East St. Louis Junction

Company History: The ESLJ was established in 1918 by the National Stockyards Company to operate the parent company’s 26 miles of track serving the stockyards in National City in the northwest corner of East St. Louis, Illinois. The parent company had first built track in 1872. In addition to the stockyards, ESLJ served packing houses of Amour, Hunter, Morris and Swift as well as a few cold storage warehouses. During the particularly busy month of October, 1920, ESLJ was switching 450 loads per day. Of course, livestock and reefer traffic was among the first business lost to the trucking industry. In 1975, part of the ESLJ line was leased to Chicago & North Western. The last big ESLJ customer was Hunter Packing and they closed in 1982. To add insult to injury, in 1986 a major fire destroyed the stockyards office building, taking with it all of ESLJ’s company records. Union Pacific took over operation from C&NW of the leased segment following their merger and UP filed to abandon it in 2003.

Successor/Parent History: The Chicago and North Western Transportation Company (reporting mark CNW) was a Class I railroad in the Midwestern United States. It was also known as the North Western. The railroad operated more than 5,000 miles (8,000 km) of track as of the turn of the 20th century, and over 12,000 miles (19,000 km) of track in seven states before retrenchment in the late 1970s.

Until 1972, when the company was sold to its employees, it was named the Chicago and North Western Railway. The C&NW became one of the longest railroads in the United States as a result of mergers with other railroads, such as the Chicago Great Western Railway, Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway and others.

By 1995, track sales and abandonment had reduced the total mileage back to about 5,000. The majority of the abandoned and sold lines were lightly trafficked branches in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Large line sales, such as those that resulted in the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad further helped reduce the railroad to a mainline core with several regional feeders and branches.

The company was purchased by Union Pacific Railroad (UP) in April 1995 and ceased to exist.

Brief History: The U.S. is a country of 50 states covering a vast swath of North America, with Alaska in the northwest and Hawaii extending the nation’s presence into the Pacific Ocean. Major Atlantic Coast cities are New York, a global finance and culture center, and capital Washington, DC. Midwestern metropolis Chicago is known for influential architecture and on the west coast, Los Angeles' Hollywood is famed for filmmaking.