The Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway (reporting mark EJE) was a Class II railroad, making a roughly circular path between Waukegan, Illinois and Gary, Indiana.

At the end of 1970, the EJ&E operated 164 miles of track and carried 848 million ton-miles of revenue freight in that year alone.

On December 31, 2012, Canadian National announced that the merger of the EJ&E into Wisconsin Central Ltd. (another railroad subsidiary of CN) had been completed, and would take effect the following day.

[2] The Elgin, Joliet and Eastern was created when several local railroads in Illinois and Indiana merged throughout the end of the 19th century.

Construction of the present line to Gary, Whiting and South Chicago was initiated in 1899 by the Griffith and Northern Railway.

[9] In 1988, United States Steel and the Blackstone Group formed Transtar Inc. to serve as a shareholder of the EJ&E and several other affiliated railroads and companies.

In March 2001, the Blackstone Group ended their ownership interest in Transtar, resulting in it becoming a fully owned subsidiary of United States Steel.

[13] Canadian National planned to use the EJ&E to route through trains around Chicago, where they had been facing lengthy delays because of congestion in the busy rail hub.

In fact, the closing did not take place until January 31, 2009 (effective February 1, 2009), following regulatory approval of the purchase by the Surface Transportation Board on December 24, 2008.