Toledo, Peoria & Western Railway: Map, Roster, History

Last revised: October 29, 2026

The Toledo, Peoria & Western spent more than a century out of the limelight and in the middle of everybody else’s map. Paul Stringham told that story in Toledo, Peoria & Western: Tired, Proven & Willing. A group of associates chartered the Peoria & Oquawka on February 12, 1849, to give a small Illinois river town a railroad to the Mississippi. The road reached the river, lost the line west of Peoria to the Burlington, and built a second route to the water. What lasted was the job in the name’s middle: a bridge across Illinois, from the Pennsylvania connection at Effner, Indiana, through Peoria, toward the Santa Fe, the Burlington, and the Rock Island, with Chicago left off to the side.

The early decades were a string of new names and empty treasuries. George P. McNear, Jr. bought the property on July 11, 1926, and made it pay. The Santa Fe and the Pennsylvania came to own it together. At midnight on December 31, 1983, the Santa Fe merged the railroad. In February 1989 a new company put the old name back on the Lomax–Logansport line. Genesee & Wyoming has owned that company since 2012. Steam from the Rogers Consolidations of 1895 through the 4-8-4s of 1937 is a separate roster. The diesel roster can be found here.

Toledo, Peoria and Western RS11s 400 and 401 with RS2 205 laying over at Galesburg, Illinois on April 25, 1971

RS11s 400 and 401, with RS2 205, lay over at Galesburg, Illinois on April 25, 1971. American-Rails.com collection.

On this page: At a glance · Peoria & Oquawka · A second road to the river · Receivers, a lease, and a railway · George P. McNear · The bridge line · Santa Fe · The name returns

At a glance

Item	Detail
Railroad	Toledo, Peoria & Western
Reporting mark	TPW
Headquarters	Peoria, Illinois. Shops and yard at East Peoria from 1928
States	Illinois, Indiana (Effner, and Logansport after 1976), Iowa (Keokuk)
Gauge	4 feet 8½ inches
Chartered	Peoria & Oquawka, February 12, 1849
The Railway	March 28, 1887
Historic dates	February 12, 1849–December 31, 1983
Merged	Santa Fe, midnight, December 31, 1983
Revived	February 1989. Genesee & Wyoming since 2012
Route miles	228.9 in 1930. At the 1983 merger the property was counted at 472.85 miles, including yards, sidings, spurs, and 94.96 miles of trackage rights
Principal lines	Effner, Indiana–Peoria–Lomax, Illinois. La Harpe–Keokuk. Effner–Logansport from 1976
Slogan	Links East And West
Known for	A Chicago bypass through the Peoria gateway, and a name that came back after the Santa Fe
Rosters	Steam, from 1895 · Diesel roster, all-time
Timetable	January 1930

Peoria & Oquawka

Stringham’s account starts with that February 12, 1849, charter. The aim was a railroad from Peoria west to the Mississippi at Oquawka. By 1851 there was enough money for surveys. Construction started west from Peoria on October 13. Oquawka showed little interest, and the western goal shifted to East Burlington, across from Burlington, Iowa. The Central Military Tract Railroad, building toward Galesburg, offered an interchange that would matter more than Oquawka ever could. The Military Tract and the Chicago & Aurora, both future pieces of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, would use the Peoria & Oquawka to finish a Chicago–Burlington route.

On June 22, 1852, the Peoria & Oquawka Eastern Extension was incorporated to build the other way, from Peoria to the Indiana state line. The first four miles west of the Illinois River were ready in the summer of 1853. The little 23-ton steamer Peoria ran a short excursion on July 30 of that year. Work was also moving from the Mississippi end. About six months later a few miles were finished from East Burlington to Biggs Mills. Richard C. Overton, in Burlington Route, records that the Military Tract reached Galesburg on December 7, 1854, and that through service from East Burlington to Chicago opened on March 17, 1855.

Toledo, Peoria and Western public timetable from 1952

Public timetable, 1952.

Second view of a Toledo, Peoria and Western public timetable from 1952

Public timetable, 1952.

