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Chicago Great Western Railway

A CGW freight train passing Elmhurst, Illinois from just east of York Street in 1962
Overview
Headquarters	Oelwein, Iowa / Chicago, Illinois
Reporting mark	CGW
Locale	Minneapolis, Minnesota, Oelwein, Iowa, Chicago, Illinois, Kansas City, Kansas and Omaha, Nebraska
Dates of operation	1885 (1885)–1968 (1968)
Successor	Chicago and North Western
Technical
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)

The Chicago Great Western Railway (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 and Northwestern Railroad. Through mergers and new construction, the railroad, named Chicago Great Western after 1892, 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. The CGW was an early adopter of Internal combustion for passenger services in the 1920s, was the first American railroad to instigate regular trailer-on-flatcar services (in 1936), the first to use continuously welded rail (in 1939) and one of the first Class I railroads in the country to fully eliminate steam power (in 1949). In the post-World War II years the CGW became known for distinctive operating practices that shared key features with the modern principles of precision railroading, adopted by the wider industry in the 1990s.

As a small system surrounded by much larger ones in a region that was over-supplied by railroads and with traffic declining due to deindustrialization and the rise of road transport, the Chicago Great Western struggled to remain viable, and sought mergers throughout the 1950s and 1960s. In 1968 it merged with the Chicago and North Western Railway (CNW), which abandoned most of the CGW's trackage.

Corporate Identity & Nicknames

The first nickname (later a semi-official slogan) acquired by the Chicago Great Western was The Red Stack Line, which came about because the 2-6-0 'Mogul' locomotives used during the construction of the railroad in Iowa and Missouri had distinctive red-painted smokestacks. These locomotives were relatively large and distinctive for their time, and created a lasting impression on communities through which the new railroads passed. Although the railroad's engines soon had their smokestacks painted the usual black, the nickname remained for several years.

In 1894 the company started a competition within its staff to create a new emblem and slogan for the renamed and refinanced railroad. A traffic manager won the $1000 for suggesting the Maple Leaf. Inspiration came from the broad shape of the CGW system, with lines radiating from Oelwein, Iowa to Chicago, the Twin Cities and Kansas City, like the three foils of the leaf. The CGW quickly adopted the slogan The Maple Leaf Route, with the maple leaf appearing on timetables, as a letterhead and on advertising, often with a rather idealised map of the system superimposed on the veins of the leaf. The railroad was often simply referred to, in speech and in text, as 'The Maple Leaf'. When the opening of the line to Omaha, Nebraska in 1903 added a fourth main line to the CGW system, the iconography was altered so that Chicago was at the stem of the leaf, with the three other terminals at the tip of each foil.

Following receivership and reorganization in 1909, the CGW adopted a new slogan and became The Corn Belt Route. The slogan was incorporated into the bar of a roundel logo that also displayed the railroad's name. This was applied to railcars, locomotives, advertising, correspondence, buildings and hoardings.

When the CGW introduced diesel locomotives to mainline service in the 1940s, these were originally painted a two-tone red/maroon scheme with yellow lining, retaining a black-on-yellow version of the Corn Belt roundel. In 1950 the logo was changed to a more modern symbol based on an orange circle with a white and black border. This was similar to the branding for Lucky Strike cigarettes. The Corn Belt Route slogan had been dropped without replacement, and so the CGW gained the unofficial nickname The Lucky Strike Road in this period. From 1954 the two-tone paint scheme on locomotives was replaced by a single all-over bodywork colour of maroon with roof and running gear in black. The maroon paint quickly weathered into a distinctive purple shade. From 1963 onwards the paint scheme was changed for the final time, becoming a plain all-over bright red color, this being cheaper and more durable than the darker maroon/purple.

As the railroad reduced operations in the 1960s, services on many minor lines became infrequent and maintenance was reduced, the railroad was also called The Great Weedy due to the overgrown nature of many of its minor lines and sidings.

History

Predecessor railroads

The CGW had its origins in a number of smaller railroad projects, many of which never finished construction and some of which existed only as on-paper charters. The earliest was the Chicago, St. Charles & Mississippi Airline, chartered in 1852 to construct an 'air line' (straight and direct) route between Chicago and the Mississippi River at Savannah, Illinois.. This project became subsumed into larger companies (especially the Illinois Central) and only the few miles within the city of Chicago itself, connecting with the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad, was actually built.

In March 1854 the Minnesota Territory chartered the Minnesota & Northwestern Railroad to build a line between the shores of Lake Superior and the state border with Iowa. However this project also lay dormant due to (in succession), the Panic of 1857, the American Civil War and the Crédit Mobilier scandal restricting financing for railroad projects.

In 1884 the dormant M&NW, and its charter, was purchased by Alpheus Beede Stickney with financial backing from William Rainey Marshall. Stickney had been a colleague of James J. Hill and had overseen construction of the Great Northern Railway through Minnesota and North Dakota and had been involved with the Canadian Pacific Railway in the early 1880s. After serving for two years as Vice-President of the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway, Stickney sought to build his own railway in the American Midwest. By this time period the region was already considered by some to be over-served by railroads, but growing industrial output and intercity commerce meant that traffic was still available to be gained with the right approach.

