Chicago and North Western Railroad: Map, History, Logo

Last revised: October 20, 2026

A granger railroad lived on grain, and the Chicago & North Western was one of the great ones. Reporting mark CNW. The map at its widest covered Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, Illinois, Minnesota, and Missouri, reached into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, North Dakota, and Wyoming, and came into Kansas City. The branches were the pleasure and the problem: a freight bobbing over weed-grown rail to a grain elevator, and a balance sheet that could not carry the weed-grown rail after the trucks arrived. Powder River coal pulled the company back in the 1980s. Union Pacific’s common control took effect on April 6, 1995.

Chicago and North Western E7s receiving a bath at the 40th Street Shops in Chicago, circa 1948

A famous postcard of Chicago & North Western E7s receiving a bath at the 40th Street Shops in Chicago, circa 1948.

On this page: A railroad with a face · Galena & Chicago Union · At a glance · The Cowboy Line · Ogden’s railroad · The Omaha Road · The 400s · Heineman’s railroad · The Alco Line · Union Pacific

A railroad with a face

A modern Class I moves freight in trains that look alike. The North Western, into its last decades, still looked like itself. Ore came out of the Upper Peninsula. Time freights crossed the prairie. Alcos worked past the farms. The 400s ran between the cities in yellow and green. Paul Schneider, in “North Western Odyssey” (Trains, March 1996), noted that the company was one of the last still running diesels from all five major builders: Electro-Motive, General Electric, Alco, Baldwin, and Fairbanks-Morse. It also kept locomotives long after the catalog said they were finished. Chicago Great Western covered wagons worked freight after the North Western had retired its own F units, and rebuilt first-generation Geeps were still on the road in the 1990s. Fans turned the habit into a nickname, Cheap And Nothing Wasted. There was a method in it. Blocks of one builder’s models stayed on one part of the railroad, so the roundhouse knew what it was fixing.

Chicago and North Western F7A 417 at Davis Street in Evanston, Illinois, on October 17, 1972

F7A 417, built as 4073C, leads a scoot at Davis Street in Evanston, Illinois, on October 17, 1972. Marty Bernard photo.

Galena & Chicago Union

The oldest piece is the Galena & Chicago Union, chartered on January 16, 1836. It was Chicago’s first railroad, and the first to run a steam locomotive out of the city. The charter looked west, toward Galena and the Mississippi. Surveyors went out. Construction did not, and the project sat until a new group took it up in 1846.

Work began in June 1848. On January 22, 1850, the line was open 42 miles to Elgin. The locomotive had arrived earlier, by schooner, on October 10: a 4-2-0 named the Pioneer, placed in service on October 24. It was the first steam locomotive to operate out of Chicago. Behind a growing city the railroad made money from the start, and agriculture stayed at the center of that money for more than a century. By September 1853 the Galena & Chicago Union was open to Freeport. It did not reach Galena. Tom Murray, in Chicago & North Western Railway, notes that the Illinois Central got there first. The North Western later built its own way in. For the time being, Galena was an interchange.

The Chicago & North Western Railway logo. Author’s work.

The Mississippi was still the aim, on a line due west from Chicago. In December 1855 that corridor, 135 miles, reached Fulton, across the river from Clinton, Iowa. It became part of the Omaha main line. In 1863 the Galena & Chicago Union leased the Chicago, Iowa & Nebraska and that company’s subsidiary, the Cedar Rapids & Missouri River. The leased line was completed in January 1867. A bridge over the Missouri River in 1872 gave a direct interchange with the Union Pacific at Council Bluffs and Omaha, the eastern end of the Pacific railroad. With its subsidiaries, the Galena & Chicago Union stood at about 545 miles.

That was the earliest property. The company that took the name was a different railroad.

