The Edgewood Cutoff is a 169-mile (273 km) single-track railroad line that runs in a north–south direction through southern Illinois and western Kentucky.
The line is named for the hamlet of Edgewood, Illinois where the northern end of the cutoff diverges from the IC mainline.
The Edgewood Cutoff was built to ease traffic congestion on the IC mainline primarily caused by the single-track bridge over the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois.
)[1] Due to its location, east of the IC mainline, trains running from Chicago to New Orleans would shave 22 miles (35 km) from their route by using the cutoff.
After the IC announced plans to build the cutoff on Christmas Day 1922, several communities along the Cairo route filed lawsuits to stop the new line from being built.