During the main period of railroad construction in the 1850s-1870s companies had concentrated on securing 'territory', and serving all possible sources of traffic in this territory and denying access to rival roads. This required the construction of thousands of miles of branch and secondary routes. Faced with a railroad map of the Midwest with little to no 'blank' areas, Stickney conceived of a different sort of railroad. His would be dedicated to carrying traffic between the main terminals of the region and between the large railroads feeding in from the west and east. Thus his railroad would need only three or four routes, which could be heavily served with long-distance through traffic and not burdening itself with a dense tangle of shorter local services.

Under Stickney, the M&NW began construction, completing 110 miles of line between Saint Paul and Mona, Iowa in exactly a year from the change in ownership. At Mona the M&NW connected with the Illinois Central, by which traffic was then routed to Chicago via two other railroads. Stickney's long term plan was to create an independent system connecting the major cities of the wheat belt. This was to be achieved through a combination of new build and acquisition - the next of these being the Dubuque & Northwestern Railroad, chartered in 1883 as a narrow-gauge railway but never begun. Acquired by Stickney (with significant financial backing from British sources) in May 1885, the D&NW was used to build a standard gauge line northwest from Dubuque, Iowa (on the Mississippi River) to Lamont, Iowa, while the M&NW was extended via a branch from the original line at Hayfield, Minnesota to Lamont. These works were completed in October 1886, opening up a through line from St. Paul to the Mississippi and the combined system now having over 250 miles of route.

The next venture was an independent route to Chicago. This was done under the auspices of a new Stickney enterprise, the Minnesota & Northwestern Railroad Company of Illinois, and involved the construction of a route between Dubuque and Forest Park, Illinois. At this point the line connected with the Baltimore & Ohio Chicago Terminal for access to the central Chicago area, while for 27 miles between Forest Park and St. Charles, Illinois on the Fox River the line made use of the grade prepared back in the 1850s for the St. Charles Airline. The Chicago-Dubuque extension included the construction of the Winston Tunnel. Nearly 2,500 feet long and driven through unstable shale rock, the tunnel was difficult to construct and would prove a considerable operational and financial hinderance to the railroad in the future. It took nine months and $600,000 to build. The route to Chicago was opened in February 1888.

While this key line was being built Stickney had acquired several other minor railroads in the region that held key routes. These included the Dubuque & Dakota Railroad (purchased in January 1887) and the Wisconsin, Iowa & Nebraska Railroad. Despite its name this only operated a single line in Iowa connecting Des Moines and Waterloo with a branch to Cedar Falls. A line was added between Waterloo and the existing M&NW line at Oelwein, creating the start of Stickney's push towards the other key Midwestern gateway, Kansas City, Missouri.

By this time, in December 1887, the M&NW (in both Minnesota and Illinois) had been folded into a new company, the Chicago, St. Paul & Kansas City Railroad. This was a holding company formed by Stickney to manage his railroads and fund both new acquisitions and construction. Under the umbrella of the CStP&KC, a line across southern Iowa and Missouri was built rapidly, with the Missouri River being reached at St. Joseph, Missouri in the spring of 1888 just a few weeks after the completion of the line to Chicago. The rails reached the eastern bank of the Missouri opposite Leavenworth, Kansas by the end of 1890. Access to Kansas City itself was via the Leavenworth Terminal Bridge and running agreements with the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, the Rock Island Railroad and, especially, the Missouri Pacific Railroad, along which CStP&KC trains ran for 26 miles into Kansas City.

Within a few years Stickney had created an independent railroad system linking three major terminals across the American Midwest in the face of significantly larger and long-established competitors. However the rapid pace had strained his company's finances and left it in significant debt. In January 1892 the CStP&KC was reorganised under the name Chicago Great Western Railway. At first the new company leased the property and equipment of the older one, but the CStP&KC was formally wound up in 1893, leaving the CGW as the sole owner of the system.

First Years of the Chicago Great Western

The Chicago Great Western, circa 1897.

This financial reorganisation and the completion of the key routes in the network meant that the CGW was one of the few railroads to weather the Panic of 1893 without collapse or even significant hardship, even if the broader financial situation did prevent any further expansion or consolidation of the network. For now, Stickney's final ambition of connecting his railroad to the Union Pacific at Omaha, Nebraska, and so not only netting a portion of the key transcontinental railroad traffic but also giving the CGW a presence at all four of the major gateways in the Midwest with potential for lucrative through traffic, had to be put on hold.

The economic turmoil after the Panic of 1893 did offer the CGW the chance to acquire some properties in Minnesota. A notable acquisition here was the Wisconsin, Minnesota & Pacific, purchased in 1899. With its branches and connecting lines in eastern Minnesota, this was the only area on the CGW which resembled the conventional web-like network of older railroads. However this enabled access to some key cities in Minnesota, including to Red Wing, Dodge Center, Winona and Rochester. Stickney boasted that year that the CGW was "the only western trunk line railway without a mortgage", it having been financed with debenture stock rather than mortgage bonds secured against assets.

