Chicago, Burlington & Quincy HO Scale Models

The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad traced its origins to the Aurora Branch Railroad, chartered by the Illinois General Assembly on October 2, 1848, by citizens of Aurora and Batavia who sought rail access to Chicago independent of the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad. The Aurora Branch operated a modest line from Aurora to Turner Junction, using that connection to reach Chicago, but its unfavorable revenue-sharing arrangement with the Galena and Chicago Union eventually prompted the construction of a dedicated line through Naperville, Downers Grove, and other western Chicago suburbs, opened in 1864. Through a series of name changes and corporate reorganizations during the early 1850s, the company was ultimately reconstituted as the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, absorbing several smaller lines including the Central Military Tract and portions of the Peoria and Oquawka Railroad. The railroad eventually reached both of its namesake cities beyond Chicago, extending to Burlington, Iowa, and Quincy, Illinois, and completed Mississippi River bridges at each location in 1868, opening through routes westward into Iowa and Missouri. Westward expansion accelerated significantly in the decades following the Civil War under the financial stewardship of John Murray Forbes and the administrative leadership of Charles Elliott Perkins, who served as president from 1881 to 1901 and roughly tripled the size of the system during his tenure. The Burlington and Missouri River Railroad, a closely affiliated company, pushed across Iowa and Nebraska during the late 1860s and 1870s, reaching Lincoln, Nebraska, in the summer of 1870 and Kearney by 1872. The CB&Q ultimately absorbed the Iowa portion of the Burlington and Missouri River line in 1872 and purchased the Nebraska segment as well, completing the extension to Denver by 1882. The railroad also gained influence over the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad in Missouri and developed significant operations across Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, and Wisconsin, eventually also reaching Minneapolis and St. Paul via a river line along the Mississippi. Through subsidiary companies including the Colorado and Southern Railway and the Fort Worth and Denver Railway, the Burlington Route extended its reach into Texas as well. Control of the CB&Q passed to James J. Hill's Great Northern Railway and the Northern Pacific Railway around 1901, when Hill purchased the Burlington's stock at approximately two hundred dollars per share, viewing it as an essential connection between Chicago and his northwestern rail empire centered at St. Paul. This acquisition provoked E. H. Harriman of the Union Pacific to launch a stock raid on the Northern Pacific in an unsuccessful attempt to gain indirect access to the Burlington, a conflict that ultimately led to the formation and subsequent dissolution of the Northern Securities Company by order of the U.S. Supreme Court. Under Hill's system, the CB&Q continued to function as an independent operating railroad while serving as the critical midwestern and Chicago gateway for Great Northern and Northern Pacific traffic. The railroad became widely known as the Burlington Route and promoted itself with slogans including "Way of the Zephyrs," a reference to its celebrated streamlined passenger train service inaugurated in the 1930s. At the close of 1967, the CB&Q operated approximately 8,538 route miles, making it one of the larger Class I railroads in the country. In 1970 the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy was merged together with the Great Northern Railway, the Northern Pacific Railway, and the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway to form the Burlington Northern Railroad, ending more than a century of independent operation. The CB&Q's main lines became the core of Burlington Northern's southeastern network, and much of the physical plant the railroad had built across Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and Colorado remains in active use today under BNSF Railway, the successor created when Burlington Northern merged with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in 1995. The CB&Q's legacy endures in the Chicago commuter rail corridor it pioneered in 1864, now operated by Metra, as well as in the broader infrastructure of the American heartland that the railroad helped open to settlement and commerce during the second half of the nineteenth century.