Portal:Trains/Selected article/Week 32, 2012

The Winston Tunnel is a railroad tunnel located 9 miles (14.5 kilometers) west of Elizabeth, Illinois. The tunnel was completed in 1888 for the Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad, a predecessor to the Chicago Great Western Railway (CGW). The tunnel was located on the CGW main line 152 miles (245 kilometers) west of Chicago in the isolated and hilly Driftless Area of extreme north-western Illinois. In 1972, four years after the Chicago Great Western was merged into the Chicago and North Western Railway (C&NW), the CGW's largely redundant trackage in the area, including the Winston Tunnel, was abandoned. It was the longest railroad tunnel in Illinois throughout its years of service at 2,493 feet (760 m).