St. Joseph and Grand Island Railway

The St. Joseph and Grand Island Railroad (SJ&GI) was created in about 1879 when the St. Joseph and Western Railroad (SJ&W) built a line from Hastings to Grand Island, Nebraska.  Upon completion of the line, the SJ&W was reorganized into the SJ&GI. Doniphan, Nebraska, was plotted in 1879 at about the halfway point between Hastings and Grand Island and was named for John Doniphan, an attorney for the railroad. The SJ&GI was essentially part of the Union Pacific Railroad (UP) for most of its existence. When the UP built a shorter cutoff between Hastings and Gibbon in 1914, use of the SJ&GI tracks north of Hastings gradually declined. The line mostly was abandoned by 1989. The only remaining segment of the line between Hastings and Grand Island (the SJ&GI continued to St. Joseph, Missouri) is a few miles between the Union Pacific mainline through Grand Island and the coal-fired power plant south of Grand Island. The power plant receives two to three unit coal trains per week.

References 

Nebraska State Historical Society
St. Joseph and Grand Island Railway

Category:Predecessors of the Union Pacific Railroad
Category:Defunct Nebraska railroads
Category:Former Class I railroads in the United States
Category:Railway companies established in 1897
Category:Defunct Missouri railroads
Category:Defunct Kansas railroads