Wabash Railroad

Ghost Corp Apparel — resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.

Organized in July 1941 under Pennsylvania Railroad control, Wabash Railroad Company acquired the Wabash Railway’s assets that December and began operations on January 1, 1942. Its general offices were in St. Louis, Missouri’s Railway Exchange Building, the nerve center for a broad Midwestern and Ontario network.

The Wabash connected industrial cities including Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, St. Louis, Toledo, and Buffalo. It moved the serious stuff—freight, raw materials, manufactured goods—and gave travelers memorable named trains, including the Wabash Blue Bird, introduced between Chicago and St. Louis in 1950. Practical transportation, with just enough streamliner swagger.

On October 16, 1964, Norfolk and Western Railway leased the Wabash’s railroad properties and took over operations. The Wabash name stopped appearing as an operating railroad, but the company remained a separate lessor corporate entity for another generation. In November 1991, it was merged into Norfolk and Western.

Our Wabash Railroad collection celebrates the blue-and-white flag, the big-route confidence, and a railroad identity that outlived plenty of reorganizations. Corporate ghosts rarely travel this well.