Commonly referred to as the "Nickel Plate Road", the railroad served parts of the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri.

The goal of the N&W expansion was to form a more competitive and successful system serving 14 states and the Canadian province of Ontario on more than 7,000 miles (11,000 km) of railroad.

In the 25 years after the American Civil War, railway track mileage in the United States more than doubled, changing the face of America.

The agricultural heartland of America was no longer confined to a market of a single day's wagon ride.

By 1881, Jay Gould controlled about 15% of all U.S. railroad mileage, most of it west of the Mississippi River and he was considered the most ruthless financial operator in America.

No one was less popular in Ohio than William Vanderbilt since the December 29, 1876, collapse of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway's Ashtabula River trestle, where 64 people had been injured and 92 were killed or died later from injuries.

Another reason for the popularity of the New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railway was the positive economic impact on any cities that a new railroad went through.

Vanderbilt tried to lower the value of the Nickel Plate by organizing a campaign to smear its reputation before a train ever ran on its tracks.

He realized if he allowed Gould to gain control of the Nickel Plate, his monopoly on rail traffic from Toledo, Ohio to the east would be broken.

On October 25, 1882, (a few days after the first trains ran) the Seney Syndicate sold the Nickel Plate to Vanderbilt for $7.2 million, equal to $227,300,000 today.

By the late 1800s, facilities that could handle major locomotive and car rebuilding were located at Stony Island Yard (outside of Chicago); Frankfort, Indiana; and Conneaut and Bellevue, Ohio.

As early as 1909, the Van Sweringen brothers proposed a stub-end terminal on Public Square in downtown Cleveland.

It traversed Cleveland from east to west, had a high level crossing of the Cuyahoga River Valley, and was adjacent to the proposed terminal.

The Nickel Plate also provided a natural route to the proposed terminal for the Van Sweringen's rapid transit and the other traction lines.

Cleveland approved a bond issue in 1910 to "depress" the Nickel Plate through the most congested part of the West Side.

The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway was controlled by the New York Central Railroad's Alfred Holland Smith, a close friend of the Van Sweringens.

In late 1915, the Attorney General of the United States advised the New York Central that its control of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern and the Nickel Plate was in violation of the Federal antitrust laws.

In return for operating concessions and access to certain stations, they put up only a little over $500,000 (equal to $14,000,000 today) but they controlled 75% of Nickel Plate's voting stock.

Alfred Smith was happy to give the Van Sweringens a vice-president of the New York Central, John J. Bernet, and some of his top men.

In 1922, the Nickel Plate purchased the Lake Erie and Western Railroad, giving it access to Sandusky, Ohio, and Peoria, Illinois.

[2] Bernet also doubled the railroad's total freight tonnage and average speeds system wide, while cutting fuel consumption in half.

[4] After the war, in 1947, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway ended its control of the Nickel Plate when it sold off its remaining shares.

The Nickel Plate Road, together with the Wabash and several smaller carriers, merged with the profitable Norfolk and Western (N&W) on October 16, 1964.

[8] N&W had merged with long-time rival Virginian Railway in the Pocahontas coal region in 1959, and grew through the mergers with other rail carriers including the Nickel Plate and Wabash railroads with operations in adjacent areas of the eastern United States to form a more competitive and successful system serving 14 states and a province of Canada on more than 7,000 miles (11,000 km) of road.

By 1897 the Nickel Plate had obtained trackage rights over the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway from Grand Crossing to its own terminal on the east side of the LS&MS line to LaSalle Street Station, just north of 12th Street (now Roosevelt Road).