Chicago and Alton Railroad

“ Twenty-six independent railroad lines enter the city, making it the greatest railroad centre in America. The principal roads are the Atchinson, Topeka & Santa Fé, Baltimore & Ohio, Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, Chicago, St. Paul & Kansas City; Chicago & Alton, Chicago & Eastern Illinois, Chicago & Grand Trunk, Chicago & Northern Pacific, Chicago & Northwestern, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis; Illinois Central, Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, Louisville, New Albany & Chicago ”

“ The Chicago Observer declared in 1896 that the Chicago & Alton Railway was recognized as one of the most convenient and luxurious of American railroads, that it was the first to run sleeping cars, to have dining cars, inaugurating also the first free reclining chair cars and reminded the public to bear in mind that these paying innovations—quickly imitated—were largely due to the Company’s indefatigable chief of passenger traffic. ”

“ Louis, on the Illinois side, and St. Louis, in Missouri. It owned Bloody island, and substantially controlled two miles and a half of ferry landing on the Illinois shore. The Chicago & Alton Railroad Company is likewise an Illinois corporation, having authority to own and operate a railroad between Chicago and Bloody island, opposite the city of St. Louis, and to 'take, use, and make arrangements for the transportation of freight and passengers carried, or to be carried, upon said railroad, or otherwise, * * * to St. ”

“ When the fleets of the Great Lakes plow the Atlantic, and when Duluth and Chicago become seaports, the water transportation of the Middle West will have completed its evolution. The significance of the development of the railway systems is not inferior to that of the great water way. Chicago has become the greatest railroad center of the world, nor is there another area of like size which equals this in its railroad facilities ”

“ It is true also—this fact I cannot deny—that the equipment of the Alton Line is as near perfection as human ingenuity can make it. That their train service is perfect, their cars superb, their track as smooth as the skin on my face, and that they run the only through train worth taking between Chicago and Kansas City, and all points West. I can say this fearlessly. Their tracks are but steel, their cars merely wood and metal, and we have nothing to fear from wood and metal. ”

“ We drove first to the Bank and got some money, and then through the best parts of the town, along the Michigan Boulevards, through which we had glimpses of the Lake, but everything here is sacrificed to the almighty dollar, and the railway engines poke themselves in everywhere, down the best streets, and destroying the prettiest landscapes, and making unearthly noises close to your bedroom, or puffing their steam out under your nose as you walk.
Chicago looks a more bustling, and a newer and a more railroad- dominated place than Glasgow, but like it in smoke and business aspect. ”

“ Louis and all points east all electric lighted trains with observation, parlor, cafe dining cars and Pullman sleeping cars; the Chicago & Northwestern, whose through train service to Chicago and the East from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Salt Lake, Ogden and Denver is not excelled in any land; the Illinois Central Railroad, whose eight track entrance to Chicago from the south along the lake front is one of the triumphs of Yankee railroading, and whose train service is elegant in the extreme. ”

“ The first locomotive in the United States was imported from England and placed upon the rails in 1829, and in 1830 the first American locomotive was built. It was, however, very near the middle of the century before the system of railroads had been completed so as to materially improve the condition of agriculture; and although the fact may sound strange to some, the first railroad train ran into Chicago in 1852. During these years of depressed agriculture, however, the population of the country was rapidly increasing. ”

“ But with the decline of water transportation the city has not suffered, for it stands at one of the natural cross roads of trade and travel. Today it is the chief railroad centre not only in the U.S. but in the world. Not counting subsidiary divisions there are 27 railroads entering Chicago, which is the western terminus of the great New York Central System.
Chicago is thus the focus of the activities of half a continent. It is the financial centre of the west and the metropolis of the richest agricultural section in the country. ”

“ For the Christmas festivities nowadays the long, luxurious trains which roll into Chicago from the East bring many guests who stay a day and dash on to another city in equally luxurious trains. They don’t realize it, but the city which they are visiting so casually is the railroad center of the United States. Mankind surges through its land gates as it surges through one of the great ports of the world. ”

“ As a center of railroad industry Chicago takes precedence over all cities of the world. Twenty-six of the principal trunk-line railroads of the United States run trains into Chicago terminals, and in addition to these there are numerous belt transfer, terminal and industrial lines which have either a part or all of their trackage in the city. Within the corporate limits of the city are eight hundred miles of main line railway and one thousand four hundred miles of auxiliary track. ”

“ The complaint points out the well-known fact that Chicago is the terminus of a large number of railroads engaged in interstate passenger traffic and that a great majority of the persons making interstate railroad trips which carry them through Chicago must disembark from a train at one railroad station, travel from that station to another some two blocks to two miles distant, and board another train at the latter station. ”

“ About 90 per cent of all the passenger traffic over this line consists of people going from Chicago to St. Paul and points in Minnesota, the Dakotas, and the entire Northwest and Canada. Two trains are run each way daily between Chicago and Portland and Seattle. One train leaves Chicago in the morning, and from St. Paul runs over the Northern Pacific line to the Northwest. Another train leaves Chicago in the evening, and from St. Paul goes over the Great Northern line to the Northwest. There are two corresponding trains eastbound. ”

“ Every railroad of prominence sought an outlet or a feeder at Chicago, and the title of a "trunk line" was adopted for a line of rails between Chicago and the seaboard. The surrounding prairie for miles is crossed in all directions by railways, and a large part of the city and suburbs is made up of huge stations, car-yards, elevators, storehouses and cattle-pens, almost overwhelming visitors with the prodigious scale of their elaborate perplexity. ”

