Illinois Terminal Railroad HO Scale Models

The Illinois Terminal Railroad traced its origins to the early twentieth century consolidation of several central Illinois interurban lines by businessman William B. McKinley into a system known as the Illinois Traction System. At its peak, this electric interurban network stretched across approximately 550 miles of track in a Y-shaped configuration, with a main spine running between St. Louis and Springfield, Illinois, and branches extending northwest from Springfield to Peoria and eastward to Danville. The system initially operated on 3,300-volt single-phase alternating current before being re-electrified around 1910 to 650-volt direct current. An affiliated network of city streetcar lines complemented the intercity interurban service in many communities along the routes, making the Illinois Traction System a comprehensive regional transit provider during the early decades of the century. Financial pressures brought on by the Great Depression forced a reorganization of the Illinois Traction System, and in 1937 the enterprise emerged under the new name Illinois Terminal Railroad, adopting the reporting mark ITC. The new name acknowledged the railroad's evolving role as a freight interchange carrier connecting major steam railroads at its terminal cities of Peoria, Danville, and St. Louis. Interurban passenger service continued for nearly two more decades, sustained in part by United States postal contracts, and the railroad invested in streamlined electric multiple-unit trainsets purchased from the St. Louis Car Company in an attempt to attract riders. Despite these efforts, the equipment proved unreliable and failed to draw sufficient patronage, and on March 3, 1956, intercity passenger service was discontinued. The final suburban runs between St. Louis and Granite City concluded in 1958. Freight operations presented their own challenges throughout the railroad's history, as the ITC's routing through numerous small towns required street-level running over tight-radius curves incompatible with conventional freight train handling. The railroad addressed this in part by constructing bypass trackage around certain communities, including Springfield, and securing trackage rights over parallel steam railroad lines in some locations. In June 1956, with interurban service ended and the railroad's freight infrastructure still considered valuable, a consortium of nine Class I railroads acquired the ITC and continued operating it as a diesel-powered short line, removing the overhead trolley wire and abandoning the more problematic street trackage. This arrangement continued for roughly twenty-five years until Norfolk and Western Railway bought out its partners' interests on September 1, 1981, and formally merged the Illinois Terminal Railroad into the N&W on May 8, 1982. The legacy of the Illinois Terminal Railroad extends beyond its merger into Norfolk and Western. Small portions of its former St. Louis trackage continued in service for years afterward, eventually operated by a switching subsidiary serving the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper until that operation ceased in 2004. More broadly, the ITC stands as a significant example of the heavy-duty interurban electric railroad, a category of enterprise that flourished briefly in the early twentieth century and nearly everywhere succumbed to competition from automobiles and improved highways. The ITC was among the more durable survivors of this era, managing to sustain both passenger and substantial freight operations well into the postwar period before ultimately being absorbed into the conventional steam-successor railroad system that replaced it.