The line into Peoria was finished on January 31, 1857. The Illinois River bridge opened on April 15, 1857. Independence on the west end was already slipping. The Peoria & Oquawka had used a $90,000 advance from the Military Tract to finish Galesburg–East Burlington and could not repay it. On October 1, 1860, the Burlington took all of the track west of the Illinois River. That railroad became part of the Chicago–Burlington–Omaha main line, and it is still a BNSF route. The Peoria & Oquawka kept the eastern road. Regular service from Peoria to Effner, on the Indiana line, opened on January 11, 1860.

A second road to the river

Money trouble renamed the company twice in four years. On February 21, 1861, it became the Logansport, Peoria & Burlington. On May 14, 1864, it became the Toledo, Peoria & Warsaw Railway. The rails never reached Toledo. Effner was as far east as the company built. Under the new owners the Peoria–Effner line was improved, and the company went after the Mississippi a second time.

The first step was the Mississippi & Wabash, purchased on November 28, 1865, seventeen miles from Warsaw, on the river, to Carthage. The second was about 105 miles of new railroad between the disconnected pieces. Crews worked from both ends. La Harpe, Bushnell, and Canton came into the timetable, and the through route was completed on October 14, 1868. Warsaw was a small town with no railroad to trade with. Keokuk, Iowa, across the river from Hamilton, Illinois, had the Burlington and the Rock Island.

A bridge at Hamilton was the way across. Work started in April 1869. The span opened on June 15, 1871: 2,190 feet, with a 378-foot draw, and a floor that also carried people and horse-drawn wagons. The company and the Mississippi & Wabash held the bridge together through the Keokuk & Hamilton Bridge Company. A new double-deck bridge replaced it in 1915 and still carries trains. The last extension of those years was short. From La Harpe to Lomax, finished on November 26, 1871, after five months of work, the railroad met the Burlington again and could arrange trackage rights into Burlington, Iowa.

Official 1940 system map of the Toledo, Peoria and Western

An official 1940 system map. Author’s collection.

Receivers, a lease, and a railway

The connections were real, and so was the next receivership, on January 20, 1875. The property was reincorporated as the Toledo, Peoria & Western Railroad on December 16, 1879. That company took the Warsaw railway on May 22, 1880, and in May 1880 leased itself to the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific. The Wabash had reached too far. It went into receivership in May 1884, and the Toledo, Peoria & Western came back out. Foreclosure sale on October 28, 1886. A new company, the Toledo, Peoria & Western Railway, was organized on March 28, 1887.

The Toledo, Peoria & Western Railway logo. Author’s work.

The nicknames collected themselves. Tired, Poor & Weary. Two Pony & Wagon. Later, when the railroad had earned a different reputation, Tired, Proven & Willing, which is the title Stringham chose, and Tee-Pee Willie. People also called it the Tip-Up. On the night of August 10, 1887, a few months after the new railway was organized, a 15-car excursion of about 800 people, bound from Peoria to Niagara Falls, went through a fire-weakened trestle east of Chatsworth. The wooden cars telescoped and burned. More than 80 passengers died. A marker on U.S. 24 still stands for it. The wreck site itself was later a culvert.

At the turn of the century the railway replaced wooden bridges with steel, built depots, and bought new locomotives. In 1893 the Pennsylvania Company took a controlling interest, and the Burlington soon joined it. The two owners already reached Peoria on their own rails, so the Toledo, Peoria & Western was left with local freight and a thin living. World War I finished the job. Receivership came on July 1, 1917. At noon on December 28, 1917, the United States Railroad Administration took the property, and held it until the Transportation Act returned the railroads on February 28, 1920. The wartime operation left the physical plant in poor shape and the treasury worse.

George P. McNear

On July 11, 1926, George P. McNear, Jr. bought the railroad for $1.3 million. He was the bidder after the Pennsylvania and the Burlington let go. He dropped both “Railroad” and “Railway” from the name and took formal possession on April 8, 1927. Heavier rail went down, 70- and 80-pound, and in 1927 four Richmond 2-8-2s arrived. In 1928 a new yard and shop opened at East Peoria. The old Peoria yard was sold to the Peoria & Pekin Union. West of Peoria he got the trains off that terminal company’s track by using Burlington and Rock Island rights on the Peoria Terminal as far as Hollis. He gave up the trackage rights into Burlington and made Lomax the western interchange, including with the Santa Fe.