At a glance

Item	Detail
Railroad	Chicago & North Western. Mark CNW. Headquarters Chicago
Oldest charter	Galena & Chicago Union, January 16, 1836. Open to Elgin, 42 miles, on January 22, 1850
The company	Chicago & North Western Railway, formed by William Ogden in June 1859. Union with the Galena & Chicago Union approved in 1865
Where it ran	Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Missouri, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, with lines into North Dakota, Wyoming, and Kansas City
Principal lines	Chicago–Fremont–Omaha. Fremont–Lander. Chicago–Madison–Minneapolis. Milwaukee–Green Bay–Ashland and the Upper Peninsula. The Omaha Road to the Twin Cities, Duluth, and Sioux City
Route miles	10,216.99 (1930). 9,693 (1950). Michael Blaszak’s 1994 accounting, 4,323
Gauge	4 feet 8½ inches
1963 equipment	744 diesels, 41,383 freight cars, 447 passenger cars. One year’s fleet
Steam since 1900	Parent quantity 1,445, four rows blank. Omaha Road quantity 241. Last steam commuter train, May 10, 1956
Diesels	2,494 frames, each once
Slogan	Route of the ’400’
End of the name	ICC common control effective April 6, 1995. The New York Times treated the purchase as completed on June 24, 1995
Successor	Union Pacific

The Cowboy Line

Nebraska, western South Dakota, and Wyoming came through a subsidiary, the Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley, organized on January 20, 1869. It built west from Fremont, Nebraska, where it met the Sioux City & Pacific, another North Western property. By 1871 the Elkhorn Route was at Wisner, 50 miles out. Construction slowed, then picked up. Oakdale came in 1879. By 1886 the rails were at Casper, Wyoming, and at Rapid City, in the Black Hills, during the gold rush. The Milwaukee Road and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy arrived in that country later.

The North Western took direct control in 1884 and absorbed the company in 1903. What people called the Cowboy Line, or the Lander Line, was then about 560 miles from Fremont to Casper. Management still talked about a railroad to the Pacific. Lander, Wyoming, was reached in 1906, and that was the end of the march. The long agricultural branch remained. A 1932 account from the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission put the traffic in local terms: 66 farm dealers, 117 coal dealers, 48 grain elevators, 55 lumber dealers, and 128 gas and oil receivers.

Highways and trucks after the war took the local freight. Deferred maintenance followed, and in places trains crept at 10 miles an hour. Powder River Basin coal, clean-burning and already moving on the Burlington Northern, sat within reach of the western end of the Cowboy Line, and the line could not carry it. The North Western did not have the money for a rebuild of the whole railroad. A partnership with Union Pacific produced a new connector of about 55 miles, from the Union Pacific to the west end of the Cowboy Line, opened in 1984. That connector, and the decision not to rebuild the old line for coal, settled the Lander Line. The company asked the Interstate Commerce Commission to discontinue service between Norfolk and Chadron. The Commission allowed abandonment as far west as Merriman. The last train over that segment ran on December 1, 1992. Most of what remained has since come up. The grade is the Cowboy Trail.

Ogden’s railroad

The direct ancestry of the name is the Chicago, St. Paul & Fond du Lac, formed on March 31, 1855, from the Illinois & Wisconsin and the Rock River Valley Union. The Illinois & Wisconsin ran between Janesville and Chicago. The Rock River Valley line served Fond du Lac and Watertown. The two did not connect. The merged company failed before the gap was closed, and William B. Ogden acquired the property. In June 1859 he formed the Chicago & North Western Railway.

Ogden closed Watertown to Janesville and then built. Oshkosh was reached in 1859. Fort Howard, later Green Bay, was reached in 1862. Rails went into the Upper Peninsula at Escanaba and at Negaunee, near Ishpeming, for ore and timber. He is the man later accounts treat as the architect of the modern company. He stayed until the summer of 1868. The competitors he was racing were the future Milwaukee Road, the Burlington, and the Rock Island.

Chicago and North Western C628s on an ore train at Ishpeming, Michigan, in February 1976

A pair of C628s throttle up on loaded ore jennies at Ishpeming, Michigan, in February 1976. The Alcos came secondhand from the Norfolk & Western and spent years on Upper Peninsula ore. A broom is stuck in the snowbank ahead of 6712, to clear the switches. Rob Kitchen photo.

