MidlandMike dakotafred MidlandMike The worth of the Omaha line for passenger service was restated when Amtrak started work on a new service to the Quad cities. They hoped to extend it to Iowa Ciy and eventually Des Moines, but Iowa was not interested in passenger service that they had to spend money for. Showing that not all politicians, everywhere, are stupid. Megabus has the Iowa population centers on that route flat COVERED with fast, frequent, cheap express service. A rail passenger service would be left with the West Liberty-Grinnell-Atlantic crumbs. You can't vacate the passenger business for almost 50 years, as rail has on this route, without the public making other arrangements. You mean like when the Downeaster service was re-instituted? Iowa is like New Hampshire... they'd use the service, they just don't pay for it.
dakotafred MidlandMike The worth of the Omaha line for passenger service was restated when Amtrak started work on a new service to the Quad cities. They hoped to extend it to Iowa Ciy and eventually Des Moines, but Iowa was not interested in passenger service that they had to spend money for. Showing that not all politicians, everywhere, are stupid. Megabus has the Iowa population centers on that route flat COVERED with fast, frequent, cheap express service. A rail passenger service would be left with the West Liberty-Grinnell-Atlantic crumbs. You can't vacate the passenger business for almost 50 years, as rail has on this route, without the public making other arrangements.
MidlandMike The worth of the Omaha line for passenger service was restated when Amtrak started work on a new service to the Quad cities. They hoped to extend it to Iowa Ciy and eventually Des Moines, but Iowa was not interested in passenger service that they had to spend money for.
The worth of the Omaha line for passenger service was restated when Amtrak started work on a new service to the Quad cities. They hoped to extend it to Iowa Ciy and eventually Des Moines, but Iowa was not interested in passenger service that they had to spend money for.
Showing that not all politicians, everywhere, are stupid. Megabus has the Iowa population centers on that route flat COVERED with fast, frequent, cheap express service. A rail passenger service would be left with the West Liberty-Grinnell-Atlantic crumbs.
You can't vacate the passenger business for almost 50 years, as rail has on this route, without the public making other arrangements.
You mean like when the Downeaster service was re-instituted? Iowa is like New Hampshire... they'd use the service, they just don't pay for it.
Mike, let's wait and see if Illinois gets even its part of the service up and running. It looks like a money pit to me, and the state is simultaneously broke and with a new (Republican) governor.
[quote user="dakotafred"]
CAZEPHYR, your handle reminds me of another example of the truth of ACY's post above, which instructs us not to take literally the route descriptions found in songs like "Rock Island Line" and "Wabash Cannonball":
Hank Williams wrote and recorded a pretty good song called "California Zephyr" -- which train, however, he routed over "the Union Pacific line"!
Yes, I know, but the song was catchy.
I was born in Independence Mo during WWII and Dad told me about the RI Northerns he used to watch. I never got to see them, but they were interesting to my Dad.
narig01 The Iowa lines ended up with Ed Ellis and Iowa Interstate, and Dan Sabin and the Iowa Northern.
The Iowa lines ended up with Ed Ellis and Iowa Interstate, and Dan Sabin and the Iowa Northern.
Re. Chicago-Omaha, you're thinking of Henry Posner III's Railroad Development Corp., which bought the line in partnership with Heartland in 1991, then bought out Heartland's share in 2004. (No Ed Ellis to it, as far as I know.)
I believe their song was great!!!
On the Rock Island Line, it's a mighty good road
On the Rock Island Line, there's a road to ride
If you want to ride, you gotta ride it like you find it
Get your ticket at the station on the Rock Island Line
On the Rock Island Line, there's a mighty good road On the Rock Island Line, there's a road to ride On the Rock Island Line, there's a mighty good road If you want to ride, you gotta ride it like you find it Get your ticket at the station on the Rock Island Line
you gotta ride it like you find it
I may be right and I may be wrong No,
you are goin' to miss me when I'm gone
On the Rock Island Line, there's a mighty good road On the Rock Island Line,
it's a road to ride On the Rock Island Line,
there's a mighty good road If you want to ride, you gotta ride it like you find it
Jeff:Good point on the Joliet - Bureau area. CSX still runs trains out to that area. Also the Davenport - Muscatine area is pretty good source of business, both now and back in the day.