That year also saw the CGW move its main workshops from South St. Paul, Minnesota to Oelwein, Iowa. Oelwein was in the centre of the new CGW system, where routes to Chicago, Saint Paul and Kansas City diverged, thus making it the ideal place for the company's engineering to be centered. The complex included facilities for the maintenance, repair and construction of locomotives, passenger cars, freight cars and other mechanical work, as well as large stores and administration facilities. The Oelwein shops were expanded several times in the 1900s and the CGW became one of the few railroads in the prairies able to carry out major repairs and rebuilds on locomotives - something it sometimes carried out for other companies to earn extra income. The Oelwein shops could also build new locomotives from scratch, and did so on occasion.

The Early 20th Century

The first definite moves to reach Omaha came in 1901 with the purchase (from Stickney's friend and former employer, James J. Hill) of the Mason City & Fort Dodge Railroad. This was soon connected to the existing CGW system at Manly, Iowa and by closing the gap between Hampton, Iowa (which led from Oelwein facing Chicago) and Clarion, Iowa on the way to Fort Dodge. Construction west of Fort Dodge began in August 1901 and Council Bluffs was reached two years later in the late summer of 1903. In November, by agreement with the Union Pacific, CGW trains began crossing the Missouri to Omaha Union Station and the UP yards on the western bank.

By this time the CGW had also reached agreements with the Great Northern Railway and the Northern Pacific Railway to access Minneapolis and its own small yard near the Saint Anthony Falls. Therefore by the end of 1903 Alpheus Stickney's vision for an independent railroad connecting all the major terminals in the upper Midwest and running through some of the country's prime agricultural traffic, had been achieved. The Chicago Great Western now boasted a route mileage of 1,458.

1907 Chicago Great Western ad.

Although not burdened by large financial debts, the CGW had issued a large number of promissory notes to fund the line to Omaha and improvements to existing routes, especially between Oelwein and Chicago. Over $8 million of these notes became due in 1908, but the CGW was unable to pay due to the aftermath of the Panic of 1907, which had reduced freight revenues over the system. Therefore on January 8, 1908, the Chicago Great Western Railway entered receivership.

The following August, the company was rescued by a syndicate led by J.P. Morgan & Co., which incorporated the Chicago Great Western Railroad and purchased the entirety of the original CGW Railway for $12 million. This saw Stickney forced out of control and the running of the railway he had built and Samuel Morse Felton Jr. became president. With new financial backing, Felton began an extensive program of modernisation and improvements to the CGW which would exceed $30 million by the time he retired in 1925.

These improvements included the purchasing of ten large 2-6-6-2 Mallet locomotives from Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1910. These were for duties between Oelwein and Stockton, Illinois, which included the difficult grades in and out of the Mississippi valley at Dubuque and the long climb through the Winston Tunnel. The larger locomotives would eliminate double heading and allow both tonnage and speed to be increased. The Mallet were a limited success, as while they did reduce the need for engines and crews to be employed assisting heavy trains on steep grades, they could not do so while also allowing heavier and/or faster trains. Thus the financial and operational benefits were limited, especially as the Mallets had heavy maintenance requirements. The CGW Oelwein shops experimented with converting existing 2-6-2 locomotives to Mallets with a kit of parts from Baldwin, but these were even less productive. The converted engines were 're-converted' into 4-6-2 Pacific types for passenger service while the original class were sold to the Clinchfield Railroad.

In the early years of Felton's presidency he also committed large resources to the reconstruction of the key Winston Tunnel in 1912. As well as relining much of the tunnel with concrete and relaying the track, the project included the installation of a forced ventilation system to remove the heavy smoke and fumes. The entire 240 miles of railway between Oelwein and Forest Hill was fitted with automatic block signalling and stronger rails, as well as a 25-mile stretch east of the Winston Tunnel being upgraded to double-track railway.

As a latecomer railroad to an area already well-served by established systems, and with much of its route engineered for quick and cost-effective construction rather than speed, the CGW had never relied on long-distance passenger services for business. However the rise of car ownership in the 1920s threatened to make even the CGW's relatively low-key services unviable. Another purchase of 1910 was four McKeen railmotors. These gasoline-powered streamlined railcars were much more efficient to operate on local services with low ridership numbers, and more attractive to a population already turning to cars such as the Ford Model T for shorter journeys.

During World War I the railroads of the USA fell under government control via the United States Railroad Administration. The demands of war saw heavy traffic over the CGW system and the company's fleet of small and ageing locomotives were bolstered by modern USRA Standard types. These were retained after the war ended, with the CGW favouring the USRA Light Mikado, which provided the modern power needed to handle the growing freight demands over the system in the Roaring Twenties. The CGW would eventually build a fleet of 35 2-8-2 locomotives of various classes but to similar designs, which handled the majority of the long-distance freight traffic between the main terminals in the interwar period.