The North Western and the Galena & Chicago Union were already interchange partners. Their union was approved in 1865. The combined company was an 850-mile railroad at a stroke, one of the important lines of the Middle West. After Ogden left, the buying continued: the Chicago & Milwaukee, the Winona & St. Peter, the Iowa Midland, the North Western Union, and a scatter of narrow-gauge lines that later became unwanted branches. Among the narrow-gauge names were the Crooked Creek Railway & Coal Company, the Covington, Columbus & Black Hills (3 feet 6 inches), the Galena & Southern Wisconsin, and the Chicago & Tomah. In a time when almost everything moved by rail, the branches made the company. A century later they were the mileage it could not afford.

By 1880 the network was about 2,500 miles. A decade later it was about 4,200. Once the early system was in place, the figure used for it is about 7,450 miles, tying Chicago, Omaha, the Twin Cities, Milwaukee, Duluth and Superior, and Rapid City. Further growth waited until after the Second World War. In Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin the branch lines lay so close that ten or twenty miles sometimes separated them.

The plant was then rebuilt for heavier trains. By 1902 the Council Bluffs–Chicago main line was double track. In 1929 the company opened Proviso Yard, in the western suburbs of Chicago, at the time the largest freight terminal of its kind in the country. The photograph below is the engine house there in 1966, with a pair of SD40s that were less than a year old.

Chicago and North Western SD40s 871 and 872 at the Proviso Yard engine house on July 15, 1966

SD40s 871 and 872 at the Proviso Yard engine house on July 15, 1966. At the time, these six-axle Electro-Motive units were less than a year old. Marty Bernard photo.

Chicago and North Western F7s led by 4096-C at Wolf Road in Berkeley, Illinois, in April 1960

F7s led by 4096-C run light at Wolf Road in Berkeley, Illinois, in April 1960. Rick Burn photo.

The Omaha Road

The other great acquisition of those years was the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha, the Omaha Road. H. Roger Grant tells it in Minnesota’s Good Railroad: The Omaha Road. The system was formed in 1880 and 1881, when interests that controlled the North Wisconsin, the West Wisconsin, and the St. Paul & Sioux City merged the three. In November 1882 the North Western gained stock control. The Omaha Road gave Chicago a main line to the Twin Cities, a connection to the ore docks at Duluth and Superior, a second route toward Omaha, and a line to Sioux City. At its peak, just before the First World War, it was about 1,700 miles. It remained a subsidiary until 1972. There is no separate company page for it here. Its steam is the second table on the steam roster, and the diesels that received North Western numbers are in the diesel roster.

A 1939 system map of the Chicago & North Western. It shows the railroad with subsidiary Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha, and before the major acquisitions that followed the war. Author’s work.

The 400s

The Depression hit the grangers hard. Gregory Schneider, in Rock Island Requiem, puts 70,000 miles of American railroad in receivership through 1936. The North Western entered bankruptcy on January 27, 1935, and left court supervision on June 1, 1944, carried out by the traffic of the war. In the middle of the bankruptcy it acquired the most public thing it ever ran.

Union Pacific’s first streamliner appeared in February 1934, and the Burlington’s Zephyr followed within a few months. The Burlington then put regular Chicago–Twin Cities service on in April 1935. The Milwaukee Road’s Hiawatha followed a month later. The North Western’s Chicago–Twin Cities route was about 400 miles, and the schedule it wanted was about 400 minutes. Mike Schafer, in Classic American Railroads, is the source of that arithmetic. The train took the name. It was launched on January 2, 1935, with rebuilt and unshrouded class E-2 Pacifics and heavyweight cars that had been given a better ride. New streamlined equipment and Electro-Motive E3s arrived in 1939. The story of those Pacifics, and of the two class E engines later streamlined for the Minnesota 400, is on the steam roster.

A fleet of 400s followed, across the Middle West. They were not the company’s first step into the streamliner age. Union Pacific, using the North Western as its Chicago connection, had already put articulated trainsets on the City trains in June 1935, and conventional lightweight cars replaced the articulated sets through the 1940s. The named trains included:

The wider story of that equipment is the streamliner page. Union Pacific moved its Chicago passenger connection to the Milwaukee Road effective October 30, 1955, after the North Western’s plant had been allowed to run down. The Twin Cities 400 came off in 1963. The 400 name itself was gone by 1969.

Chicago and North Western E7A 5017B with train 510 at the Madison depot in June 1965

E7A 5017B has train 510, Chicago–Madison, at the Madison, Wisconsin, depot in June 1965. This unnamed service was discontinued later that year. Rick Burn photo.

