Milw: Milwaukee Road -> Soo -> CP

Milwaukee Road was the nickname for the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. In addition to its mainline that was consistent with its name, I have come across references to some "miscellaneous" segments. This posting is just a brief summary and a collection of interesting links. The story of the Milwaukee Road appears to be too depressing to pursue in any more depth behond what is at the end of this posting.

In the 1850s, routes between Milwaukee and the Mississippi River were built. In 1872 it acquired the St. Paul & Chicago which had completed a route down the west bank of the Mississippi to the Mississippi terminus of the 1850s construction. In 1873 it completed a line between Milwaukee and Chicago and in 1874 its name was changed to Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul. In the early 20th century it planned, built, and electrified parts of the Pacific Extension. In the 1970s, the electrification needed replacement but management decided to de-energize the routes instead. Because of the oil crisis of 1973, this was a bad decision. In March 1980 the mainline west of Miles City, Montana was abandoned. On January 1, 1986, the Soo Line absorbed the Chicago to St. Paul mainline and a segment in Indiana. Then in 1987 the Soo Line sold the routes it had bought from Wisconsin Central to a newly formed Wisconsin Central, which is now part of the Canadian National Railway. In 1990, CP increased its ownership of Soo from 56% to 100%. In the 2000s CP consolidated operations and most equipment now has a CP paint scheme. (Wikipedia)

Bill Molony Posted

Update: Bill's comment:

This is a brief record of the development of the Milwaukee Road in Illinois and Indiana as of 1944.

Matt McClure The MILW line built west from Racine is the oldest MR line. It was built as a serious competitor to C&GU line to Turner Junction. The thought was Racine could be a serious threat to Chicago in the 1840s. Great collection of rail maps at Regenstein Library at the U of C.

Some of the comments echo what I have seen before, MILW bought the CTH&SE to get access to coal because they had no on-line coal during WWI. Oglesby was another source of coal. But we learn:

Harold J. Krewer Bill, the infamous mine at Cherry, IL (where 259 miners died in a 1909 fire) was on a short branch of the Milwaukee out of Ladd, IL and was in fact owned by its subsidiary, the St. Paul Coal Co. Every pound of coal out of that hole went into a Milwaukee Road locomotive.

Maybe the mine did not recover from the fire damage, and they then needed other mines.

During the merger era, MILW gained trackage rights over the Louisville & Nashville to Louisville, KY. They were the only line with a direct connection from the Pacific Northwest to the heart of the Midwest including Louisville, but the management were not railroad men and they did not market and run trains to exploit that advantage.

Bill Molony posted, 1944
This is higher resolution

Bill wrote the following summary for the above map in an EJ&E group:

This company map of The Milwaukee Road dated July 1944 shows their trackage rights over the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern between Joliet and Aurora.The Illinois, Iowa & Minnesota Railway Company line between Rockford and Aurora and between Joliet and Delmar was built in 1904 and 1905. the II&M secured overhead trackage rights between Aurora and Joliet over the EJ&E by a contract dated February 21, 1905.About 1910, the II&M changed its name to the Chicago, Milwaukee & Gary Railway Company. About January 1, 1922, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company began operating the CM&G, and on April 1, 1930 acquired ownership of the CM&G. The trackage rights contract over the EJ&E between Aurora and Joliet was renewed by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company on September 3, 1930.

Ted Hazelton posted two images with the comment: "Milwaukee Road system map from March, 1968."

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Bloomingdale Line:  which opened 6/6/2015

Chicago and Evanston and steel mill being torn down: Facebook.
More C&E (Lakebrook Ave., Sugarland Express) Facebook, Facebook, Facebook

Update: Spur east of Chicago River North Branch. More information from Facebook comments:

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  Bob Lalich The swing bridge was part of the Chicago & Pacific Railroad, which was acquired by the Chicago Milwaukee & St Paul in the 1870s I believe. The two roads crossed at what was called Pacific Jct, or Tower A5. There was a branch off the C&P that went to Evanston. Part of that line was acquired by the CTA.
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  Walt Del Calle IIRC, the North Shore acquired rights to use the RoW to Evanston and eventually built the walled embankment that CTA still uses today. The Milwaukee's track once went right by Wrigley Field, which is why the Cubs have that odd little piece of land on Clark St. You can (or you could last year, not sure if the bleacher rebuild wiped it out) see where the track was going north from there.

Chicago, Terre Haute and Southeastern Railway

Photo from Abandoned Rails

Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota Railway was created in 1904. It was renamed Chicago, Milwaukee & Gary Railway (CM&G) in 1908. It was leased by the Milwaukee Road in 1922 and purchased in May, 1930. (Abandoned Rails)  I can't find any evidence of this route in my 1928 Railroad Atlas. But according to a 1916 1:62500 topo map, the Wauponsee Glacial Trail between Elwood Road in Manhattan and Joliet was the CM&G.

A track profile of the CTH&SE includes details of the CM&G segment that was retained to help connect the Indiana segment with its mainline.





The Milwaukee Road seems to be a text book example of ignoring maintenance will kill a railroad. It went bankrupt after about 15 years of no maintenance in order to inflate profit reports. If the executives and board members were railroad men who focused on marketing and running the railroad rather than lawyers and finance men who focused on merging, it seems that the Milwaukee Road, including the electrification, might still be in existence today. Access to 11 gateways due to the BN merger and access to the Louisville gateway due to the L&N/Monon merger significantly increased the traffic on the system. But because they ignored maintenance during the 1960s, the system could not profitably handle it. Because of the drop in copper scrap prices and the rise of oil prices in the 1970s, the decision not to upgrade the electrified segments seems particularly dumb. The upgrades could have paid for themselves in 4 years! The bankruptcy trustees also helped kill the railroad. They hid the profits of the "Lines West" by recording some expenses twice and refused to provide cars to western customers. And the ICC helped kill the Milwaukee Road by rejecting a reasonable plan put together by the employees with support from the customers and creditors. The plan was called SORE (Save Our Railroad Employment). (What Really Happened?)