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 The Wabash's City of St. Louis streamliner in the 1950s. | |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | St. Louis, Missouri |
| Reporting mark | WAB |
| Locale | |
| Dates of operation | 1837–1964 |
| Successor | Norfolk and Western Railway |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) |
| Length | 2,524 miles (4,062 kilometres) |
The Wabash Railroad (reporting mark WAB) was a Class I railroad that operated in the mid-central United States. It served a large area, including track in the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, and Missouri and the province of Ontario. Its primary connections included Chicago, Illinois; Kansas City, Missouri; Detroit, Michigan; Buffalo, New York; St. Louis, Missouri; and Toledo, Ohio.
The Wabash's major freight traffic advantage was the direct line from Kansas City to Detroit, without going through St. Louis or Chicago. Despite being merged into the Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W) in 1964, the Wabash company continued to exist on paper until the N&W merged into the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS) in 1982.
At the end of 1960 Wabash operated 2,423 miles of road on 4,311 miles of track, not including Ann Arbor and NJI&I; that year it reported 6,407 million net ton-miles of revenue freight and 164 million passenger-miles.[citation needed]