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25-397: It occupies the abandoned Chicago Great Western Railway corridor between Rochester and Pine Island , passing through Douglas along the way. The trail has a paved track for cyclists, hikers, in-line skaters and skiers, as well as a natural surface track for horseback riders and snowmobilers. The Cannon Valley Trail between Cannon Falls and Red Wing makes use of another segment of

50-567: A consolidating railroad market. Testifying in 1965, before the Interstate Commerce Commission in Chicago, President Reidy stated that although it was operating in the black it would not able to continue: The simple fact is that there is just too much transportation available between the principal cities we serve. The Great Western cannot long survive as an independent carrier under these conditions. The CGW, therefore,

75-499: A ladle full of 9,000 lbs. of molten steel, exploded, killing 4 workers instantly, fatally wounding 20 others, and severely injuring 10 more. SSC would bounce back from this disaster. SSC's subsidiary, Standard Car Truck Company, opened at New Castle , Pennsylvania in 1906, and a second SSC plant opened at Hammond , Indiana in 1907. Hansen established a car shop in LaRochelle, France for SSC in 1917, and SSC also controlled

100-779: A plant in Rio de Janeiro , Brazil . SSC also entered the field of automobile production in 1913 with the Standard Eight, which in 1919 had 83 horsepower (62 kW). Automobile production ended in 1921. "Diamond Jim" Brady died in 1917, and Hansen retired from the presidency in 1923, succeeded by Colonel James Frank Drake. Hansen stayed on as board chairman until his death in December 1929. That same month, Pullman Inc. agreed to purchase SSC for 610,000 shares of Pullman stock (worth approximately $ 51 million) and $ 6 million in cash. SSC continued to operate independently for several years as

125-571: A regional line between St. Paul and the Iowa state line called the Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad . Through mergers and new construction, the railroad, named Chicago Great Western after 1892, quickly became a multi-state carrier. One of the last Class I railroads to be built, it competed against several other more well-established railroads in the same territory, and developed a corporate culture of innovation and efficiency to survive. Nicknamed

150-723: The Cambria Steel Company opened a car plant at Johnstown , Pennsylvania in 1901. Pressed Steel Car's Chief Designer John M. Hansen and famed salesman "Diamond Jim" Brady left the company in 1901 to found SSC. With financial backing from Andrew Mellon , SSC was incorporated on January 2, 1902, broke ground for its new half-mile long plant in Butler in April, and produced its first car ( Chesapeake & Ohio 23001) in August. Hansen's carbuilding philosophy

175-677: 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 . In 1968 it merged with the Chicago and North Western Railway (CNW), which abandoned most of the CGW's trackage. In 1835, the Chicago, St. Charles & Mississippi Airline railroad

200-473: The Great Depression brought business to an almost standstill. Merger with Pullman Car & Manufacturing in 1934 created Pullman-Standard, a second giant car builder to rival American Car & Foundry . Pullman continued to operate at Butler until it exited the railroad car business in 1982, and sold the plant to Trinity Industries in 1984. Trinity Industries left the plant in 1993, and in 2005

225-536: The panic of 1907 caused Stickney to lose control of the railroad, and ownership passed to financier J. P. Morgan . In 1910, the CGW introduced four McKeen Motor Car Company self-propelled railcars, its first rolling stock powered by internal combustion engines. In the same year, the railroad also purchased ten large 2-6-6-2s from the Baldwin Locomotive Works . Two years later, the railroad acquired an experimental battery powered motorcar from

250-498: The steel mills at economical cost. SSC's earliest production reflected this: a steel hopper with side posts made from standard channel and angle shapes became the company's signature product, building over 7,500 through 1907. Expansion was immediate. Capacity was increased first to 60 cars a day, then 125 cars a day in 1903. Production peaked at 29,411 cars in 1907, 2,836 of those built in January of that year. In October of 1907,

275-492: The CGW began trial operations of trailer on flatcar trains, which were expanded the following year into regular service, initially between Chicago and St. Paul, but rapidly expanding across the system by 1940. In 1941, it was reorganized in bankruptcy, and late in the decade a group of investors, organized as the Kansas City Group, purchased the CGW. In 1946, a demonstrator EMD F3 diesel locomotive set operated on

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300-408: The CGW, immediately prompting the company to purchase a wide variety of diesels, and by 1950 the railroad had converted completely to diesel motive power. In 1949, William N. Deramus III assumed the presidency, and began a program of rebuilding infrastructure and increasing efficiency, both by consolidating operations such as dispatching and accounting and by lengthening trains. In 1957, Deramus left

325-707: The CGW, the CNW abandoned most of the former CGW trackage. A 20 mile section of the railroad right of way from Des Moines, IA south to Martensdale, IA was used to create a mixed use trail with the name of Great Western Trail. In addition, a section of track was converted to trail usage, also known as the Great Western Trail , running intermittently between Villa Park, Illinois and West Chicago, Illinois in DuPage County, and then through Kane and DeKalb counties to Sycamore, Illinois. The Chicago Great Western

