Toledo, Peoria and Western Railway
standard gauge | |
Length | 247 miles (398 km) |
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The Toledo, Peoria and Western Railway (
Early history
Toledo, Peoria & Western's earliest ancestor was the Peoria and
The Toledo, Peoria & Western Railway was incorporated in Illinois on March 28, 1887, and consolidated the operation of the Toledo, Peoria & Warsaw Railway and the Logansport, Peoria & Burlington Railroad. The LP&B built from Galesburg to East Burlington, Illinois in 1855, and reached Gilman, Illinois in 1857 and Effner in 1859.
A TP&W passenger train was involved in the Great Chatsworth train wreck in Chatsworth, Illinois in 1887.
Courting the Pennsy and the Santa Fe
The Toledo, Peoria & Western Railroad was affiliated with the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1918. This meant that the western terminus for the PRR was in Keokuk, Iowa and the Santa Fe interchange at Lomax, Illinois. In 1937, the TP&W purchased six Class H-10 Northerns from the American Locomotive Company. These locomotives were given road numbers 80 through 85 and were the lightest 4-8-4 ever built for a North American railroad, weighing only 361,000 pounds. They had 69-inch drivers, 23.5 x 30 cylinders, a 250 psi (1,700 kPa) boiler pressure and a tractive effort of 51,000 pounds.
In January 1960 the ATSF and PRR gained joint control (half interests) of TP&W.
On June 21, 1970, the TP&W's eastbound freight train No. 20 derailed mid-train in Crescent City, Illinois. One of the tank cars punctured, with the released propane igniting and engulfing the other tank cars, destroying most of the business district and several homes and injuring 64.[4]
In 1979 the Santa Fe reached agreement to acquire the former Pennsylvania Railroad's interest in TP&W. TP&W was merged into ATSF on December 31, 1983.
From Santa Fe to Susquehanna
The ATSF sold the Lomax-Peoria-Logansport main line on February 3, 1989, to new investors, former Boston & Maine railroad managers Cynthia O'Connor and Michael Smith, who revived the TP&W name making it an independent railroad again. This represented one of the first female owned acquisitions in the new short-line age.
When the parent companies of ATSF and Burlington Northern merged in 1995 TP&W was granted operating rights over BN's line between Peoria and Galesburg, Illinois.
In 1995, the
Keokuk Junction Railway purchases
The
See also
- Toledo, Peoria and Western Class H-10
References
- ^ a b c "RailAmerica's Empire". Trains Magazine. Kalmbach Publishing. June 2010.
- ^ Drury, George H., The Train Watcher's Guide to North American Railroads, Kalmbach, 1990, p.190
- ^ Lennon, J. Establishing Trails on Rights-of-Way. Washington, D.C.: United States Department of the Interior. p. 48.
- ISBN 978-1-59888-712-9.