Sioux City and Pacific Railroad

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The Sioux City and Pacific Railroad was a railroad in the U.S. states of Iowa and Nebraska. Built as a connection from Sioux City, Iowa to the Union Pacific Railroad at Fremont, Nebraska, it became part of the Chicago and North Western Railway system in the 1880s, and is now a main line of the Union Pacific (UP). The east-west portion from Fremont to Missouri Valley, Iowa, is the Blair Subdivision, carrying mainly westbound UP trains (most eastbounds use the Omaha Subdivision), and the line from California Junction, Iowa north to Sioux City is the Sioux City Subdivision. [1]

U.S. state constituent political entity sharing sovereignty as the United States of America

In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are currently 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory and shares its sovereignty with the federal government. Due to this shared sovereignty, Americans are citizens both of the federal republic and of the state in which they reside. State citizenship and residency are flexible, and no government approval is required to move between states, except for persons restricted by certain types of court orders. Four states use the term commonwealth rather than state in their full official names.

Iowa State of the United States of America

Iowa is a state in the Midwestern United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states; Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the east, Missouri to the south, Nebraska to the west, South Dakota to the northwest and Minnesota to the north.

Nebraska State of the United States of America

Nebraska is a state that lies in both the Great Plains and the Midwestern United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwest; and Wyoming to the west. It is the only triply landlocked U.S. state.

Contents

History

The Pacific Railway Act of 1862 defined a network of branches that would begin at the Missouri River and join the main line of the Union Pacific Railroad in or near Nebraska. The UP was required to build the branch from Sioux City, [2] but an 1864 amendment released the UP from this obligation, allowing any railroad arriving at Sioux City from the east, or any newly incorporated railroad, to construct the line and gain the associated land grants. [3] The Sioux City and Pacific Railroad was organized for this purpose in August 1864, and soon came under common ownership with the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railroad, a land-grant company, leased by the Chicago and North Western Railway, that completed its road across Iowa to Council Bluffs in April 1867. To build the portion in Nebraska, the Northern Nebraska Air Line Railroad was incorporated in June 1867 and merged into the Sioux City and Pacific in September 1868. [4] [5]

Missouri River major river in the central United States, tributary of the Mississippi

The Missouri River is the longest river in North America. Rising in the Rocky Mountains of western Montana, the Missouri flows east and south for 2,341 miles (3,767 km) before entering the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, Missouri. The river takes drainage from a sparsely populated, semi-arid watershed of more than half a million square miles (1,300,000 km2), which includes parts of ten U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. When combined with the lower Mississippi River, it forms the world's fourth longest river system.

Union Pacific Railroad Class I railroad in the United States

Union Pacific Railroad is a freight hauling railroad that operates 8,500 locomotives over 32,100 route-miles in 23 states west of Chicago and New Orleans. The Union Pacific Railroad system is the second largest in the United States after the BNSF Railway and is one of the world's largest transportation companies. The Union Pacific Railroad is the principal operating company of the Union Pacific Corporation ; both are headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska.

A land grant is a grant of land – held by a government to hold until the land it granted to a person. The United States historically gave out numerous land grants to people desiring farmland. The American Industrial Revolution was guided by many supportive acts of legislatures promoting commerce or transportation infrastructure development by private companies, such as the Cumberland Road turnpike, the Lehigh Canal, the Schuylkill Canal, and the many railroads that tied the young United States together.

In August 1867 the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River opened a branch from Missouri Valley Junction west to California Junction (sold to the Sioux City and Pacific in July 1871), where the Sioux City and Pacific, funded by the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River, began constructing its line north through the Missouri River Valley, reaching Sioux City in February 1868. The line from California Junction west to Fremont, Nebraska was completed in early 1869, initially crossing the Missouri River via a car ferry. From 1870 until July 1884, the Sioux City and Pacific operated the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad, which continued northwest from Fremont into northwestern Nebraska. (The Illinois Central Railroad subsidiary Iowa Falls and Sioux City Railroad opened the first eastern connection to Sioux City in October 1870. [6] ) The Blair Bridge opened in late 1883, replacing the car ferry across the Missouri River. In 1884, the Chicago and North Western acquired control of the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River and the connecting Chicago, Iowa and Nebraska Railroad, which had jointly purchased the Sioux City and Pacific in 1880. Operations remained separate until August 1901, when the C&NW leased and soon merged the company into itself. (During the previous month, the Sioux City and Pacific had bought the incomplete roadbed of the Moville Extension Railway, which the C&NW completed that year, branching off the main line at Sergeant Bluff and connecting to an existing C&NW line at Moville.) [4] [5]

California Junction, Iowa Census-designated place in Iowa, United States

California Junction is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Harrison County, Iowa, United States. It lies just east of the junction between the east-west and north-south lines of the former Sioux City and Pacific Railroad. In the 2010 census it had a population of 85 inhabitants and a population density of 184.38 people per square mile (71.19/km²).

Missouri River Valley Pig

The Missouri River Valley outlines the journey of the Missouri River from its headwaters where the Madison, Jefferson and Gallatin Rivers flow together in Montana to its confluence with the Mississippi River in the State of Missouri. At 2,300 miles (3,700 km) long the valley drains one-sixth of the United States, and is the longest river valley on the North American continent. The valley in the Missouri River basin includes river bottoms and floodplains.

Fremont, Nebraska City in Nebraska, United States

Fremont is a city in Dodge County in the eastern portion of the state of Nebraska in the Midwestern United States. The population was 26,397 at the 2010 census. Fremont is the county seat and the home of Midland University.

The line became more important in the 1960s, when the point where the UP and C&NW interchanged transcontinental traffic was moved from Council Bluffs to Fremont, allowing for a shorter route via Blair. After the UP acquired control of the C&NW in 1995, it implemented directional running in late 1996, taking eastbound trains (including Powder River Basin coal) over the longer but flatter Omaha Subdivision through Council Bluffs. However, high-priority "Z" intermodal trains use the Blair Subdivision in both directions. [1]

Powder River Basin

The Powder River Basin is a geologic structural basin in southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming, about 120 miles (190 km) east to west and 200 miles (320 km) north to south, known for its coal deposits. The region supplies about 40 percent of coal in the United States. It is both a topographic drainage and geologic structural basin. The basin is so named because it is drained by the Powder River, although it is also drained in part by the Cheyenne River, Tongue River, Bighorn River, Little Missouri River, Platte River, and their tributaries.

See also

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Chicago and North Western Transportation Company transport company

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References

  1. 1 2 Trains , Trackside Guide No. 4: Omaha-Council Bluffs, September 2003
  2. Pub.L. 37–120 , 12  Stat.   489 , enacted July 1, 1862
  3. Pub.L. 38–216 , 13  Stat.   356 , enacted July 2, 1864
  4. 1 2 Interstate Commerce Commission, 137 I.C.C. 1 (1928): Chicago and North Western Railway Company
  5. 1 2 Chicago and North Western Railway, Yesterday and To-day: A History, 1905, pp. 27-31
  6. Report of the Department of the Interior for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1885, Volume I, p. 630