i have nevver heard of the iowa intertstate's 11 mile long grimes industrial branch. what customers are left on this still active branch?
Grimes Industrial Lead is all that's left of the Milwaukee Road's Des Moines to Clive to Granger to Madrid to Boone line (IAIS leases the line from NS, Boone down to Grimes disappeared in chunks between 1965 and 1972 with the stub going to Des Moines Union RR at failure of the MILW...convoluted chain of ownership. NS has other agents handle what's left of its Wabash heritage lines (FD 32731 (ICC served Oct. 13, 1995) with a 1.7 mile piece in Grimes chopped off in 2010 in AB290 (Sub-No 322(x))/ AB 414 (Sub-No. 5X), )....the line is a narrow gage survivor (Des Moines Northern - Western RR, 1878-1891 as a ng line, longest in Iowa)
Above Clive, you are looking at the Beisser Lumber truss plant as the principal shipper along with some aggregate/ cement transloading. Everything else is pretty much speculative.
The line from Grimes through Granger to Woodward Jct, where it connected to the E/W main line, lasted until the 1980 embargo and abandonment. (Woodward Jct was just a bit east of the town of Woodward.) There was a line out of Madrid south that connected (IIRC) somewhere north of Granger that's been gone a long time.
Jeff
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