BNSF Railway Aurora Subdivision |
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The Aurora Subdivision or Aurora Sub is a railway line in Wisconsin and Illinois operated by BNSF Railway. It is part of BNSF's Chicago, Illinois to Seattle, Washington Northern Transcon. This segment runs about 262 miles (422 km) from the St. Croix Subdivision in La Crosse, Wisconsin to the Chicago Subdivision in Aurora, Illinois.[1][2][3][4]
For a time, this track hosted some of the fastest trains in the world, including the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad's Twin Cities Zephyr. The Northern Pacific North Coast Limited and Great Northern Empire Builder also ran to Minneapolis–Saint Paul and on to the west coast on this track. However, with the advent of Amtrak in 1971, the Empire Builder changed its route between Chicago and the Twin Cities to run on the route of the former Milwaukee Road Hiawatha instead.
Today, there is no passenger service on the line. Amtrak trains heading westward along the Chicago Subdivision immediately turn southwest toward Galesburg, Illinois along the Mendota Subdivision as the pass through Aurora, but they currently (as of 2010) do not stop in the city. Metra commuter rail service to Chicago via the BNSF Railway Line terminates at the Aurora Transportation Center, but this is at the end of a spur parallel to the main line. There is an old train station on Broadway (Route 25) about a mile south of the Aurora Transportation Center, but it is disused.