Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway"The Omaha Road"

Share of the Chicago, Saint Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway Company, issued 13. December 1919
Overview
Headquarters	St. Paul, Minnesota
Reporting mark	CMO, CSt.PM&O
Locale	United States from St. Paul, Minnesota, Elroy, Wisconsin; Sioux City, Iowa
Dates of operation	1880–1972
Predecessor	West Wisconsin Railway, St. Paul and Sioux City Railway
Successor	Chicago and North Western Railway,Union Pacific Railroad
Technical
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)
Length	1,616 miles (2,601 km)

TheChicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway orOmaha Road (reporting markCMO) was arailroad in theU.S. states ofNebraska,Iowa,Minnesota,Wisconsin, andSouth Dakota. It was incorporated in 1880 as a consolidation of theChicago, St. Paul and Minneapolis Railway and theNorth Wisconsin Railway.^[1] TheChicago and North Western Railway (C&NW) gained control in 1882.^[2] The C&NW leased the Omaha Road in 1957^[3] and merged the company into itself in 1972.^[4]

Today, portions of the C. St. P. M. and O. are part of theUnion Pacific Railroad network, including main lines fromWyeville, Wisconsin, toSt. Paul, Minnesota, and St. Paul toSioux City, Iowa.

TheWest Wisconsin Railway was authorized in 1876 to build from St. Paul to the Chicago and North Western Railway atElroy, Wisconsin.^[5] It went bankrupt and was acquired in 1878 by theChicago, St. Paul, and Minneapolis Railway.^[5][6] Its main line from the junction with theGreat Northern Railway at St. Paul to Elroy, along with branches from it, became known as the C. St. P. M.'s Eastern Division.^[7]

The Land Grant Act of Congress approved March 3, 1857, when Minnesota was still aTerritory and not a state, conferred on the then calledSouthern Minnesota Railroad Company "lands, interests, rights, powers and privileges" for the proposed line of railroad from St. Paul viaMankato, Minnesota, and other points named to the southern boundary of the state in the direction of the mouth of theBig Sioux river. TheMinnesota Valley Railroad Company was organized in 1864 under an act of the Minnesota Legislature approved March 4, 1864. This granted to the new company the Southern Minnesota Railroad grant.^[8]

In 1869, the Minnesota Valley Railroad and Minnesota Central Railroad Company built a bridge across the Mississippi between Mendota and St. Paul atPickerel Lake. It was the predecessor of today'sOmaha Road Bridge Number 15. A freight house was constructed in St. Paul at the foot of Robert Street. The name of the company changed on April 7, 1869, to theSt. Paul and Sioux City Railroad. The railroad had reached Mankato at the bend of the Minnesota river, and left the river valley to reachLake Crystal, Minnesota.^[8] By September 1872, the track was completed toLe Mars, Iowa, where it joined theIowa Falls and Sioux City railroad, a predecessor of theIllinois Central Railroad.^[9] On October 1, 1872, the railroad was in regular operation from St. Paul through to Sioux City. This main line from Mendota to Le Mars became the St. Paul and Sioux City division, and eventually the Western Division.^[7]

TheNorth Wisconsin Railway was merged along withChicago, St. Paul and Minneapolis Railway to become the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway in 1880.^[10][6][11] The C. St. P. M. & O. then purchased the St. Paul and Sioux City in 1881.^[6] The route was a bow shape between Le Mars to the Twin Cities to Elroy, Wisconsin. The railroad connected the Eastern and Western divisions through trackage leases on the Minneapolis and St. Louis at Merriam Junction to Minneapolis, the Great Northern between Minneapolis and St. Paul, and theMilwaukee Road between Mendota and St. Paul.^[7]

On Jan. 1, 1881,William Truesdale was appointed the railroad's traffic manager; he would later become the line's vice-president, and still later president of theDelaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad and an industry leader.^[12]

The Omaha would go on to acquire the Menomonie Railway, the Sault Ste Marie and Southwestern Railway, the Superior Short Line Railway, the Watonwan Valley Railway, the Des Moines Valley Railway, the Chippewa Valley and Northwestern Railway, and Eau Claire, Chippewa Falls, and Northeastern Railway.^[13]

In November 1883, control passed to the Chicago and North Western Railway Company.^[13] At the end of 1956, C. St. P. M. & O. operated 1,616 miles of road and 2396 miles of track; that year, it reported 2,115 million ton-miles of revenue freight and 65 million passenger-miles.

Although the CMO had long been absorbed by the C&NW before that railroad was purchased by the Union Pacific, the UP still uses theCMOreporting mark on cars.^[14]

ThePikes Creek Tragedy was a derailment that occurred on October 2, 1884, on the Bayfield branch roughly midway between the towns of Bayfield and Washburn, Wisconsin costing the lives of 10 men and injuring several others.

The following main lines were part of the Omaha Road:^[15]

Chicago, St Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Railway
Legend
0 Omaha 5 Florence 16 Ft. Calhoun 25 Blair 35 Herman 42 Tekamah 51 Craig 58 Oakland 65 Lyons 73 Bancroft 82 Pender 95 Emerson 107 Hubbard 112 Coburn 116 Dakota City 120 South Sioux City 124 Sioux City

• Mailer, Stan (2004).The Omaha Road: Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha. Mukilteo, Washington: Hundman Publishing.ISBN 0-945434-04-9.OL 8448884M.

• Former Class I railroads in the United States
• Predecessors of the Chicago and North Western Transportation Company
• Defunct Iowa railroads
• Defunct Minnesota railroads
• Defunct Nebraska railroads
• Defunct South Dakota railroads
• Defunct Wisconsin railroads
• Railway companies established in 1880
• Railway companies disestablished in 1972
• American companies established in 1880
• Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway

• Webarchive template wayback links
• CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Use American English from December 2018
• All Wikipedia articles written in American English
• Use mdy dates from April 2012