Illinois Central Railroad

ubbed the "Main Line of Mid-America," the original Illinois Central Railroad was one of the country's first and oldest mainline rail systems. Chartered in 1851 by the General Assembly of its namesake state, the decades leading to the turn of the century brought major expansion on both ends of what would become the major north-south rail service of the central United States. Expansion into Iowa commenced by 1870, and down south new lines soon crisscrossed Mississippi, Louisiana, and reached eastward into Alabama and Tennessee. Eventually forming something of a "T" shape, the IC went west from Chicago as far as Sioux Falls and Omaha, and southward through eastern Kentucky and Tennessee to Jackson, Ms and on to the port of New Orleans. The growing IC likewise acquired various parallel lines throughout the southern states, such as the Gulf & Ship Island, the Alabama & Vicksburg, the Vicksburg Shreveport & Pacific, and one of the IC's largest and longest lasting subsidiaries: the venerable Yazoo & Mississippi Valley.

The Illinois Central operated a large fleet of utilitarian steam locomotives as late as 1960, and was a major purchaser of General Motor's versatile General Purpose series locomotives. In 1962, the railroad was incorporated as Illinois Central Industries, Inc., beginning a season of corporate diversification. Utilizing its Paducah, Kentucky, shops, in the 1960s the IC launched a major locomotive rebuilding program that would continue and expand under successor Illinois Central Gulf.

In August of 1972 the road acquired its parallel competitor, the smaller but progressive and cash-laden Gulf, Mobile & Ohio. The new system was called the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad and included 8300 miles of railroad on 13,500 miles of track. The ICG eventually proved a bloated network. In 1988 the company was spun-off from other corporate holdings, reorganized, and consolidated: dropping the "Gulf" from its name and shedding most of the former GM&O trackage in the process. Most of these spun-off lines were purchased by other railroads, including entirely new regionals such as the Chicago, Missouri and Western Railway, the Paducah & Louisville Railway, Chicago Central & Pacific Railroad, and MidSouth Rail Corporation. Post ICG, the second iteration of the Illinois Central survived until 1998, when it was purchased by the expanding Canadian National network.