In 1924, with passenger numbers falling and operating costs rising, the CGW became one of the first railroads to experiment with internal combustion power on long distance services. The CGW was the first ever customer for the Electro-Motive Company (which, in later decades, would become the dominant Electro-Motive Diesel firm), purchasing a single gasoline-electric 'Doodlebug' railcar for the 509-mile passenger service between Chicago and Omaha. A few years later the CGW would modify three of its McKeen railcars into a streamlined three-car set, providing a luxury passenger service between Minneapolis and Rochester, Minnesota called The Blue Bird. The CGW was the only railroad serving Rochester, home of the world-famous Mayo Clinic, by direct main line from Chicago and this contributed a small but steady traffic of patients and visitors to and from the city. The Blue Bird included a specially-adapted 'Pullman-style' compartment to handle patients in wheelchairs or stretchers.

Troubles in the Late Twenties

In the late 1920s the CGW came to the attention of an investment syndicate led by Patrick H. Joyce, then vice-president of the Standard Steel Car Company. Joyce realised that shareholders in the CGW were owed significant amounts ($50 per share) in unpaid dividends since 1909, and that these back payments would be required to be prioritised if the railroad began turning a year-to-year profit. Using friends and contacts in various key industries, managers and directors at companies served by the CGW were encouraged to purchase shares in the railroad and route as much freight as possible over the CGW to boost its financial state. Joyce and a group of Chicago-based financiers formed a holding company called the Bremo Corporation in January 1929. Traffic managers and directors in companies throughout the Midwest were invited to invest $2500 each in Bremo, with the agreement that they must increase the level of traffic shipped via the CGW by at least 3% from its current level.

The Bremo Corporation eventually acquired enough shares in the CGW to secure control of the railroad in April 1930. The new management was faced with declining traffic and restricted financial room as the Great Depression began to bite. A major investment was in 36 new high-power locomotives to replace the 2-8-2 types that were the line's stalwarts. These new 2-10-4 engines were ordered from Lima Locomotive Works and Baldwin, to a specification similar to a successful class operated by the Texas and Pacific Railway. The 2-10-4 was a type more normally associated with railroads in heavy mountain territory, but for the CGW the new engines finally allowed the long-sort for power increase to run heavier, longer trains without reducing speed or resorting to double heading. This produced notable savings in manpower and equipment utilization, although the 2-10-4s were unpopular with the CGW's staff when introduced as they resulted in a round of layoffs among both engine crews and maintenance and yard personnel. Other rationalizations made during the 1930s included the removal of passenger services on certain lines, the closure of depots (and more often the amalgamation of several depots in a district, sharing staff who moved between them as traffic required) and the complete removal of some spurs and sidings.

In eastern Minnesota - the only part of the CGW with significant branch and secondary lines - large sections of track were abandoned. The 41-mile CGW route between Rochester and Winona, which had been built to low standards with extremely steep (3.3%) grades, a switchback, wooden trestle bridges and a tight horseshoe curve, was abandoned in 1935, with the CGW agreeing terms for use of the parallel and much superior Chicago and North Western route to access Winona.

The circumstances of the Bremo Corporaton's acquisition of the CGW and its business practices in the years since led to the opening of several investigations by the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce, which continued into the 1940s. However in the interim the CGW's financial position continued to decline as the Depression worsened and in February 1935 the railroad filed for bankruptcy again.

The Problems of the Chicago Great Western Although the CGW appeared to be a railroad with a firm future ahead of it in 1945, in reality the railroad faced some intrinsic issues that had dogged it for almost its entire existence and would become critical as the railroad industry came under pressure from multiple directions in the decade to come. Primarily, the CGW suffered by being one of the last Class I railroads built in the USA, and certainly the last in the Midwest. Even by 1900 this area was considered by many to be over-built with railroads (no spot in Iowa was more than 12 miles from a railroad depot) and there were concerns that there was not enough traffic to support the infrastructure provided. The Chicago Great Western had been built rapidly and at low cost. Not only were all its terminals already well served by railroads, but three much larger systems (the Burlington, the Rock Island and the Milwaukee Road) already connected all four of the CGW's terminals and one (the Chicago & North Western) connected three of them, not being present at Kansas City. On none of these duplicated routes with any of these rivals was the CGW competitive on distance or time. Only on the Twin Cities-Omaha line was the CGW even on par with the rival systems. The CGW's lines were less direct, featured more grades and more curves and were less suited to fast running by both their alignment and their formation. Sections of the system, such as the double track out of Chicago towards Stockton, were very good quality but the presence of single-track, lightly-laid, steep-graded sections rendered these parts in large part superfluous. Formed by amalgamating and linking various disparate schemes and built with a strong emphasis on cost reduction, the CGW's routes were sub-optimal. Long stretches of the system in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri had a 'sawtooth' profile of continual rises and falls (to reduce construction costs on banks and cuts), which slowed services and required more powerful locomotives than the higher-specification routes of rivals. Because it was a latecomer (or even the last railroad to arrive) at its key terminals, the CGW was also plagued by awkward access. At none of its terminals did it have independent access. It relied on the B&OCT to access Chicago from Forest Hill. To reach Kansas City it had to take tracks owned by the CB&Q and the CRIP to cross the river at Leavenworth, doing so via an extremely tight curve off the Terminal Bridge that had to be taken at a walking pace and was a frequent cause of derailments. It then ran for over 25 miles on the MP and then needed the CB&Q again to access the city on the Missouri side. While the CGW had its own yard at Saint Paul, it ran on the GN and NP to get to Minneapolis, and had only a cramped and badly-placed yard of its own in that city. Access to Omaha was dependent on the UP. These problems were not just confined to the terminals. At the crucial crossing of the Mississippi at Dubuque, the CGW first ran briefly on CB&Q trackage, then several miles of the IC to cross the river and reach Dubuque. On its own metals it then left the city to the west via a steep climb and a mile and a half of street running - a sub-standard arrangement for a Class I railroad's main line. As the extremely high cost estimates for the 'Stockton Air Line' bypassing Dubuque in the 1950s show, none of these issues were easily solvable. They forced the CGW to compete by the methods it became well-known for: Namely operating efficiencies, ruthless cost cutting, targeted investment in modernization that could reduce costs, high levels of customer service and good local relations to attract business. As the railroad industry in general came under threat from competing transport methods and large-scale economic shifts, these fundamental issues began to tell for the CGW, ultimately spelling its end as both an independent railroad and part of a larger merged one.

