Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway

Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway

EJ&E (red) and Canadian National Railway (blue) as of 2008
EJE 665, an EMD SD38-2, at West Chicago on December 14, 1987
Overview
Headquarters	Gary, Indiana
Reporting mark	EJE
Locale	Illinois and Indiana
Dates of operation	January 1, 1889–January 1, 2013
Predecessor	Joliet, Aurora & Northern Railway Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway Company of Illinois
Successor	Canadian National Railway, Wisconsin Central Ltd.
Technical
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Length	164 miles (264 km)

The Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway (reporting mark EJE) was a Class II railroad, making a roughly circular path between Waukegan, Illinois and Gary, Indiana. The railroad served as a link between Class I railroads traveling to and from Chicago, although it operated almost entirely within the city's suburbs, only entering Chicago where it served the U.S. Steel South Works on the shores of Lake Michigan. Nicknames for the railroad included "The J", EJ&E and "The Chicago Outer Belt Line". At the end of 1970, the EJ&E operated 164 miles of track and carried 848 million ton-miles of revenue freight in that year alone.

On September 26, 2007, the Canadian National Railway announced that it planned to purchase a majority of the EJ&E, leaving a portion of the line in Indiana to be reorganized as the Gary Railway. The purchase was approved on December 24, 2008, by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, and the deal was consummated effective February 1, 2009.^[1] In the years immediately following the merger, the railroad existed as a subsidiary of Canadian National, and EJ&E locomotives that had been repainted into CN colors were sub-lettered for the EJ&E.

On December 31, 2012, Canadian National announced that the merger of the EJ&E into Wisconsin Central Ltd. (another railroad subsidiary of CN) had been completed, and would take effect the following day. On January 1, 2013, the EJ&E effectively ceased to exist, 124 years to the day it was founded.^[2]