Chicago Great Western Railway
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Template:Infobox SGRailroad The Chicago Great Western Railway (AAR reporting mark CGW) was a Class I railroad that linked Chicago, Minneapolis, Omaha, and Kansas City. It was founded by Alpheas Beede Stickney in 1885 as a small 100 mile line between St. Paul and the Iowa state line. Through mergers and new construction, it quickly became a multi-state carrier. It maintained a link over the Mississippi and an expensive tunnel, Winston Tunnel, near Galena, Illinois. Nicknamed the Corn Belt Route 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.
Its headquarters was in Chicago, Illinois, but later moved to Oelwein, Iowa.
CGW was most famous for running very long trains behind multiple Electro-Motive Division (EMD) F-unit locomotives. Trains with six or more F-unit locomotives were not uncommon. In 1963 the railroad bought eight EMD GP30 and in 1966 nine EMD SD40 diesels. The railroad also pioneered the intermodal concept (piggyback service) when, in 1936, it moved several hundred truck trailers on specially modified flat cars.
On July 1, 1968, the Chicago Great Western merged with Chicago & North Western (CNW) to avoid bankruptcy. The CNW subsequently abandoned most of the CGW right-of-way.
External links
- Chicago & Northwestern Historical Society (http://www.cnwhs.org/) (includes predecessor roads)
- There are two sites named the Unofficial Chicago Great Western page:
- the Unofficial Chicago Great Western page (http://www.trainweb.org/cgw/)
- the Unofficial Chicago Great Western page (http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Acres/6306/)
Template:North America class 1de:Chicago Great Western Railroad