Mid-Century Innovations

It took six years for the company's affairs to be satisfactorily reorganized, and in April 1940 the a new company bearing the name the Chicago Great Western Railway was formed. The exact nature of the railroad's future affairs, and the investigations into the Bremo Corporation's activities, took another year to settle. The CGW Railway took possession of the bankrupt Chicago Great Western Railroad in February 1941.

In the interim, the challenging economic situation and the railroad's straightened financial condition had prompted some key innovations. The company's receivers had seen the rise of road transport as both a threat and an opportunity. Having long maintained good relations with local interurban railroads and express agencies in its territory, the CGW began promoting road-to-rail services using road vehicles to bring parcels and small goods shipments from and to its depots. This promised to both reduce costs (by allowing the railroad to reduce or end services to small communities better served by road from regional hubs) and increase traffic. The next logical step was to move into intermodal transport. The CGW was the first Class I railroad to offer trailer-on-flatcar services, whereby the road vehicle trailer and its cargo was loaded directly onto a train, then offloaded for transit by road at its destination. The first experimental TOFC services ran on the CGW in 1936, a year before they were introduced on the New Haven Railroad and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad and the CGW began scheduled 'piggyback' services between Saint Paul and Chicago the next year. The service was soon extended to Council Bluffs. On the introduction of the TOFC services, one senior official of the railroad commented to the press:

"When you’re a poor road, you have to live by your wits.”

This statement came to symbolize the situation and the operating ethos of the CGW for the rest of its existence.

The CGW's fleet of large, powerful 2-10-4 locomotives had been successful, but they were significantly heavier than the previous locomotives used on the railroad and were therefore banned from several secondary routes and could not take sidings on the main lines laid with light rail. In the late 1930s a program of installing heavier rail and longer sidings at key points between Chicago and Oelwein was started. This included the first mainline use in America of continuous welded rail, which also promised savings by eliminating frequent inspection and adjustment of rail joints in conventional rail.

The CGW had experimented with its first internal combustion-powered switcher locomotive in 1925 at its yard at Boom Island in Minneapolis. In 1934 the railroad purchased an 800hp diesel switcher from Baldwin, soon followed by two more from Westinghouse. In 1936 a trio of EMC Winton-engined switchers were put into service.

With the entry of the USA into World War II within a year of the CGW emerging from bankruptcy, the railroad saw a similar upswing in freight and passenger traffic - bolstered by military movements - as it had in World War I.

The Post-war Era

At the end of the conflict in 1945 the CGW emerged as an efficient and well-run railroad with no major debts. It was considered to be in a more optimistic position than many of its fellow Midwestern 'granger' railroads, since it lacked extensive branch lines, secondary routes, local passenger or commuter services or significant local rural freight services, all of which were becoming major financial strains on other roads. Stickney's decision 60 years earlier to construct a railroad focussed on long-distance through freight seemed to set up the CGW for prosperity in an industry coming under increasing competition from private car ownership, trucking and air transport. In May 1946 Patrick Joyce retired from the presidency of the railroad due to his declining health. Interests led by William N. Deramus Jr. of the Kansas City Southern Railway ended up purchasing a controlling interest in the CGW. Joyce was succeeded by Harold W. Burtness. He in turn was followed by Grant Stauffer in October 1948.

The railroad was convinced of the efficiency and cost benefits of diesel locomotives. Diesel switchers from EMD and Alco were purchased in the years immediately after the war, and after a trial with an EMD F3 demonstrator unit in 1946 a large order of 49 F3s (33 A-units and 16 B-units) was placed. These were introduced between 1946 and 1949 with the aim of taking over the majority of the CGW's main line freight services. From 1949 the F3s were followed by a smaller orders for Alco road switchers, larger EMD yard switchers and a small number of EMD F7s which allowed the CGW to eliminate steam traction from regular service by the end of 1950 - among first Class I railroads to do so.

