Alton Railroad

The Chicago & Alton Railway (Reporting Mark C&A) was the final name of a railroad linking Chicago to Alton, Illinois; St. Louis, Missouri; and Kansas City, Missouri. Its predecessor, the Chicago and Alton Railroad (reporting mark C&A), was purchased by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1931 and was controlled until 1942 when the Alton was released to the courts. On May 31, 1947, the Alton Railroad was merged into the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad. Jacob Bunn had been one of the founding reorganizers of the Chicago & Alton Railroad Company during the 1860s.

(only 5 depots are left standing)

(2 popular depots is the 1926 Blue Springs Chicago & Alton Depot & 1879 Independence Chicago & Alton Depot)

Main lines included Chicago to St. Louis and a branch to Kansas City. The former is now part of Union Pacific, with Metra Heritage Corridor commuter rail service north of Joliet (owned by the Canadian National Railway but used by UP). Today, the Kansas City line is part of the CPKC system.

The earliest ancestor to the Alton Railroad was the Alton and Sangamon Railroad, chartered February 27, 1847, in Illinois to connect the Mississippi River town of Alton to the state capital at Springfield in Sangamon County. The line was finished in 1852 with the first locomotive trip from Alton to Springfield on September 9, 1852. The Chicago and Mississippi Railroad extended to Bloomington in 1854 and Joliet in 1855. Initially trains ran over the completed Chicago and Rock Island Railroad to Chicago.

The Joliet and Chicago Railroad was chartered February 15, 1855, and opened in 1856, continuing north and northeast from Joliet to downtown Chicago. It was leased by the Chicago and Mississippi, providing a continuous railroad from Alton to Chicago. In 1857 the C&M was reorganized as the St. Louis, Alton and Chicago Railroad, and another reorganization on October 10, 1862, produced the Chicago and Alton Railroad. The C&A chartered the Alton and St. Louis Railroad to extend the line to East St. Louis, opened in 1864, giving it a line from Chicago to East St. Louis.

The city of Bloomington, Illinois was the headquarters and primary repair site beginning in the 1850s. The repair shops for locomotives and rolling stock were located on the west side of the city between Seminary and Chestnut Streets. These were made of wood and burned in 1867. In 1883 the shops were substantially rebuilt on 40 acres of new land with 15 stone buildings. At that time the shops concentrated mainly on car repairs, but in 1905 they were expanded to accommodate major repairs and rebuilding of locomotives. At the peak of operations in the 1920s the shops employed 2,000 people.

In 1925 Chicago and Alton carried 2,143 million revenue ton-miles of freight and 202 million revenue passenger-miles on (at year-end) 1,056 miles of road and 1,863 miles of track. Same numbers for 1944 were 2596, 483, 959 and 1717. By 1950, all of the Alton's steam locomotives were replaced by diesel locomotives.