“ Grade crossings of the steam-railroads are obviated by numerous bridges, viaducts, and by track-elevation—the city containing more than twice as many miles of elevated tracks as are to be found in the combined mileage of all other cities in the United States. The street-railroad system, comprising cable, electric, and elevated roads, operates over 1000 miles of track. There are four elevated roads, having six terminal stations. There is a loop in the business centre, with stations two blocks apart, around which all trains must pass. ”

“ Every large city has become, in a sense, a bottle-neck for the important railroads that pierce it. In some cases like Chicago or St. Louis or Kansas City or Indianapolis, the situation has been solved by the creation of belt-line freight railroads partly or entirely encircling the town. At Buffalo, the New York Central lines have built a connecting line to enable through traffic to escape the congestion of city yards and terminals, while at New Haven, the road of the same name has recently spent several million dollars in enlarging its narrow throat in the middle of the town. ”

“ His rich but sprawling railroad system ran fairly straight after it was well started for Chicago, and fairly straight from that way-point until it became drunken with the monotony of the western foot-hills, where it gangled and angled its way to the far south and around up the Pacific coast, arriving there dusty and rattling, after a thousand mile detour from its course—but that road had no direct entrance into New York city. ”

“ Throughout their constituencies, by reason of the sparse population, freedom from competition, inequality of east, and westbound tonnage, and low-grade freight, western railroad rates per ton mile are very much higher than on the trunk lines. Moreover, they are naturally desirous of as long a haul as possible, namely into Chicago. To turn over their local Illinois traffic to the trunk line feeders exposes them financially to the same losses as those above mentioned in the case of lateral independent lines further east. ”

“ For many years eastern railroads have carried grain east from Chicago at reshipping rates 8 1/2 cents per hundred pounds lower than local rates. Up to 1939 this Chicago-to-the-east reshipping rate had been identical for grain, whether brought to Chicago by a connecting railroad, connecting lake steamer, or connecting barge. Although barge lines were much slower than railroads, they were less expensive to operate and therefore could afford to transport freight much more cheaply than railroads. ”

“ Shortly after leaving the station at Battle Creek, the train comes to a halt at the crossing of the Chicago & Grand Trunk Railway, at the station named Nichols, the location of the extensive works where are manufactured the celebrated Nichols, Shepard & Co.’s “Vibrator” threshing machinery, engines, etc. This is one of the most important industries of the city, giving employment to a large number of skilled mechanics. Just beyond are the railroad shops of the C. & G. T. Company, which also furnish employment to a goodly number of men. ”

“ Every year seemed to add to the grievances of the public. Success greatly emboldened the railway companies. Discriminations seemed to increase in number and gravity. At many points in the western part of the State freight rates to Chicago were from 50 to 75 percent higher than from points in Kansas and Nebraska. A car of wheat hauled only across the State paid twice as much freight as another hauled twice the distance from its point of origin to Chicago. Minnesota flour was hauled a distance of 300 miles for a less rate than Iowa flour was carried 100 miles. ”

“ Keeping in view the important points of speed, safety and comfort, together with the attractiveness of the scenery en route, we find the claims of
THE MICHIGAN CENTRAL RAILROAD To be of a character to meet all the requirements of the most exacting traveler. It has long been known as the Niagara Falls Route, and its recent acquirement of the Canada Southern Railway, making now a continuous line from Chicago to the very verge of the famous cataract, more fully than ever entitles it to that appellation. ”

“ The railroad system of the Northwest has been developed in such a way that no one centre may be fairly regarded as the commercial capital of the region. Chicago, with its marvelous foresight, has thrown out lines of travel that draw to itself much of the traffic which would seem normally to belong to Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Duluth on the north, or to St. Louis and Kansas City on the south. ”

“ It is a fact that trains from all points of the compass are constantly entering and leaving the city over its 39 different railways. According to the Chicago City Manual, there are 2,840 miles of steam railways within the city limits. The mileage of steam railroad track in Chicago is equal to the entire railroad mileage in Switzerland and Belgium, and is greater than the steam railroad mileage found in each of the kingdoms of Denmark, Holland, Norway, and Portugal. ”

“ In the Chicago of tomorrow the railroads will not hold mile after mile of lake-edge for themselves, the elevated trains will cease to have a merry-go-round on the loop, the arid belt between downtown and uptown will have disappeared, great railroad terminal stations and public buildings built in architectural plan and relation to one another are to arise, her splendid park and boulevard system is to be vastly multiplied. ”

“ In the beginning he would change cars four or five times between Albany and Buffalo; and when fifteen or sixteen years later the railroad had extended itself all the way out to Chicago there were three or four more changes to be made. To-day a solid train from New York or Boston to Chicago or St. Louis is so much a part of our regular order of things as to cause no comment whatever. Yet even to-day one cannot ride across the North American continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific without a change of cars—that is, not in the United States. ”

“ Jewett relieved the situation by acquiring control of the franchise of the Chicago & Atlantic Railway, extending from Marion, Ohio, on the line of the New York, Pennsylvania & Ohio towards Chicago, and soon after he entered into a contract with certain private parties for construction of the road. ”

“ These fastest trains will absolutely not haul any private cars at any price; it is a rule that would not be abrogated for the President of the United States. So the railroaders of the West, from the big men like Stubbs and Kruttschnitt of the Union Pacific down to the small fry, leave their cars in the roomy terminal yards at Chicago and come to New York most of the time on one or the other of the eighteen-hour trains. About the only time their cars come East nowadays is when they are bringing their families to the seashore for the Summer. ”