Grant Stauffer's health suffered a sudden decline from cancer, leading to his death in March 1949. This led to his assistant (and son of the CGW's main shareholder), William N. Deramus III, being appointed as president of the CGW. At 33 years old Deramus was the youngest person ever to become president of a Class I railroad up to that point. Deramus oversaw the final introduction of diesel traction to the railroad and continued the CGW's spirit of cost-cutting and operating efficiency while also continuing its reputation for good service among its key industrial and commercial customers.

To gain and continue the full benefits of dieselization, Deramus also sought improvements by investment and modernization in the CGW's fixed assets. In the first three years of his presidency the company's capital expenditure was over $23 million - nearly $7 million for the permanent way and structures and $16 million for equipment. Much of the system was reballasted and large lengths between Chicago and Omaha were relaid with heavier continuous welded rail. Radio communications were installed at yards, depots and control centers, as well as being fitted to allow communication between locomotives and cabooses. The TOFC service pioneered before the war was expanded to include services between Chicago and Kansas City, Saint Paul and Kansas City and Saint Paul and Council Bluffs and a TOFC terminal was built at Des Moines.

The CGW had a long tradition of preferring to run heavier, longer trains since that was a more efficient use of locomotives and crews. As early as 1894 the CGW had experimented with an 84-car train between Saint Paul and Oelwein, and in the 1910s it had used the large Mallets and the USRA 2-8-2s to increase its tonnages. But under Deramus the CGW took this principle to new levels that became a distinctive characteristic of the railroad and which set it apart from its neighbouring 'grangers'. The principles employed by the CGW in the 1950s bore many of the hallmarks of the precision railroading operating philosophy that became near-universal in American railroading in the 1990s but was unusual up to that point. Seeking to run as few trains as possible, and so minimizing the crew, trackside staff and equipment required, the CGW would combine what would normally be several unit trains (trains of one type of freight) heading in the same direction into one train. To this would be added mixed-freight traffic consisting of individual cars or short rakes of specific traffic. The result was extremely long and heavy trains that routinely exceeded 160 cars in number. Consists of more than 200 cars were not uncommon, especially on the Oelwein-Chicago section, since at Oelwein traffic heading to or from the three other terminals would be sorted. Trains commonly weighed 9000 tons and the standard assigned power was a multiple unit set of 9000hp - six of the road's EMD F3 units. Heavier trains, or ones timed to run faster, could have eight, nine or occasionally ten units. A train of 275 cars and 15,000hp (ten units) was recorded passing through the Winston Tunnel.

Non-priority manifest trains would only run when their tonnage and value met a certain pre-calculated profit margin. If the scheduled departure time arrived and it was calculated that the train would not hit that margin, it would be cancelled and its consist distributed to a later service(s) to allow them to meet that margin. These long, heavy trains usually ran at slow speeds (rarely more than 40mph, often as little as 25mph on the 'sawtooth' sections of the system and less when climbing grades) due to their weight and the risk of breaking couplers due to large in-train forces that could be set up. The longest trains could not fit in many of the sidings or sidetracks on the CGW's single-track sections, and so had to run as priority. Another practise introduced to maximize efficiency was the elimination of switchers outside the terminal yards and the Oelwein sorting yard. If cars had to be dropped off or picked up on the route, the road locomotive and its crew would perform this operation, even if it meant leaving a train of 150 or 200 cars stopped and 'tied down' on the running line while the move was carried out.

This arrangement was also part of the CGW's continuing drive to offer good service to its customers. While it could not compete on speed, and the standard service with its profit-sensitive schedule made timeliness almost impossible, the CGW countered this with lower rates and operational flexibility. Although the branches and spurs had been shut, as had many of the sidings, those that survived continued to be served by these big through-trains, offering direct (albeit slow) service. The CGW continued to develop and operate its versatile TOFC service, adding refrigerator trucks for meat and perishables to its service in the 1960s. TOFC cars could be run on the standard slow-timed manifest trains or, for a higher price, run as faster- and much more reliably-timed services.

Passenger services were nearly always loss-making in themselves, but were required to continue under government regulations and could usually net a small income when subsidised United States Postal Service and Railway Express Agency services were factored in. Under Deramus the CGW simplified its passenger services. Dining cars and sleeping cars were eliminated and the CGW resisted the industry fashion for fast passenger services with streamlined stock, which were thought to generate a lot of publicity but little to no profit. The CGW began a steady campaign of applying to the relevant Commerce Commissions for permission to withdraw passenger and mail services. Where it could be justified improvements for passengers were carried out, such as brand new station buildings in a modern style at Des Moines, Fort Dodge and Marshalltown and all remaining passenger services used chair cars with air conditioning (these cars were withdrawn from defunct long-distance services, so simultaneously utilising previously under-used assets and providing the remaining passenger services with higher-standard rolling stock).