Passengers were already leaving. The railroad had carried 1,067,416 of them in 1911. The count was 421,629 in 1924 and 260,747 in 1925. In 1926 one train still ran each way. Mail contracts ended on February 17, 1929. After that, anyone still riding went in the caboose with the freight crew, a practice that lasted into the 1970s. The company stayed solvent through the Depression. Tonnage grew: perishables, livestock, and a rising volume of bridge cars. Sections of 131-pound rail went in. In 1937 American Locomotive delivered six 4-8-4s, 80–85, the largest steam the railroad owned and, at 361,000 pounds, light for the wheel arrangement. They are on the steam roster.

McNear could run a railroad. He fought his unions to a standstill, and the fight nearly stopped the property. An 84-day strike began in late 1941. In 1942, with the country at war, the federal government seized the railroad and put John W. Barriger III in charge of it. Federal control ended in October 1943. Thirteen unions went out again, and that strike ran 580 days. In February 1946 two strikers were killed in a gunfight at Gridley, and McNear shut the railroad down. On March 10, 1947, he was shot outside his home in Peoria. The murder was never solved.

J. Russell Coulter, who came from the Frisco, became president on May 1, 1947. The slogans of the prosperous years played on the initials: Links East And West, and also “Transcontinental Peoria Way” and “The Progressive Way.” East of the new yard, the main line was relocated for a Farm Creek flood-control project, which eased the grade out of the Illinois River valley and put a bridge over the Nickel Plate at Farmdale in place of an interlocking. West of Peoria, the railroad and the Chicago & North Western laid out an industrial park at Kolbe.

The bridge line

The first new main-line diesels were two F3s, Electro-Motive demonstrators 291-A1 and 291-B1, built in July 1945 and acquired in 1947. The Peoria shop fitted a cab to the booster in January 1950. Alco RS2s had already arrived, in 1948 and 1949, and three Lima switchers came in 1949 and 1950. The Limas were sold in 1958. The two F3s were traded for GP18 600 and GP30 700. Three of the seven RS2s were traded for GP35s 900–902, which rode on the Alco trucks. No. 80, one of the 4-8-4s, made the last steam run on October 11, 1950.

Toledo, Peoria and Western F3A 100 and a GP7 eastbound over the Nickel Plate at Farmdale, Illinois on October 7, 1956

F3A 100 and a GP7, eastbound over the Nickel Plate at Farmdale, Illinois on October 7, 1956. Paul Stringham photo. Author’s collection.

In 1952 gross revenue passed $7 million for the first time. It passed $8 million in 1965 and $9 million by 1968. On May 26, 1955, the McNear estate sold 82 percent of the stock to the Santa Fe, which soon held the rest. The Pennsylvania challenged the purchase and won an equal share. Joint ownership, half and half, was in place early in 1960. The Minneapolis & St. Louis had looked at the same railroad. After Ben Heineman took the M&StL in a 1954 proxy fight, the idea was to join that road, the Toledo, Peoria & Western, and the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern into one belt around Chicago. The Santa Fe, the Pennsylvania, and the McNear estate blocked it.

Toledo, Peoria and Western RS3 207 on a westbound transfer from Peoria over the Nickel Plate in June 1963

RS3 207 on a westbound transfer out of Peoria, over the Nickel Plate, in June 1963. Roger Puta photo.

Bridge traffic was the whole point, and the mergers began to take it away. Interchange carloads fell from 105,524 in 1961 to 41,328 in 1981. The North Western absorbed the Minneapolis & St. Louis in 1960. In 1964 the Norfolk & Western took the Nickel Plate and the Wabash, and with the Wabash a route to Kansas City. The Santa Fe built its own Chicago bypass through Streator with the New York Central. The Penn Central merger hurt the Effner gateway, because the Peoria & Eastern could reach the new Avon Yard at Indianapolis. When Penn Central became part of Conrail, the Toledo, Peoria & Western bought the old Pennsylvania branch onward to Logansport. The purchase, on April 1, 1976, was 55.2 miles from Effner to Kenneth, plus 6.1 miles of Conrail trackage rights into Logansport.

