The Illinois Central and Mobile & Ohio railroads were both effectively created by an 1850 federal land grant law that aimed to build a rail line from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico. In the same way that Union Pacific and Central Pacific built parts of the first transcontinental railroad that met at Promontory, the IC was supposed to build from Cairo, Illinois north while the M&O was supposed to build from Cairo south.

Click image to download a 11.4-MB PDF of this timetable contributed by Ellery Goode.

The two railroads were less cooperative than the UP and CP, as Illinois Central bought a steamboat line to ship freight from Cairo to New Orleans and later bought a series of local railroads so it would have its own rail route to the gulf. The Mobile and Ohio, meanwhile, built a line to St. Louis and later bought the Chicago and Alton, giving it a line from Chicago to New Orleans. The two lines that were supposed to be cooperators ended up as competitors.

Of the two, the IC was stronger, probably because it benefitted from Harriman ownership in the late 1800s and early 1900s. IC had more than twice as many miles of track and earned more than three times the revenues of the GM&O.

When this timetable was issued, the GM&O was outperforming the IC only in the Chicago-St. Louis market. As a result of its acquisition of the Alton Route, it had five trains a day vs. the IC’s three.

Beyond this, it had trains from St. Louis to Mobile and Chicago to Kansas City plus a few day trains. Although it had the tracks to provide service between Chicago and New Orleans, it didn’t even try to compete with IC in this market.

The IC didn’t go to Mobile, but the GM&O only offered a “through sleeping car” between Chicago and Mobile. This car went on the Alton Limited between Chicago and St. Louis and on the Gulf Coast Rebel between St. Louis and Mobile with about an hour layover in St. Louis.