heads and liners would warp and melt in a matter of minutes) and was therefore impractical. Diesel engines of that era were obese, stationary monsters best suited for low-speed, continuous operation. None of that would do in a railroad locomotive; however, there was no diesel engine suitable for that purpose then.
Always innovating, the Q both purchased "doodlebug" gas-electric combine cars from , accused of gambling on diesel power, chirped that "I knew that the GM people were going to see the program through to the very end. Actually, I wasn't taking a gamble at all." The manifestation of this gamble was the eight-cylinder Winton 8-201A diesel, a creature no larger than a small
Dumpster , that powered the ''Burlington Zephyr'' on its record run and opened the door for developing the long line of diesel engines that has powered Electro-Motive locomotives for the past seventy years.
After the Second World War, the CB&Q was inundated by the overworked steam locomotives existent in a fleet that was already beginning to dieselize. Having expanded its dieselization program rapidly, steam power was slowly put out to pasture, and on September 28, 1959, the last steam-powered commuter train from Chicago rolled to a stop in
Downers Grove , marking the end of the steam era on the CB&Q.
As the financial situation of American railroading continued to decline through the 1960s, the Burlington merged with the
Great Northern Railway ,
Northern Pacific and the
Spokane, Portland And Seattle railroads on
March 2 ,
1970 to form the
Burlington Northern Railroad , a merger once dreamed of by Great Northern founder
James J. Hill .
The railroad operated a number of
Streamlined passenger
Trains known as the ''Zephyrs'' which were the most famous and largest fleet of
Streamliner s in the United States. The "Burlington Zephyr," America's first
Diesel -
Electric powered streamlined passenger train, made its famous "Dawn-to-Dusk" run from
Denver, Colorado to
Chicago, Illinois on
May 26 ,
1934 . On
November 11 ,
1934 the train was put into regularly scheduled service between
Lincoln, Nebraska and
Kansas City, Missouri . Although the distinctive, articulated stainless steel trainsets were well known, and the railroad adopted the "Way of the Zephyrs" slogan, they did not attract passengers back to the rails en masse, and the last one was retired from revenue service with the advent of Amtrak.
The ''Zephyr'' service included
- '' Nebraska Zephyr '' (Chicago–Lincoln),
- '' Sam Houston Zephyr '' (Houston–Dallas-Ft. Worth),
- '' Ozark State Zephyr '' (Kansas City–St. Louis),
- '' General Pershing Zephyr '' (Kansas City–St. Louis),
- '' Silver Streak Zephyr '' (Kansas City–Omaha–Lincoln),
- '' Ak-Sar-Ben Zephyr '' (Kansas City–Omaha–Lincoln),
- '' Zephyr-Rocket '' (St. Louis–Minneapolis-St. Paul),
- '' Texas Zephyr '' (Denver–Dallas-Ft. Worth),
- '' American Royal Zephyr '' (Chicago–Kansas City),
- '' Kansas City Zephyr '' (Chicago–Kansas City),
- '' California Zephyr '' (Chicago–Oakland).
The ''California Zephyr'' is still operated daily today by
Amtrak as trains 5 (westbound) and 6 (eastbound). Another train, the
Illinois Zephyr , is a modern descendant of the
Kansas City Zephyr and
American Royal Zephyr service.
The Burlington was a leader in implementing technological innovation; among its firsts were use of the printing telegraph (
1910 ), train radio communications (
1915 ), streamlined passenger diesel power (
1934 ) and
Vista-dome coaches (
1939 ). In 1927, the Burlington was one of the first to utilize
Centralized Traffic Control (CTC) and by the end of 1957 had equipped 1,500 miles of its right-of-way for this advanced type of signaling. The Q had one of the first hump classification yards at its Western Avenue Yard in Chicago, allowing an operator in a tower to line switches remotely and making around-the-clock classification a fact. Today, as BNSF, they are still a leader in innovation, by adopting the new "AC Traction Control" in new diesel locomotives.
- The Northern Securities Decision ''Northern Securities Co. v. United States'' at Cornell Law School's Supreme Court Collection.
- Bryant, Keith L., Jr., Editor. ''Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography, Railroads in the Twentieth Century.'' New York: Facts on File, 1990.
- Frey, Robert L., Editor. ''Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography, Railroads in the Nineteenth Century.'' New York: Facts on File, 1988.
- Hidy, Ralph W., et al. ''The Great Northern Railway, A History.'' Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1988.
- Klein, Maury. ''The Life and Legend of E.H. Harriman.'' Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.
- Martin, Albro. ''James J. Hill and the Opening of the Northwest.'' New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.
- Burlington Route Historical Society
- North American Railroad Slogans
