Commonly referred to as the Burlington Route, the Burlington, CB&Q, or as the Q,[2][3] it operated extensive trackage in the states of Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and also in Texas through subsidiaries Colorado and Southern Railway, Fort Worth and Denver Railway, and Burlington-Rock Island Railroad.

The earliest predecessor of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, the Aurora Branch Railroad, was chartered by act of the Illinois General Assembly on October 2, 1848.

Both the original Chicago line, and to a much lesser extent, the old Aurora Branch right of way, are still in regular use today by the Burlington's present successor BNSF Railway.

The B&MR continued building west into Nebraska as a separate company, the Burlington & Missouri River Rail Road, founded in 1869.

[12] Burlington's rapid expansion after the American Civil War was based upon sound financial management, dominated by John Murray Forbes of Boston and assisted by Charles Elliott Perkins.

Perkins was a powerful administrator who eventually forged a system out of previously loosely held affiliates, virtually tripling Burlington's size during his presidency from 1881 to 1901.

Though the railroad stretched as far west as Denver and Billings, Montana, it had failed to reach the Pacific Coast during the 1880s and 1890s, when construction was less expensive.

With its river line to the Twin Cities, the Burlington Route formed a natural connection between Hill's home town (and headquarters) of St. Paul, Minnesota, and the railroad hub of Chicago.

The fight dragged on 10 months before the financially and emotionally exhausted strikers finally gave up, and Perkins declared a total victory.

However, he had spent heavily on strikebreakers, lawsuits, and police protection, hurting the balance sheets and putting the railroad in a poor position to face the nationwide depression of the Panic of 1893.

In 1929, the CB&Q created a subsidiary, the Burlington Transportation Company, to operate intercity buses in tandem with its railway network.

[18] By which time, the CB&Q was facing a decline in passenger ridership from the Depression, and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was exploring ways to help the rail industry improve.

[18] Ralph Budd subsequently asked for a streamlined stainless-steel train to be built, and this resulted in the railroad introducing the famous Zephyrs.

The railroad's shops in Aurora had built a three-horsepower distillate motor in that year, but it was not reliable (requiring a massive 6,000-pound flywheel), and it had issues with overheating (even with the best metals of the day, its cylinder heads and liners would warp and melt in a matter of minutes), so it was therefore deemed impractical.

Ralph Budd, accused of gambling on diesel power, chirped that "I knew that the GM people were going to see the program through to the very end.

[22] With their freight traffic weighing 31 million tons that year, the CB&Q saw no further necessity for any more steam or diesel locomotives to be added to their roster.

[18][22] In 1943, the War Production Board authorized EMC (now reincorporated as EMD) to construct sixteen FT locomotives for delivery to the CB&Q the following year, by which time, the road's freight traffic peaked 57 million tons.

4997 worked the last commercial steam assignment for the railroad at Herrin Junction on January 27, 1959 (the only major U.S. railroads to operate revenue steam after this date were Union Pacific, Illinois Central, Nickel Plate Road, Norfolk and Western, Grand Trunk Western, Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range, and Lake Superior and Ishpeming).

[31] In late 1966, Louis Menk became president of the Northern Pacific, leaving William John Quinn in charge of the CB&Q.

[33][36][37][29] In the process of reducing operating costs for the railroad, Harry Murphy's successor, Louis Menk, ordered for the CB&Q's steam excursion program to be shut down by August 1, 1966.

The Burlington Zephyr, the first American diesel-electric powered streamlined passenger train, made its noted "dawn-to-dusk" run from Denver, Colorado, to Chicago, Illinois, on May 26, 1934.

[38] Although the distinctive, articulated stainless steel trains were well known, and the railroad adopted the "Way of the Zephyrs" advertising slogan, they did not attract passengers back to the rails en masse, and the last one was retired from revenue service with the advent of Amtrak.

The Burlington was a leader in innovation; among its firsts were use of the printing telegraph (1910), train radio communications (1915), streamlined passenger diesel power (1934) and vista-dome coaches (1945).