Deramus closed virtually all the CGW's administrative and engineering offices in Chicago, consolidating the railroad's headquarters at the key center of the system at Oelwein. The extensive Oelwein workshops were modernised and rationalized to service the diesel locomotives, and a new icing plant for servicing refrigerator cars was constructed here. Elsewhere in the system, many of the original wooden depot buildings, constructed in the 1880s and 1890s and incurring high maintenance costs, were demolished and replaced by functional flat-roofed structures made of breeze blocks. Many depots in rural areas were shut altogether, either being removed from the system entirely or becoming unmanned sidings that were used as required. Virtually all the CGW's remaining branches and spurs were closed or practically abandoned by 1955.

The Winston Tunnel continued to be a source of operational difficulties and financial expenditure for the railroad. The introduction of diesel locomotives had allowed the decommissioning of the forced ventilation system (with its attendant maintenance and staff costs) and the tunnel was heavily repaired and had its trackbed lowered to allow taller loads to pass through in 1946. In 1951 the CGW commissioned a study to propose a new main line that would bypass the troublesome tunnel, the awkward route through Dubuque and the need to run on Illinois Central rails between the two. The survey found that to meet the CGW's specifications for minimal grade and curvature, a 1.3-mile cut over 200ft deep would be needed as well as a bridge crossing the Mississippi and its valley over a mile long. As well as steep grades, sharp curves, slow street running and running over another railroad's lines, the new route would be 11 miles shorter than the existing one. However the projected cost of over $37 million was far too much for the CGW to consider.

But while the CGW could not afford an engineering project on the scale of a new high-specification crossing of the Mississippi, it was in a better financial state than at any time in the 20th century. In 1953 the CGW paid dividend to its ordinary shareholders for the first time since the 1930s. In 1956 the railroad recorded a record annual profit of $3.4 million. By this year only two passenger services remained on the CGW - the Mills Cities Limited between the Twin Cities and Kansas City and the Nebraska Limited between the Twin Cities and Omaha. Despite their grand names, both these services were run on extremely sparse lines, consisting only of a single EMD F-unit, a baggage car, a post office car and a single chair car.In January 1957, Deramus left the company to become president of the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad. In his place Edward Reidy, who had worked in various capacities with the CGW his entire adult life, took up the position.

Seeking a Merger

Despite the CGW's recent positive financial performance, it was not enough to secure its future as an independent railroad or a sustainable business - the profit was not enough to match the long-term capital investment needed and had been generated by cost-savings and efficiencies that could not be easily replicated in the future. And like all railroads in the era the CGW was faced with rising costs and falling traffic by both share and total. It was clear to those leading the CGW that the road's future lay in a merger with another company. This was a trend throughout the American railroad industry in the period, as companies merged to raise capital, eliminate competition, consolidate operations and broaden their markets. The CGW had made its first merger proposals as early as 1946, approaching the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad and the M-K-T. Other partners were pursued in the 1950s, with the hope of arranging an 'end-to-end' merger (where two or more companies with non-competing systems merge, thus creating one cohesive larger network rather than one in the same territory now with duplication). These included the 'Frisco' Railway, the KCS and the Rock Island. None of these reached an agreement, leaving the CGW to continue independently. The railroad continued to make small profits that covered its day-to-day costs but could not sustain its future.

In 1963 the railroad purchased its first 'second generation' motive power in the form of eight EMD GP30s, which had sufficient power for four of the new units to replace the six F3s that headed a typical CGW freight train of the time.

Merger discussions were held with the Soo Line Railroad in 1963, but these also broke down. At this juncture the CGW directors grew increasingly anxious about their railroad's ability to survive in a railroad market that was both consolidating and shrinking.

The CGW, therefore, was open to a merger with the Chicago and North Western Railway (C&NW), first proposed in 1964. This was not an ideal outcome for the CGW, since the C&NW was a much larger system that served almost all the CGW's territory but with superior routes. The only key difference was that the CGW had a route to Kansas City while the C&NW did not. Thus the owners of the CGW feared that any merger would in fact see the CGW shut down apart from the Kansas City line, which would become a division of the C&NW. This apprehension was bolstered by the C&NW not being in a strong financial position itself, even if it could afford to merge given its much larger resources (the C&NW had a route mileage of over 10,000 miles in 1960, compared to the CGW's 1500). The C&NW had merged with the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway in 1960, and this had quickly become more of an acquisition. The CGW board were reluctant to see this repeated with their railroad. But the C&NW was the only partner offering a merger on financially acceptable terms.

As an example of the pressures facing the CGW, in 1964 surveys of the Winston Tunnel showed that it needed significant repairs again. Renewing and modernising the tunnel was estimated to cost $1.6-2.1 million (the railroad's entire annual profits in a typical year) while bypassing the tunnel and replacing it with a cut was costed at $6.8 million. Only the latter would finally remove the operational and maintenance burden that the Tunnel had been for the CGW since the 1880s, and which was a major limit on how far the railroad could accelerate or expand its services.

