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Chicago Central & Pacific

Transportation Company - Chicago Central & Pacific - Railroad
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Company NameChicago Central & Pacific
Company Web SiteLink
CategoryRailroad
Year Founded1985
Final Year of Operation1996
TerminationAcquired
Successor/ParentIllinois Central (Details)
CountryUnited States (Details)
Source of TextBluford Shops
Text Credit URLLink
Transportation Company - Chicago Central & Pacific - Railroad



Company History: Chicago Central & Pacific (reporting marks, CC) was one of the larger spin-offs of Illinois Central Gulf. In 1985, the new company acquired the entire Iowa Division of the ICG, stretching from Chicago west to Omaha and Sioux City (the lines diverge just west of Fort Dodge, Iowa) plus rolling stock for $75 million. Other branches off this main were also included. Total mileage is just under 800 making it a bit smaller than Maine Central in comparison.

Other than 17 former Milwaukee Road GP20s, 10 GP38s, 3 GP28s, and a quartet of switchers, the rest of the 114 unit diesel fleet was made up of former Illinois Central Gulf geeps (mostly units rebuilt at ICG's Paducah Shops.) For the first few years, typical lashups consisted of orange and white ICG units with the name painted out and the new CC green diamond logo applied to the nose and cab side, also orange and black former MILW units that received the same treatment. Ultimately, a new red paint scheme was adopted. If you removed the lettering from the long hood and painted it black instead of red, you would have Illinois Central's pre-1967 paint scheme. Ultimately, they dropped the "CHICAGO CENTRAL" from the long hood and replaced it with a larger "CC" instead. The green diamond inherited from Illinois Central with "Chicago" replacing "Illinois" remained however.

In one of life's little ironies, in 1996 the Illinois Central (they dropped the "Gulf" in 1988,) repurchased the Chicago Central & Pacific for twice what they had sold it for. Today, CC is a paper railroad owned by Grand Trunk Corporation who administers Canadian National's US holdings. There are many freshly painted Canadian National cars with "CC" reporting marks, and the line is operated as part of the greater Canadian National system.
Successor/Parent History:
The Illinois Central Railroad (reporting mark IC), sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, was a railroad in the central United States, with its primary routes connecting Chicago, Illinois, with New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama. A line also connected Chicago with Sioux City, Iowa (1870). There was a significant branch to Omaha, Nebraska (1899), west of Fort Dodge, Iowa, and another branch reaching Sioux Falls, South Dakota (1877), starting from Cherokee, Iowa. The Sioux Falls branch has been abandoned in its entirety.

The IC is one of the early Class I railroads in the US. Its roots go back to abortive attempts by the Illinois General Assembly to charter a railroad linking the northern and southern parts of the state of Illinois. In 1850 U.S. President Millard Fillmore signed a land grant for the construction of the railroad, making the Illinois Central the first land-grant railroad in the United States.

The Illinois Central was chartered by the Illinois General Assembly on February 10, 1851. Senator Stephen Douglas and later President Abraham Lincoln were both Illinois Central men who lobbied for it. Douglas owned land near the terminal in Chicago. Lincoln was a lawyer for the railroad. Upon its completion in 1856 the IC was the longest railroad in the world. Its main line went from Cairo, Illinois, at the southern tip of the state, to Galena, in the northwest corner. A branch line went from Centralia, (named for the railroad) to the rapidly growing city of Chicago. In Chicago its tracks were laid along the shore of Lake Michigan and on an offshore causeway downtown, but land-filling and natural deposition have moved the present-day shore to the east.

In 1867 the Illinois Central extended its track into Iowa, and during the 1870s and 1880s the IC acquired and expanded railroads in the southern United States. IC lines crisscrossed the state of Mississippi and went as far as New Orleans, Louisiana, to the south and Louisville, Kentucky, in the east. In the 1880s, northern lines were built to Dodgeville, Wisconsin, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Omaha, Nebraska. Further expansion continued into the early twentieth century.

The Illinois Central, and the other "Harriman lines" owned by E.H. Harriman, was the target of the Illinois Central shopmen's strike of 1911. Although marked by violence and sabotage in the south, midwest, and western states, the strike was effectively over in a few months. The railroads simply hired replacements and withstood diminishing union pressure. The strike was eventually called off in 1915.
Brief History:
The U.S. is a country of 50 states covering a vast swath of North America, with Alaska in the northwest and Hawaii extending the nation’s presence into the Pacific Ocean. Major Atlantic Coast cities are New York, a global finance and culture center, and capital Washington, DC. Midwestern metropolis Chicago is known for influential architecture and on the west coast, Los Angeles' Hollywood is famed for filmmaking.

Item Links: We found: 1 different collections associated with Chicago Central & Pacific - Railroad
Item created by: gdm on 2017-10-10 09:55:58. Last edited by gdm on 2019-04-30 08:29:32

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