350-654: The Federal Storage Battery Car Company. In 1916, the railroad began standardizing on 2-8-2 steam locomotives, which served through the 1920. In 1923 CGW purchased from the soon to be dominant company EMC, two of EMD's first gasoline-powered cars. During the 1920s, as ownership changed again to the Bremo Corporation, a group of investors led by Patrick Joyce, an executive at the Standard Steel Car Company ,

375-487: The South Park Shops. In 1892 the city of Oelwein, Iowa was chosen as the headquarters and primary shop site due to its central location on the mainline. Construction was completed in 1899, and soon Oelwein became known as "Shop City" for its mammoth shop site. The two-story combination machine, boiler, and coach shop alone measured 700 feet (213 meters) long and had 27 pits for overhauling locomotives. In 1907,

400-752: The company quickly became one of the largest builders of steel cars in the United States . Pullman, Inc. purchased control of SSC in 1929 and merged it with Pullman Car & Manufacturing in 1934 to form Pullman-Standard Car Manufacturing Company . The overnight success of the Pressed Steel Car Company at the end of the 19th century spurred a flurry of competitors in the suddenly booming market for steel railroad cars. American Car & Foundry predecessor Michigan-Peninsular Car had produced steel frame cars beginning in 1897, American Steel Foundries produced steel cars in 1900, and

425-636: The company, and Edward Reidy assumed the presidency. As early as 1946, the first proposal was advanced to merge the Great Western with other railroads, this time with the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad and the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad . Upon the failure of a later merger opportunity with the Soo Line Railroad in 1963, the board of the Great Western grew increasingly anxious about its continued viability in

450-619: The end of the decade, under the leadership of St. Paul businessman A.B. Stickney , it had established routes west to Omaha, Nebraska, south to St. Joseph, Missouri, and east to Chicago, Illinois, via the Winston Tunnel near Dubuque. In 1892, the railroad was reorganized as the Chicago Great Western. The first repair shops for locomotives and freight cars were built at the original terminus in St. Paul, Minnesota , known as

475-484: The railroad ended passenger operations when the overnight trains between the Twin Cities and Omaha arrived at their respective endpoints. Standard Steel Car Company The Standard Steel Car Company ( SSC ) was a manufacturer of railroad rolling stock in the United States that existed between 1902 and 1934. Established in 1902 in Butler , Pennsylvania by John M. Hansen and "Diamond Jim" Brady ,

500-498: The railroad expanded its use of self-propelled vehicles. At the end of the decade, 36 2-10-4 steam locomotives were purchased from Baldwin and the Lima Locomotive Works . During the Great Depression , the railroad trimmed operations by closing facilities and abandoning trackage. It purchased its first diesel-electric locomotive, an 800 horsepower (600 kW) yard switcher from Westinghouse , in 1934. In 1935,

525-407: The same abandoned CGW right-of-way . 44°7′39″N 92°35′19″W  /  44.12750°N 92.58861°W  / 44.12750; -92.58861 Chicago Great Western Railway The Chicago Great Western Railway ( reporting mark CGW ) was a Class I railroad that linked Chicago , Minneapolis , Omaha , and Kansas City . It was founded by Alpheus Beede Stickney in 1885 as

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550-528: Was chartered with the intent of building a railroad west out of Chicago. The railroad never began construction, and its rights to build were transferred in 1854 to a new company, the Minnesota & North Western (M&NW), which eventually began construction in 1884 of a line south from St. Paul, Minnesota to Dubuque, Iowa. In 1887, the Chicago, St. Paul & Kansas City Railroad acquired the M&;NW, and by

575-522: Was not known for its passenger trains, although it did operate several named trains, mostly running between Chicago and the Twin Cities. Despite the railroad's small size and meager passenger fleet, it looked for ways to more efficiently move passengers, such as employing all-electric (battery powered) and gas-electric motorcars on light branch lines, which were cheaper to operate than traditional steam or diesel-powered trains. Notable passenger trains from its major terminals included: On September 30, 1965,

600-515: Was open to a merger with the Chicago and North Western Railway (CNW), first proposed in 1964. After a 4-year period of opposition by other competing railroads, on July 1, 1968, the Chicago Great Western merged with Chicago and North Western. At the time of the merger, the CGW operated a 1,411 miles (2,271 km) system, over which it transported 2,452 million ton-miles of freight in 1967, largely food and agricultural products, lumber, and chemicals, for $ 28.7 million of revenue. After taking control of

625-453: Was the opposite of Pressed Steel Car founder Charles T. Schoen 's. Schoen believed that each part of a car should be cut and shaped (pressed) from sheet steel to minimize weight and the need for assemblies of small parts while maximizing strength. The custom stamping dies and assemblies needed for this work were expensive and uneconomical in small quantities. Hansen preferred to use standard steel shapes that were already widely available from

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