The railroads and Aurora grew up together.

From single tracks of steel ribbons in early days to mighty engines propelling freight around the nation and commuters to and from work in Chicago, the railroad continues to play a critical role in the economy of the city and region.

Leo Phillip —  a Aurora East Side native, former railroad brakeman, conductor, executive and rail historian — took a crowd of nearly 100 through the history of rails and  Aurora — at Waubonsee Community College last Thursday.

Using vintage photos, maps, diagrams and a Power Point presentation, Phillip spent most of his time on the Burlington Railroad, which has served as both a local people mover and a freight operator with an extensive network that spread from Chicago and Aurora to the West Coast covering 11,000 miles at its peak.

Aurora’s first permanent European settlers arrived in 1834 and by 1850 the arrival of rails started to transform the sleepy Fox River community.

“Aurora at that time was a small milling town,” Phillip said. “There were a couple of sawmills and a couple of grist mills. That’s all there is and the nearest transportation is the Chicago-Galena stage (stopping in Montgomery).”

But the sole links via horseback or foot were about to end as the first rail tracks were extended from West Chicago through Batavia and into Aurora.

“In 1854 — of all things to name it — the Chicago branch was authorized by Springfield, which was to run from Aurora to Chicago,” Phillip said. “It was completed in 1864.”

From that point rail and industry grew together while population jumped from 2,000 in 1850, 6,000 in 1860, more than doubled to 13,000 by 1880 and topped 20,000 in 1890.

“Aurora was and is an immigrant community,” Phillip said. “Early arrivals write home about the jobs and more families came. … In turn, Aurora’s skilled work force draws more industry. Industry wants to go where there’s transportation and where there are workers. By 1920, Aurora’s population is 37,000.”

At one time as many as 11 railroad companies served Aurora. The biggest was the Burlington — also known as the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, the “Q,” the Burlington Northern and since 1995 as the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) following a merger between the two railroads.

Street level tracks crisscrossed the city and region, converging on Aurora carrying raw materials in, while finished products and agricultural bounty from small farms that dotted the region went outbound.

It also served people traveling in the immediate area or to and from Chicago on interurban trains like the Chicago Aurora and Elgin Railroad which abruptly shut down in 1957.

The center of the rail business was a sprawling complex on North Broadway constructed by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad that eventually featuring a series of support buildings and two roundhouses where cars and engines were built and repaired.

In 1940, the Burlington still employed around 1,000 people as it celebrated 90 years in Aurora with festivities centered around the shop facilities.

“There were parades up and down Broadway celebrating the Burlington,” Phillip said. “That was how important the Burlington still is to Aurora.”

Thirty-six years later, the shops were shuttered and only one building remains today.

The 70,000-square foot, limestone roundhouse — abandoned in the mid-1970s — was  restored and redeveloped in the mid-1990s by the late Chicago Bears star Walter Payton and partners as a dining and entertainment destination.

It now operates as the Two Brothers Roundhouse.

Occupying the rest of the former yards is the Aurora Transportation Center building — which replaced an old train station on South Broadway in the late 1980s — plus adjacent parking and a depot for PACE suburban buses.

There’s also a hotel, post office and service yards for the BNSF commuter trains.

But history of the site’s origin is not forgotten.

The ATC also hosts a caboose, a statue honoring rail workers along with comparative plaque. Inside are photos of facilities and workers from days as a working rail yard.

Today, the Burlington’s Chicago area system is largely a people mover with the region’s busiest commuter rail line.

More than 90 trains serve approximately 67,000 daily passengers on the 26-stop line running between the ATC and Chicago’s Union Station. Amtrak intercity trains also run on the tracks serving both Illinois communities and cross-country service.

It also remains a busy, three-track freight line with around 45 trains a day, according to a 2015 report.

But the long-term future of freight service through Aurora may depend on the sturdiness of elevated tracks and viaducts built from 1915-22 and running through the city center.

“The Aurora City Council got tired of the carnage and the delays — more accidents, more horses killed and more people killed with their horses getting skittish around the railroad,” Phillip said. “So they passed a city ordinance that the Burlington must elevate its tracks.

“The Q spent humongous sums of money.”

The viaducts were constructed in an era of lighter train cars, but Philip said they were so well engineered that they support equipment three times heavier even as the elevated track support approaches 100 years in age.

At this point there’s no public discussion — only speculation — about eventually moving freight service away from Aurora tracks.

In the meantime, commuter service continues to thrive and there’s occasional talk and even  studies about extending service west to Montgomery, Oswego, Yorkville and even Plano.

Phillip has an upcoming presentation on “The Eola Based  Wayfreights of the Q” at 7:30 p.m. on April 21 at Union Station, 500 W. Jackson, Chicago.

Last week’s program was sponsored by the Burlington Route Historical Society, an 1,150-member group dedicated to preserving and sharing information on the system and its history, as well as WCC’s community education department.

More information on the Burlington Route Historical Society is available at www.burlingtonroute. org. The group will host a rail trip to Quincy on April 6 featuring Amtrak’s lone remaining domed car and a general meeting in Batavia on April 8.