The Chicago Great Western Railway (AAR reporting mark CGW) was a Class I railroad that linked Chicago, Minneapolis, Omaha, and Kansas City. It was founded by Alpheas Beede Stickney in 1885 as a small 100 mile line between St. Paul and the Iowa state line. Through mergers and new construction, it quickly became a multi-state carrier. It maintained a link over the Mississippi and an expensive tunnel, Winston Tunnel, near Galena, Illinois. Nicknamed the Corn Belt Route because of its operating area in the midwestern United States, the railroad was sometimes called the Lucky Strike Road, due to the similarity in design between the herald of the CGW and the logo used for Lucky Strike cigerettes.
Its headquarters was in Chicago, Illinois, but later moved to Oelwein, Iowa.
CGW was most famous for running very long trains behind multiple Electro-Motive Division (EMD) F-unit or General Electric locomotives. Trains with six or more F-unit locomotives were not uncommon. The railroad also pioneered the intermodal concept (piggyback service) when, in 1936, it moved several hundred truck trailers on specially modified flatcars.
On July 1, 1968, the Chicago Great Western merged with Chicago & North Western (CNW) to avoid bankruptcy. The CNW subsequently abandoned most of the CGW right-of-way.
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