Like many mergers of the period, the agreement between the CGW and the C&NW took several years to be agreed by the Interstate Commerce Commission, which received several objections from other railroads (including several who had passed on merger offers with the CGW previously) and was generally skeptical of mergers, since as a body it originated to prevent railroad monopolies and maintain competition, even though the financial and economic situation was now very different.

While the merger process continued, the CGW continued to seek efficiencies were it could. Passenger service between the Twin Cities and Kansas City ended in April 1962 and the CGW's last passenger service ran on September 29, 1965 when the train between Omaha and the Twin Cities ran for the final time.

Testifying in 1965, before the Interstate Commerce Commission in Chicago, President Reidy stated that without a successful merger:

"that although [the CGW] was operating in the black it would not be able to continue: 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 carrier under these conditions."

The last traction purchased by the CGW was in 1966, with nine EMD SD40s, with twice the power of the F3s and so able to work in three groups of three, doing the work of 18 F-units.

After a four 4-year period of opposition by other competing railroads, on July 1, 1968, the Chicago Great Western Railway merged with Chicago & North Western Railway. At the time of the merger, the CGW operated a system of 1,411 miles (2,271 km), over which it transported 2,452 million ton-miles of freight in 1967, largely food and agricultural products, lumber, and chemicals, for $28.7 million of revenue. The CGW became the Missouri Division of the C&NW. However, as the CGW board and many of its employees feared, after taking control of the CGW, the CNW abandoned most of the former CGW trackage.

Trail conversion

A 20 mile section of the railroad right of way from Des Moines, IA south to Martensdale, IA was used to create a mixed use trail with the name of Great Western Trail. In addition, a section of track was converted to trail usage, also known as the Great Western Trail, running intermittently between Villa Park, Illinois and West Chicago, Illinois in DuPage County, and then through Kane and DeKalb counties to Sycamore, Illinois.

Passenger operations

1906 blotter promoting the railroad's passenger service.

The Chicago Great Western Limited.

The Chicago Great Western was not known for its passenger trains, although it did operate several named trains, mostly running between Chicago and the Twin Cities. Despite the railroad's small size and meager passenger fleet, it looked for ways to more efficiently move passengers, such as employing all-electric (battery powered) and gas-electric motorcars on light branch lines, which were cheaper to operate than traditional steam or diesel-powered trains. Notable passenger trains from its major terminals included:

• Blue Bird (Minneapolis/St. Paul–Rochester)
• Great Western Limited (Chicago–Minneapolis/St. Paul)
• Rochester Special (Minneapolis/St. Paul–Rochester)
• Red Bird (Minneapolis/St. Paul–Rochester)
• Legionnaire (Chicago–Minneapolis/St. Paul)
• Minnesotan (Chicago–Minneapolis/St. Paul)
• Mills Cities Limited (Kansas City–Minneapolis/St. Paul)
• Nebraska Limited (Minneapolis/St. Paul-Omaha)
• Omaha Express (Minneapolis/St. Paul-Omaha)
• Twin City Express (Omaha-Minneapolis/St. Paul)
• Twin City Limited (Omaha-Minneapolis/St. Paul)
• Maple Leaf Route (Minneapolis/St. Paul, Rochester, Stewartville, Racine, Spring Valley MN etc. to Chicago IL)

On September 30, 1965, the railroad ended passenger operations when the overnight trains between the Twin Cities and Omaha arrived at their respective endpoints.

See also

• Chicago and North Western Railway
• List of Illinois railroads

References

• Fiore, David J. (2006). The Chicago Great Western Railway. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 0-7385-4048-X.
• Middleton, William; Smerk, George; Diehl, Roberta (2007). Encyclopedia of North American Railroads. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-34916-3.
• Schafer, Mike (2000). More Classic American Railroads. Osceola, Wisconsin: MBI Publishing Co. ISBN 978-0-7603-0758-8.

Further reading

• Bee, Roger; Brown, Gary; Luecke, John C. (1984). Chicago Great Western in Minnesota. Anoka, MN: Blue River Publications. ISBN 0-930431-00-6.
• Edson, W. D. (Spring 1986). "Locomotives of the Chicago Great Western". Railroad History: 86–113. ISSN 0090-7847.
• Grant, H. Roger (1984). The Corn Belt Route: A History of the Chicago Great Western Railroad Company. Dekalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press. ISBN 0-87580-095-5.
• Hastings, Phillip R. (1980). Chicago Great Western Railway. Newton, NJ: Carstens. OCLC 6806250.
• Luecke, John C. (2009). More Chicago Great Western in Minnesota. Saint Paul, MN: Grenadier Publications. OCLC 621673716.
• Solomon, Brian (2014). North American Railroads: The Illustrated Encyclopedia. Voyageur. ISBN 978-0-7603-4736-2.

External links

• Hub City Heritage Corporation Oelwein Railroad Museum
• There are two sites named the Unofficial Chicago Great Western page:
  • the Unofficial Chicago Great Western page
  • the Unofficial Chicago Great Western site
• Chicago & North Western Historical Society (includes predecessor roads)