Great Central & Western - HO Rail and Transportation Services

The fictitious Great Central and Western Railroad Company (GCW) would have been a small Grange railroad that was established in 1884. It was a rural bridge line servicing the new Iowa lines of the Milwaukee Road and the Chicago and Great Western that had just expanded across the Mississippi River. It operated in the Mississippi River area between Clinton and Dubuque Iowa, with a branch line from Clinton to Dewitt Iowa.

This working relationship with the Milwaukee and the CGW was very successful and lasted for 84 years. However, this wonderful life ended in corporate disaster in 1968 when the GCW was held economic hostage by its big bully neighbor, the Chicago and North Western. With both the Milwaukee and the CGW on the verge of bankruptcy and merger, the GC&W had no friends, money, or business to keep running with. Faced with a hostile by-out threat by the CNW, out of spite, GCW's Board of Directors voted to merge with the Milwaukee Road for pennies on the dollar.

The merger was no loss to the CNW, for they were simply glad to see the GCW go away. The GCW merger with the Milwaukee worked for a few years. Its road crews and repainted Milwaukee scheme engines continued to service fewer customers, where they soldiered on into the mid 1970's. With the 1977 bankruptcy of the Milwaukee, the last vestiges of the GCW and its redundant and aging equipment and trackage were among the first victims of the Milwaukee’s death throws. Finally, in 1985 the Milwaukee itself was bought out by the Soo, now part of Canadian Pacific. The Great Central and Western is now nothing but some Rails to Trails pathways and the footnoted GCW Reporting Mark, still owned by CP Rail.