This Map of the Month appeared in the October 2007 issue of Trains magazine.
Like other great American railroads, the Illinois Central was a melting pot of many smaller lines — some acquired through lease or purchase, others set up by IC to construct new routes. This map charts the 88 different names that made up the “Main Line of Mid-America” by 1971, one year before IC’s merger with Gulf, Mobile & Ohio. (Today IC is part of Canadian National.) By then, abandonments had erased a few other predecessors from the map altogether. (You can see a full list on our Web site.) IC completed its original 705-mile system in 1856, building north from Cairo to Galena (Chicago was served by a branch from Centralia). Almost immediately IC began accreting other railroads, as detailed in the table below. By 1971, the system totaled 6,541 route-miles, with an additional 3 miles leased, 217 miles of trackage rights, and 85 miles under three subsidiaries.
Railroads included in this map:
Orleans & Texas; Mississippi & Alabama; Memphis & New Orleans Railroad & Land; Mobile & Northwestern; Memphis & State Line; Mississippi & Tennessee; Memphis & Vicksburg; Mississippi Central; Mound City; Mississippi Central & Tennessee; Mississippi Valley; Natchez, Jackson & Columbus; New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Vicksburg & Memphis; New Orleans, Jackson & Great Northern; New Orleans & Mississippi Valley; New Orleans, St. Louis & Chicago; Omaha Bridge & Terminal; Owensboro Falls of Rough & Green River; Ohio Valley; Peoria, Decatur & Evansville; Riverside & Harlem; Southern Illinois & Kentucky; Stacyville; South Chicago; St. Charles Air Line; St. Louis, Alton & Terre Haute; St. Louis & Ohio River; St. Louis, Peoria & Northern; St. Louis Southern; Tremont & Gulf; Tennessee Central; Tennessee Southern; Vicksburg Bridge Commission; Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific; The West and East; West Feliciana; Yazoo Delta; Yazoo & Mississippi Valley; Chicago & Illinois Western; Kensington & Eastern; Waterloo; Chicago & North Western; Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific; Gulf, Mobile & Ohio; Illinois Terminal; Louisville & Nashville; Missouri Pacific; Peoria & Pekin Union; St. Louis-San Francisco; Southern; Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis
