The Corn Belt Route: A History of the Chicago Great Western Railroad Company (Railroads in America)

About this book

The Chicago Great Western Railroad was a spunky midwestern carrier that contributed mightily to the transportation industry. The 1 500-mile CGW built by the iconoclastic and ambitious A. B. Stickney proved to be exceptionally innovative as it developed new ways to compete with larger railroads. Pitted against tough determined competitors the CGW during its eighty-five years made innovations that changed the history of American transportation. Among the pioneering activities for which the Great Western is remembered are the early use of internal combustion equipment the hauling of truck trailers atop flatcars ("piggy-backs") and the use of extremely long freight trains. Indeed much of the railroads past supports the notion that smaller less-established carriers like the CGW frequently stimulated changes in industry thinking and practices. In spite of its innovations the path of the Great Western sometimes called the "Great Weedy " did not always run smoothly. In the 1930s John W. Barriger III quipped "The Chicago Great Western is a mountain railroad in a prairie country serving a traffic vacuum." Such a negative assessment was not uncommon for this Granger pike which in fact climbed some steep grades and owned a long tunnel. And while the road did not operate in a "traffic vacuum " its competitors were well entrenched and robust. By 1903 the CGW served the strategic gateways of Chicago Kansas City Minneapolis-St. Paul St. Joseph and Omaha. Between Chicago and the Twin Cities alone the company competed with six other roads. When the Chicago & North Western acquired the Great Western in 1968 one of Americas most imaginative railroads disappeared. The Corn Belt Route is the first scholarly treatment of the Chicago Great Western Railroad a company that has long intrigued the railfan whether collector modeler photographer or historian. Richly illustrated this book tells the lively story of one of the great small railroads that once served the Midwest.