Chicago and North Western E7A 5018-A with train 508 over Lake Monona in May 1964

E7A 5018-A departs Madison, Wisconsin, over Lake Monona with train 508 in May 1964. Rick Burn photo.

A Chicago and North Western E8A and a Fairbanks-Morse Erie-Built leaving Madison with train 502 in May 1955

An E8A and a Fairbanks-Morse Erie-Built depart Madison, Wisconsin, with train 502 on a May morning in 1955. The train had left Elroy earlier that morning and was due in Chicago by 11 a.m. William Middleton photo.

Chicago and North Western GP7 1595 and an E7A at Monona Yard in Madison in November 1965

GP7 1595 and an E7A at Monona Yard in Madison, Wisconsin, in November 1965. Rick Burn photo.

Heineman’s railroad

Revenue ton-miles fell by a billion between 1946 and 1953, on a network of more than 9,400 miles. Deferred maintenance was the short-term saving, and it cost more than it saved, in derailments and in slow orders. Losses in 1956 were more than $5 million. Ben W. Heineman’s management had the company showing a profit again within two years. The light-density branches remained. Before deregulation in 1980, abandoning them through the Commission was slow work.

Heineman also bought railroads. The Litchfield & Madison, 1958, was 44 miles and a direct entrance to St. Louis, and it was the purchase that clearly added a market. The Minneapolis & St. Louis, 1960, was nearly 1,400 miles, the Peoria Gateway, from Peoria to the Twin Cities and on into Iowa and South Dakota. In 1968 came the Chicago Great Western, another granger of about that size, with the Twin Cities, Chicago, Omaha, and Kansas City on its map. The same year brought the Fort Dodge, Des Moines & Southern, 110 miles, the old Fort Dodge interurban, and the Des Moines & Central Iowa, 36 miles. After those takeovers the system is described as 11,500 miles and more. Much of each acquired railroad was later sold or abandoned. St. Louis and Kansas City were the new markets. The rest largely duplicated lines the North Western already had.

An official 1968 system map of the Chicago and North Western

An official 1968 system map of the Chicago & North Western. Author’s collection.

Chicago and North Western GP9s led by 1755 at Clinton Street in Elmhurst in October 1961

GP9s led by 1755 have a westbound freight at Clinton Street in Elmhurst, Illinois, on an October evening in 1961. Rick Burn photo.

Chicago and North Western GP7 1743 leading a detouring Milwaukee Road freight at Elmhurst in April 1965

GP7 1743 leads a detouring Milwaukee Road freight at Elmhurst, Illinois, in April 1965. Rick Burn photo.

Chicago commuter trains, the scoots, kept E and F units into the 1970s. The suburban fleet is part of the diesel roster. The pictures here are the trains as they looked on the North Shore and at Waukegan.

Chicago and North Western F7A 4087-C at West Chicago, Illinois, circa 1970

F7A 4087-C at West Chicago, Illinois, between commuter runs, circa 1970. American-Rails.com collection.

Chicago and North Western E and F units at the Waukegan commuter yard in 1973

E and F units lined up for the weekend at the commuter-train yard in Waukegan, Illinois, in 1973. Karl Miller photo.

Chicago and North Western E8A 5024A with a scoot at Evanston in May 1973

E8A 5024A leads a scoot at Evanston, Illinois, in May 1973. Marty Bernard photo.

Chicago and North Western F7A 4094C at Waukegan on April 15, 1963

F7A 4094C at the yard in Waukegan, Illinois, on April 15, 1963. Marty Bernard photo.

Merger talks with the Milwaukee Road went back to the 1930s and were taken up again in the 1960s, and they ended without an agreement. During that decade the company put a subsidiary, Northwest Industries, around businesses outside railroading, a pattern several railroads used to step away from Commission oversight of non-rail earnings. Northwest Industries then wanted out of the railroad. On June 1, 1972, the Chicago & North Western Transportation Company, owned by the employees, acquired the railroad’s assets. The new company sold or abandoned thousands of miles of light-density line. The operating ratio it was trying to bring down sat around 90 percent.

