Traffic density changes in the past 30 years on freight railroads’ main lines to Chicago reflect factors both geographic and corporate.
Geographic factors include the shift of manufacturing from domestic to offshore; air quality regulations that closed high-sulfur Western mines; and general population and economic growth. Corporate factors include the desire of railroad managements to concentrate tonnage onto as few lines as possible, and mergers that made previously competing lines redundant. Many lines with thin to modest traffic in 1971 changed to few lines with very heavy traffic in 2000.
With four exceptions, Chicago’s busiest lines in 1971 are still busy. The exceptions:
- Conrail’s former Pennsylvania line to Logansport, Ind., abandoned when it decided to concentrate on longer east-west hals and de-emphasize short-haul, north-south traffic.
- Conrail’s former PRR line from the East via Fort Wayne, Ind., made redundant when it consolidated traffic onto its former New York Central Chicago main line. An antiquated signaling system, numerous manned towers, and jointed rail also made the line unattractive.
- Conrail’s Erie Lackawanna main line from Lima, Ohio, which had respectable tonnage as late as 1973 but with inclusion in Conrail became a parallel line of little use to anyone.
- The Rock Island, which woul dhave been UP’s entrance to Chicago had it merged with UP; instead, UP got the North Western.
Thirty years of change has not refuted the old rule that the commerce of America moves east-west, not north-south. Western coal put UP’s C&NW into first place; transcon intermodal tripled tonnage on BNSF’s Santa Fe. From the East, the NYC always had a commanding lead and NS retains it today, though by consolidating traffic onto the rebuilt B&O, CSX has made that line a close second. From the South, the former Chicago & Eastern Illinois grew with traffic of UP and CSX, while IC (now CN) remains remarkably static. Modest growth characterizes traffic from the North, notably excepting the entrepreneurial WC.
Railroads included in this map:
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe; Baltimore & Ohio; BNSF Railway; Burlington Northern; Canadian National; Canadian Pacific; Chesapeake & Ohio; Chicago & North Western; Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific; Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific; CSX Transportation; Erie Lackawanna; Grand Trunk Western; Illinois Central; Iowa Interstate; Louisville & Nashville; Missouri Pacific; Norfolk & Western; Norfolk Southern; Penn Central; Soo Line; Union Pacific; Wisconsin Central
