Gateway Eastern Railway
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Fairview Heights, Illinois[1] |
| Reporting mark | GWWE |
| Locale | Illinois |
| Dates of operation | January 1994– |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | 4 ft8+1⁄2in(1,435 mm)standard gauge |
TheGateway Eastern Railway(reporting markGWWE) was arailroadsubsidiary of theKansas City Southern Railway(KCS)[2](Later theCPKC Railway), owning a 17-mile (27 km) main line betweenEast AltonandEast St. Louis, Illinois,United States. Originally created in 1994 as a subsidiary of theGateway Western Railway,which acquired the East St. Louis-Kansas Cityline of theChicago, Missouri and Western Railwayin 1990.[1]It was acquired by KCS along with its parent in 1997.
History
[edit]The line between East St. Louis and East Alton was completed by the Belleville and Illinoistown Railroad in 1856, as an extension of itsBelleville-East St. Louis (Illinoistown) line. Ownership passed to the St. Louis, Alton and Terre Haute Railroad, a predecessor of theIllinois Central Railroad,but in 1890 that company sold that segment to the Cairo, Vincennes and Chicago Railway, which became part of theCleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway(Big Four) and eventually theNew York Central RailroadandConrail.[3]By 1906, the parallel Big Four andChicago and Alton Railroadlines betweenBridge Junction(East St. Louis) andWann(near East Alton), the former just east of the latter, were being operated as a double-track line by both companies through reciprocaltrackage rights.[4]
In July 1993, theInterstate Commerce Commissionapproved purchase by Gateway Eastern of this line from Conrail, as well as a 1.9-mile (3.1 km) segment of the ex-Pennsylvania RailroadMain Line (Pittsburgh to St. Louis)from theMississippi Riverjust north of theEads Bridgeto Conrail'sRose Lake YardatWillows.A short segment oftrackage rightsover theTerminal Railroad Association of St. Louis's (TRRA's) Eads Subdivision, also acquired from Conrail, connected the two lines. Gateway Eastern also had access toCSX Transportation'sCone Yard,west of Willows.[5]Operations began January 28, 1994.[1]
In order to connect its sections without trackage rights, Gateway Western bought a strip of land fromCSX Transportationon which it planned to build the "Q Connection", crossing the TRRA north of "Q Tower". After a seven-year legal battle with the TRRA, during which Gateway Western placed the line in service in May 1995 through a temporaryinjunction,the courts ruled in favor of Gateway Western, then part of KCS, in 1998.[6]
Operations
[edit] | This article needs to beupdated.(November 2010) |
Gateway Eastern's primary business wasswitchingex-Conrail customers in the Alton area from Conrail's Rose Lake Yard (now CSX). It had one locomotive, a 1969EMDGP38,and operated one scheduled train per day, five days per week.[1][7]Interchange was with its parent Gateway Western, Conrail, and theSouthern Pacific Transportation CompanysubsidiarySPCSL.[citation needed]The reciprocal trackage rights agreement from 1906 with the Alton continues to this day, now between Gateway Eastern and theUnion Pacific Railroad(successor to SPCSL, purchaser of the ex-Alton main line).[8]
References
[edit]
- ^abcdLewis, Edward A. (1996).American Shortline Railway Guide(5th ed.). Kalmbach Publishing Company. pp. 127–128.
- ^"Class I Railroad Annual Report: The Kansas City Southern Railway Company To the Surface Transportation Board For the Year Ended December 31, 2007"(PDF).United States Surface Transportation Board.
- ^Interstate Commerce Commission,28 Val. Rep. 90 (1929), Valuation Docket No. 264: The Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway Company and its Leased Lines
- ^Interstate Commerce Commission,40 Val. Rep. 1 (1932), Valuation Docket No. 851: Chicago and Alton Railroad Company et al.
- ^"WERTHEIM SCHRODER & CO., INCORPORATED AND GATEWAY WESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY--CONTINUANCE IN CONTROL EXEMPTION--GATEWAY EASTERN RAILWAY COMPANY".Surface Transportation Board.December 11, 1997. footnote 3. Archived fromthe originalon March 3, 2016.
- ^"Fight's Over".Traffic World.March 30, 1998.
- ^"KANSAS CITY SOUTHERN INDUSTRIES, INC., KCS TRANSPORTATION COMPANY, AND THE KANSAS CITY SOUTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY--CONTROL--GATEWAY WESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY AND GATEWAY EASTERN RAILWAY COMPANY".Surface Transportation Board.April 28, 1997. Archived fromthe originalon March 3, 2016.
- ^"2006 Main Line Maps"(PDF).Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis.Archived fromthe original(PDF)on June 25, 2008.RetrievedNovember 25,2008.