The Alco Line

One of those sales was the secondary main line from Winona, Minnesota, to Rapid City, South Dakota. In the 1970s it was the Alco Line, also called the Huron main: RS-3s, RSD-4s, RSD-5s, RS-11s, C-425s, and RS-36s, grimy and loud, in a country of grain elevators. The line, 826 miles including branches, was sold to the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern in 1986. The diesels themselves, including the units inherited from the Great Western, the Minneapolis & St. Louis, and the Omaha Road, are the diesel roster. A renumber on that list is the same frame. The 744 diesels in the 1963 line above are one year, not that all-time count.

Chicago and North Western SD18s 6632 and 6634 at Parsons, Kansas, in the summer of 1985

SD18s 6632 and 6634, former Southern SD24s, at the Katy shops in Parsons, Kansas, in the summer of 1985. Mike Bledsoe photo. American-Rails.com collection.

Chicago and North Western SD18M 6636 at Valley Park Yard in Savage, Minnesota, on August 18, 1994

SD18M 6636 switching at Valley Park Yard in Savage, Minnesota, on August 18, 1994. The unit began as Southern SD24 2514 in late 1959, was sold to Precision National, and was resold to the Chicago & North Western in 1982. Doug Kroll photo.

Union Pacific

Coal made the two companies partners, and then it made them one. Michael Blaszak, “Chicago & North Western: Evolution Of A Survivor” (Trains, April 1994), put the network by then at 4,323 route miles, after the sales of the early 1990s. The Interstate Commerce Commission served Decision No. 25 in Finance Docket 32133 on March 7, 1995, approving common control effective April 6, 1995. A cash tender at $35 a share ran in March. The merger agreement is dated March 16, 1995. The Commission’s reasonableness ruling was June 23. The New York Times of June 24, 1995, treated the $1.2 billion purchase as completed, after 99.5 percent of the shares, with the North Western merged into Union Pacific’s rail subsidiary.

The main routes remain in Union Pacific service, and the Powder River coal line is the one that mattered. In 2006 Union Pacific painted one new Electro-Motive SD70ACe in a version of the green and yellow, and numbered it 1995 for the year of the acquisition.

Chicago and North Western C44-9Ws on a manifest near North Platte, Nebraska, in October 1996

C44-9Ws ahead of a manifest freight near North Platte, Nebraska, in October 1996, after the Union Pacific takeover. Warren Calloway photo.

Sources

Tom Murray, Chicago & North Western Railway. The Illinois Central reaching Galena ahead of the Galena & Chicago Union.
H. Roger Grant, Minnesota’s Good Railroad: The Omaha Road. The 1880–1881 merger, the November 1882 stock control, and the prewar peak of about 1,700 miles.
Gregory Schneider, Rock Island Requiem. Seventy thousand miles of railroad in receivership through 1936.
Mike Schafer, Classic American Railroads. The 400 miles in about 400 minutes, and the January 2, 1935 launch.
Paul D. Schneider, “North Western Odyssey,” Trains, March 1996. Five builders still in service, and the covered wagons kept after the company’s own F units were gone.
Michael Blaszak, “Chicago & North Western: Evolution Of A Survivor,” Trains, April 1994. The network reduced to 4,323 route miles.
Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, 1932, on the dealers and elevators along the Cowboy Line. The last train over the abandoned segment, December 1, 1992, and the abandonment as far west as Merriman, are the account carried on the previous edition of this page.
George H. Drury, Guide to North American Steam Locomotives, revised edition, the Chicago & North Western chapter. May 10, 1956, the last steam-powered commuter train. The class grids are the steam roster.
Union Pacific control: Interstate Commerce Commission, Finance Docket 32133, Decision No. 25, served March 7, 1995, common control effective April 6, 1995. Merger agreement dated March 16, 1995. Reasonableness ruling June 23, 1995. New York Times, June 24, 1995, on the $1.2 billion purchase and 99.5 percent of the shares. The same sequence is the 1990s page on this site.
The 1930 mileage of 10,216.99, the 1950 mileage of 9,693, and the 1963 equipment counts of 744 diesels, 41,383 freight cars, and 447 passenger cars are the figures carried on the previous edition of this page. The 744 is that year’s fleet. The diesel roster’s 2,494 counts each frame once.

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