There was an article back around 1985 on Culver Tower in Muscatine, which goes down in my top 10 (maybe top 2) articles ever in Trains. The author (name escapes me, but he was/is a professor and also wrote an article on the "Fast Train" on the Rock Island) was an operator at Culver and details the amount of traffic originated there.
Muscatine is a destination for me about 1x year and I enjoy the drive along Rt. 22 which hugs the Mississippi River and the old Rock Island line. Lots of industry just west of Davenport, primarily rock or limestone type material.
While BRC had difficulties accessing BRC, their yard on 95th Street in Chicago was very convenient for hot auto parts off of NYC or PRR. That connection is still very busy as NS and CSX runs trains thru to BRC Clearing Yard via that connection
Ed
jeffhergert billio The Rock unquestionably have been better off if it had had no intercity service prior to Amtrak. Yes, it soldiered on, but passenger service simply was another cash drain, a sop to unions and train nuts but nobody else. The last two intercity trains were partially subsidized by the state of Illinois. When the subsidy ended in December 1978, so did the trains. Jeff
billio The Rock unquestionably have been better off if it had had no intercity service prior to Amtrak. Yes, it soldiered on, but passenger service simply was another cash drain, a sop to unions and train nuts but nobody else.
The Rock unquestionably have been better off if it had had no intercity service prior to Amtrak. Yes, it soldiered on, but passenger service simply was another cash drain, a sop to unions and train nuts but nobody else.
The last two intercity trains were partially subsidized by the state of Illinois. When the subsidy ended in December 1978, so did the trains.
Jeff
BaltACD richhotrain And let's not forget Lonnie Donegan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXQgG98VSOs Rich Song leads to the question, since the Rock didn't run into New Orleans, why do Rock Island Line trains have to pay a toll at a toll gate? (There are fees that change hands between various railroads for various uses of a carrier's trackage - some fees are based on car counts, other fees can be based on tonnage, while some are simple train counts.) Let me get this straight. You think "The Rock Island Line" represents historical fact? Please don't ever listen to The Wabash Cannonball or The Big Rock Candy Mountain or you'll become terminally beflustered & confloosed. Tom
richhotrain And let's not forget Lonnie Donegan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXQgG98VSOs Rich
And let's not forget Lonnie Donegan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXQgG98VSOs
Rich
Song leads to the question, since the Rock didn't run into New Orleans, why do Rock Island Line trains have to pay a toll at a toll gate?
(There are fees that change hands between various railroads for various uses of a carrier's trackage - some fees are based on car counts, other fees can be based on tonnage, while some are simple train counts.)
CSSHEGEWISCH I'm not sure how much of a winner the Chicago-Omaha line was, considering that the C&NW and the Burlington were the major competitors. Rock Island did not have a very good Chicago entry, having an awkward connection with IHB/B&OCT and entering Clearing Yard from the east.
I'm not sure how much of a winner the Chicago-Omaha line was, considering that the C&NW and the Burlington were the major competitors. Rock Island did not have a very good Chicago entry, having an awkward connection with IHB/B&OCT and entering Clearing Yard from the east.
Good enough to get and keep GM autoparts business, at least until the strike. I was told it was supposed to come back to the RI (during the period afterwards when it was operated by the KCT) but never did.
The RI (in the late 1970s, don't know how much is still there) had a lot of industrial business between Joliet and Bureau. Which is why B&OCT eventually picked up this line. The Quad Cities and Muscatine also had a lot of business. (The Milwaukee Road picked up a lot of this, plus for a while the Quad Cities to Iowa City. That "triangle" of exRI was providing half the revenue of the Milwaukee's paired down core system.) Unfortunately, the farther west and southwest you got, business mostly became agricultural related. Some pockets of industry here and there, but not a lot on line. Partly because one of the RI's presidents during the 1880s decided to not make acquiring land for industrial development a priority. He thought to let other railroads serve the industries and let them interchange the business to the RI for the road haul. Also why the RI entered many major cities on other railroads or belt lines.
