T P & W Railroad

This article was written by Frank Borror of the East Peoria Historical Society in 2015. Used with permission.

Rail service came to East Peoria following the June 22, 1852 amending of the charter of the Peoria & Oquawka Railroad to extend its line from Peoria east to the Indiana state line.

The P & O, prior to that time, operated from Peoria west to Oquawka on the Mississippi River. Construction on the extension east from Peoria began from the east bank of the Illinois River in June of 1853 and the first train started service on Feb. 2, 1857, to Chenoa.

Two months later the bridge was completed across the Illinois River and by the end of the year, regular service was operating completely across the state from Oquawka to Effner on the Illinois-Indiana state line. In East Peoria, the railway ran south east from where Embassy Suites Hotel now sits to where Walgreens is today and then east along Farm Creek. A lot was reserved for a railway station in the newly platted town of Fondulac but never used. This site was across the tracks from where Walgreens is now located. Construction of this railroad expanded the market for East Peoria farm products, brought in manufactured goods and most of all provided transportation.

In February of 1861, the P & O became the Logansport, Peoria and Burlington Railroad but financial problems forced the sale of the eastern segment to the newly organized Toledo, Peoria and Warsaw Railroad. The following year, the TP & W absorbed the Mississippi and Wabash Railroad and by 1864 had expanded to Keokuk, Iowa. At this time there was talk of the Toledo, Peoria and Warsaw Railroad being the center of a transcontinental railroad but further financial problems prevented this and forced another sale that resulted in the name being changed to Toledo, Peoria and Western Railroad in May of 1880.

A TP & W passenger train was involved in the 1887 Great Chatsworth Train Wreck on the night of Aug. 10, 1887, three miles east of the town of Chatsworth. That evening, the TP & W train departed Peoria, traveling east through Eureka and Chenoa. Two steam engines pulled six fully loaded wooden passenger cars, six sleeper cars, and three luggage cars. In total, the train carried about 700 vacationers taking advantage of a special offer to visit Niagara Falls. The first engine successfully crossed a bridge weakened by a fire earlier in the day; with the collapse of the bridge, the second engine crashed into the side of the hill while each following passenger car telescoped into the next. Sleeper cars attached to the rear of the train halted just short of the collapsed bridge. Varying reports claim 81 to 85 people were killed, and between 169 and 372 injured.

In 1927, the TP & W ceased regular passenger service though it ran mixed train service by adding a passenger coach onto freight trains for many years following. This service was never advertised and had little patronage. The mixed train passenger service was discontinued in 1951, but a little known fact is that passengers could purchase seats in the caboose well into the 1970s. Also in 1927, George P. McNear purchased the TP & W, and in 1928, a new train yard was opened in East Peoria on east Washington Street across from Fondulac Cemetery.

The McNear years were turbulent ones, with a series of strikes starting in 1941, resulting in violence and vandalism. Violence came to a head on Feb. 6, 1946, when two strikers were killed in Gridley by four train guards. One of the strikers killed was Arthur W. Browne, a 39-year-old engineer from East Peoria. The violence culminated with McNear's murder near his home in Peoria on March 10, 1947. Because of the unrest the federal government temporarily seized control of the railroad from March 22, 1942, to Oct. 1, 1945.

Following McNear's death, the festering labor disputes were settled under the direction of J. Russel Coulter, and he immediately began modernizing the railroad.

In 1951, the railroad's new general offices were constructed on East Washington Road in front of the company's rail yards. This building is now owned by Caterpillar and houses a training division. In 1955, TP & W was purchased jointly by the Santa Fe and Pennsylvania Railroads. Fifteen years later, a tow boat destroyed the TP & W bridge forcing the railroad to lease river crossing rights from PP & U.

In 1979, TP & W was purchased wholly by Santa Fe and a year later began operating the Amtrak passenger train the "Prairie Marksman" between Chenoa and Peoria, a distance of 44 miles. The Association of Public Railroads reports that a TP & W freight train that once operated over that route between Webster and Keokuk, Iowa, also bore that name.

Amtrak in America states "TP & W once had a business car named Prairie Marksman and had proclaimed itself 'the road of the Prairie Marksman.'" Rick Jeremiah, retired East Peoria Director of Public Works, who was employed on the TP & W as a fireman and engineer for 19 years, recalls seeing a nameplate bearing the title Prairie Marksman that had been removed from an old TP & W passenger coach, prior to his hire date of 1970. The "Prairie Marksman" lasted only until October 1981 and ran from Chicago to Peoria (actually East Peoria because the "Peoria" station was located near East Washington Street and Keayes Avenue in East Peoria).

On Jan. 1, 1984, TP & W merged into the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad but on Feb. 3, 1989, AT & SF sold the Lomax-Peoria-Logansport main line to private investors who revived the Toledo, Peoria and Western name.

Today the TP & W is owned by the Genesee and Wyoming Railroad and operates between Logansport, Indiana, and Fort Madison, Iowa, with a spur to Warsaw.