CPKC E. Fork Wood River Bridge

In 1856, the Terre Haute & Alton Railroad (TH&A) constructed a 174 mile railroad line, extending from Terre Haute, Indiana to Alton, Illinois.  At the same time, the Belleville & Illinoistown Railroad would construct a 20  mile branch from East Alton to East St. Louis, Illinois.  The two railroads would be reorganized as the St. Louis, Alton & Terre Haute Railroad (StLA&TH).  The StLA&TH was purchased by the Cairo, Vincennes & Chicago Railway (CV&C) in 1890.  The CV&C had acquired a large amount of trackage throughout Illinois, and was affiliated with the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway, known as the Big Four.   In 1905, the Chicago, Indianapolis & St. Louis Short Line Railroad (CI&StLSL) would construct 44 miles of new railroad, extending from Hillsboro to East St. Louis, creating a cutoff bypassing Alton.  The Big Four came under the control of the New York Central Railroad (NYC) in 1906.  The NYC was controlled by railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, and operated an extensive network of railroad lines in the eastern United States.  Both the CV&C and the CI&StLSL were formally merged into the Big Four in 1913, and the Big Four was operated as a separate entity from the NYC until approximately 1930.  This line served as a principal mainline for the Big Four, connecting St. Louis and Indianapolis.  After the line officially became part of the NYC, the line continued to serve as the NYC mainline to St. Louis. The original line from Litchfield to East Alton would be abandoned in 1965.

In 1968, NYC merged with rival Pennsylvania Railroad to form Penn Central Railroad.  The Penn Central Railroad was short lived, as it was plagued by operations issues stemming from the merger of the two systems.  A portion of the original line from Hillsboro to Litchfield would be abandoned in 1973.  The railroad filed for bankruptcy in 1974, and many of the lines were reorganized into Conrail.  Conrail was formed by the Federal Government to take over profitable lines of multiple bankrupt railroad companies in the eastern United States.  The segment from Pana to East St. Louis would be sold to the Union Pacific Railroad (UP) in 1982, and the segment from Paris to Pana would be abandoned in 1983.  In 1997, Norfolk Southern Railway and CSX Transportation agreed to purchase the bankrupt Conrail System.  CSX took control of the remaining portion of the line between Terre Haute and Paris.  This line would be sold to the Watco-owned Decatur & Eastern Illinois Railroad in 2018.  Today, UP continues to operate the Pana to East St. Louis segment of this line as the Pana Subdivision, while the section between Terre Haute and Paris is operated by Decatur & Eastern Illinois Railroad.  Small portions of the abandoned line have been converted into trails. A short segment of the line in East Alton is operated by CPKC.