Toledo, Peoria and Western caboose 504 at the Illinois Central diamond in Gilman, Illinois on July 22, 1962

Caboose 504 at the Illinois Central diamond in Gilman, Illinois on July 22, 1962. Roger Puta photo.

Santa Fe

Two accidents in 1970 changed the map on the ground. On February 12 a barge tow took out the Illinois River bridge at Peoria. The railroad could not afford a new one. Trains detoured over the Peoria & Pekin Union bridge downstream, and the detour became permanent. On June 21, train 20, 108 cars, derailed at Crescent City, seven miles east of Gilman, after a burned journal on a Burlington covered hopper. Nine tank cars of liquefied petroleum gas exploded. The fire burned for 56 hours, destroyed part of the town, and injured 66 people. No one was killed. Crescent City keeps a pavilion of clippings in a city park.

The Santa Fe bought Conrail’s half on July 20, 1979, for $3 million. The change of control was official on March 1, 1981. At midnight on December 31, 1983, the Toledo, Peoria & Western was merged into the Santa Fe and became part of the Illinois Division. The property was then counted at 472.85 miles, a figure that includes yards, sidings, spurs, and 94.96 miles of trackage rights. The route-mileage figure from 1930, 228.9, is a different measurement. Entering that last year on its own, the locomotive fleet was 31 units. The Santa Fe kept the GP30, the GP40, and the eleven GP38-2s.

Toledo, Peoria and Western C424 800 leading train AST-2 at Logansport, Indiana, about 1970

C424 800 leads eastbound AST-2 at Logansport, Indiana, on Penn Central track, about 1970. Anoka interlocking and Anoka Tower are in the distance. Karl Miller photo.

There was a brief bright season just before the end. In May 1980, under the last president before the Santa Fe, Robert E. McMillan, Nickel Plate 2-8-4 765 worked out of East Peoria for a few weeks, on freights, as a helper up Farmdale Hill, and on excursions. On August 10, 1980, the state-supported Amtrak Prairie Marksman began between East Peoria and Chicago, by way of Chenoa and the Illinois Central Gulf. It left a small metal depot in the East Peoria yard in the morning and came back in the evening. The Rock Island’s Peoria–Chicago train had already quit at the start of 1979. East Peoria was not Peoria to a lot of riders. The Prairie Marksman ended on October 4, 1981.

The name returns

The Santa Fe tried an intermodal ramp, Hoosier Lift, at Remington, Indiana, on Interstate 65. It could not match the Santa Fe’s own Chicago terminal. On December 23, 1986, the 28.8 miles from La Harpe to Keokuk went to the Keokuk Junction Railway. In February 1989 the Santa Fe sold the Lomax–Logansport line to a group led by Gordon Fuller, and the buyers put the old name back on it: the Toledo, Peoria & Western Railway.

Fuller’s group sold the company to Delaware Otsego, parent of the New York, Susquehanna & Western, in 1996. Delaware Otsego sold it to RailAmerica in 1999. Genesee & Wyoming bought RailAmerica in 2012, and the Toledo, Peoria & Western has been part of that family since. In 2005 the Keokuk Junction’s parent, Pioneer Railcorp, was awarded the west end, about 76 miles from Kolbe through La Harpe to Lomax. As a condition of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe merger, the revived railroad received trackage rights from Peoria to Galesburg on the former Burlington, the same line the Peoria & Oquawka had built. The traffic that keeps the railroad going is agricultural, cement, chemicals, feed, and merchandise. The map is shorter than McNear’s. The name on the locomotives is the one he used.

Sources

Paul Stringham, Toledo, Peoria & Western: Tired, Proven & Willing. The Peoria & Oquawka charter, the construction dates, the corporate names, McNear’s purchase, and the passenger counts.
Richard C. Overton, Burlington Route: A History of the Burlington Lines. Galesburg on December 7, 1854, and through service from East Burlington to Chicago on March 17, 1855.
J. David Ingles, “Toledo, Peoria and Western Railway remembered,” Classic Trains, 2022. Chatsworth, the 1893 control, the strike and Barriger, Coulter, the 1970 bridge and Crescent City, and the February 1989 sale.

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