Chicago Great Western Railway

This day marks the death 40 years ago of 1 of the greatest (IMHO) of the Granger Railroads in the history of the United States, The Chicago Great Western Railroad (CGW). It was on this day that it merged with the Chicago & NorthWestern Railway (CNW) which soon began dismantling it. (I sometimes say murdered it.) Today very few of the original tracks still operate as a part of the Union Pacific (The CNW became part of the Union Pacific in 1995). Much has been abandoned. Some parts are now bike trails (such as the Heritage Trail DBQ, Co.). & while some of the track running North & South East out of Oelwein still exists only the track from Oelwein to Waterloo is still in use. The track is owned by D&W Railroad Inc. (D&W) & the trains are operated by the Iowa Northern Railway.

The heart of the CGW was my hometown of Oelwein, IA. & the CGW was the heart of my hometown. It was there that the 3 main branches of the CGW met. Those lines & the Rock Island line that ran through Oelwein resulted in the town being nicknamed "The Hub City". It was there that the home office operated for the last 10 years of its existance. It was in Oelwein that the CGW's main shops were built at the start of the 20th Century. The shops still exist, mostly unused. The Oelwein depot is now the City Hall. & the yard office building & Railway Express Agency (REA) building as well as the dispatcher's tower are a part of the Hub City Railroad Museum. Transo operates by the roundhouse. Its most famous tunnel, the Winston Tunnel near Elizabeth, is in a sad state of disrepair. Hopefully the Illinois DNR will do something about that as it now owns part of the tunnel.

I grew up 3 blocks away from the switch yards, which still exist. As a child I fell asleep listening to the switch engines at work. I still love the sound of a train in the night. There was a spot that I loved to go to & watch the engines at work. (That spot is my secret that I have only shared the location of with a couple of friends.) Both of my grandfathers as well as a great-grandfather worked for the CGW.

Chartered in 1854 as the Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad (M&NW) to run from St. Paul to DBQ, it wasn't actually built until 1885 when the charter was bought up byAlpheus Beede Stickney. By 1888 it changed its name to the Chicago, St. Paul and Kansas City Railroad (CStP&KC) & reached into Illinois. The Illinois Central (IC) bridge that it used for crossing the Mississippi at DBQ still exists & is still operated by the IC (now part of Canadian National). Through mergers & construction it reached Kansas City, MO by 1891 & Omaha by 1903. Arround 1893 it became the Chicago Great Western. Plans for further expansion never occurred.

Like many railroads it went through its ups & downs, bankruptcies & scandal. It was also an innovator & leader in modernization when it came to locomotives; steam, gas & diesel. Its willingness to upgrade with more powerful locomotives resulted in it being a leader in having larger consists. It was also the innovator of what was called "Piggyback Service", what we now call intermodal transport. It introduced that service in 1936. It was also known for having the most colorful collection of tank cars. They were color coded depending on what they carried. (List of various cars used here). Probably its most famous employee & Oelwein resident was Walter P. Chrysler (of automobile fame) who was supervisor of the shops from 1904-1910. Oelwein has a park in his honor. & it also has a wildlife preserve named The Great Western Park north of the yards.

The railroad had 2 main nicknames over the years. 1 was The Maple Leaf Route. This was based on a logo of a maple leaf with a map of the RR. The layout did look a bit like the viens of a maple leaf. the main nickname was The Corn Belt Route. This nickname was incorporated in 1 of its logos. The reason for that nickname should be obvious. The CGW's final logo (above) was sometimes called the Lucky Strike logo due to its similarity to the cigarette's logo. Another less reputable nickname, The Great Weedy, came about during 1 of its periods of disrepair.

You can read a short history of the railroad on the Oelwein museum website (here). I would also highly recommend The Corn Belt Route: A History of the Chicago Great Western Railroad Company by H. Roger Grant (Northern Illinois University Press). 1st published in 1984 it is still in print. It is the best history of the CGW I have found. Another book that is smaller but has plenty of pictures is The Chicago Great Western Railway by Arcadia Publishing. Railroads of Dubuque is also published by Arcadia & has a section on the CGW. Another book with plenty of pictures is Chicago Great Western: Iowa in the Merger Decade by Philip Hastings (if you can find it). Over the years some employees have published books based on their experiences as well.

Fortunately there is the museum in Oelwein that is doing its best to keep the memory of the CGW (& Rock Island) in Oelwein alive. They have 1 of the CGW's 1st diesel's F-7, #116-A that has been restored to its original paint scheme. That was the best of the 3 schemes for the diesels as far as I am concerned. (They can always use financial donations to help with their work.) & the bike path at the North end of DBQ that was were the tracks ran has a plaque commemorating it. Many other museums in the Midwest also have some CGW items. & many bike paths run on portions of the right-of-way.

Maybe the CGW didn't have a song like Oelwein's other line, the Rock Island. Maybe it wasn't well known in most of the country. But without it, much of what makes up today's way of doing things in the RR industry might never exist. As I said, they were an innovator. That is what came from being a small but scrappy Class-I railroad. Sometimes I wonder what might have been had it been able to expand more. Would it have been 1 of the surviving railroads in the mergers of the last 40 years? That will never be known. It didn't survive. But, it deserved to.

Websites: The Unofficial CGW web site

The Unofficial Chicago Great Western page

Hub City Heritage Corporation Railroad Museum (Oelwein, IA)

The Great Western Railroad Museum (Elizabeth, IL)