or so the song goes ...
I am a big supporter of railroad historical societies in general, and for those seeking prototype modeling information in particular. While there is great information on the internet the thing about the historical society magazines is that the information can be vetted before being published, and challenged and corrected afterwards if need be.
Anyway sadly a number of years ago the historical society for the Rock Island went belly up which is a shame as their magazine had lots of very good info for the modeler, including freight car information of value to a modeler of any railroad that wants accurate freight cars. Stepping into the breach was a good magazine "Remember the Rock" from Andover Junction Publications. Essentially it functioned as the CRI&P's historical society, and published for 15 or so years.
Andover Junction has announced that Remember the Rock magazine is being discontinued (also their magazine "Private Varnish") and existing inventories are being sold off. Their website gives a number of factors: fewer hobby shops exist to sell the magazine, and fewer shops that do exist want to sell a specialty interest magazine, illness of a key staffer and art director, and as the owner wrote "the Facebook and Yahoo groups were eating our lunch."
If the Rock Island is a special interest, or if the railroad that is your special interest had interchanges with the Rock and you want accurate info for Rock Island freight cars on your layout, you may want to check out back issues that you need while they last.
Dave Nelson
The Nov. 2019 "Rock Island Reporter" on-line newsletter has a section talking about a proposal that's being made to replace the defunct Rock Island Technical Society with a new Rock Island Historical Society, that would sort of merge "Rock Island Reporter" and "Remember The Rock". Essentially, "RTR" would be the society's offical publication, sort of like how several historical societies have their magazine published by White River now.
The article is pages 14-16 ("4. PROPOSAL FOR A NEW ROCK ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY "):
https://rockislandreporter.com/files/24-rock-island-reporter-november-2019-better2-2.pdf