The early 20th century saw the Reid-Moore syndicate take control of the railroad. They used RI cash to try to build a railroad empire around the RI, SLSF and C&EI. Their financial manipulations resulted in the 1915 bankruptcy.
Those two periods in the RI's history is what started the decline. Management decisions, or maybe indescisions, beginning in the late 1950s/early 1960s kind of sealed it's fate.
The Rock Island was better than the Burlington at being the victim of bad management. Did the Rock Island ever really recover from the Reid-Moore Syndicate in the early 20th Century?
The Rock Island was helped, because its service -- like that of the Southern and Rio Grande, the other non-joiners -- was already shaved down to the point that it was cheaper to soldier on than to join up. Eventually, all were off the hook, period -- the Rock Island in (I think) 1978 or '79.
Did the passenger train situation Rock Island had relative to other lines help or hinder the railroad when Amtak was formed? Wasn't Rock Island one of the lines that didn't join Amtrak- probably because they couldn't afford to pony up the entry cost?
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
BaltACD Song leads to the question, since the Rock didn't run into New Orleans, why do Rock Island Line trains have to pay a toll at a toll gate?
Besides which, a toll tender who can't tell the difference between the asserted stock cars of "all livestock" and gondolas (?) of "all pig iron" would soon be out of a job.
MidlandMike Rock Island's N-S line from Kansas to Ft. Worth was picked up by UP. And I beleive BNSF still uses the RI/FW&D joint line to Houston.
Rock Island's N-S line from Kansas to Ft. Worth was picked up by UP. And I beleive BNSF still uses the RI/FW&D joint line to Houston.
Former RI/CB&Q joint line, the FW& D.
23 17 46 11
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
aricat The Rock was always thought of as Iowa's railroad.
The Rock was always thought of as Iowa's railroad.
Yes, which is probably why Meredith Willson had his drummers riding it in his love song to Iowa, THE MUSIC MAN. (The Rock Island also ran into his home town of Mason City.)
The RI+SP Chicago-KC-Tucumcari,NM-Southern California line was an important route for refrigerated fruit traffic east. The Rock also served a number of livestock growing areas and packing plant centers, with significant traffic in both livestock and dressed meat. Those two businesses lead it to operate the largest fleet of 4-8-4's of any North American railroad (85) - a surprising fact to me when I learned it as I expected UP, SP, or ATSF to have had more.
Unfortunately in most other areas it was an also ran (as was stated earlier, it went everywhere the Burlington did, but with a longer less efficent route). Once the overhead fruit and meat traffic dried up, the traffic generated online wasn't sufficent to keep it in business.
Perhaps passenger service, from what I've read - the Rockets, and Chicago commuter service, etc. Certainly Trains has had many articles about them. One of the few (2 ?) railroads to buy and run GM's Aerotrain.
- Paul North.
Alton Junction
Sorry to do this, but I can't think of the Rock Island Line without thinking of Stan Freberg.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYKbCN-zWjs
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
Des Moines, it was the only railroad offering proper service to this city of a quarter million people. Certainly better service than the Milwaukee, Burlington, C&NW and Wabash(N&W). The Rock was always thought of as Iowa's railroad.
Murphy Siding jrbernier The winners were the Rock's Chicago to Omaha line, the mentioned 'Spine Line' and the Tucumcari line. Jim Which railroad has the Chicago-Council Bluffs line now? Was that the first line to got to Council Bluffs, or was the Northwestern there first?
jrbernier The winners were the Rock's Chicago to Omaha line, the mentioned 'Spine Line' and the Tucumcari line. Jim
The winners were the Rock's Chicago to Omaha line, the mentioned 'Spine Line' and the Tucumcari line.
Jim
Which railroad has the Chicago-Council Bluffs line now? Was that the first line to got to Council Bluffs, or was the Northwestern there first?
The Cedar Rapids & Missouri River RR (later part of the C&NW) got to Council Bluffs in 1867, while the Rock Island arrived in 1869.
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