Iowa's Counties

[nanaimo73]

You have a pretty interesting city for railfanning. All you need are some Chinese steam locomotives.
Do any of the 4 LLPX ex Reserve Mining SD38-2 show up on the IAIS coal trains ?

 

[blhanel]

That I couldn't tell you. I seldom get down to IAIS territory to watch them. If you've browsed the rest of my picture collection, then you've seen all of the pictures from all of my visits to the line.

I take it you're retired, hence your ability to spend lots of time on this?

[nanaimo73]

QUOTE: Originally posted by blhanel

I take it you're retired, hence your ability to spend lots of time on this?

Nah, I'll retire in 15 or 20 years. I work afternoons so I do this in the mornings. I have not railfanned since my camera got stolen several years ago, I have not started modeling yet, and golf costs to much in my view.

[blhanel]

QUOTE: Originally posted by blhanel


The split to the right on that map is an ancient alignment that had all but disappeared even before I came to town, but I remember seeing some evidence of it running through town back then, as well as mention of it in Marion's historical accounts. I'm not sure why- another topic to research.

Was just checking a couple of books I have on the history of Marion- looks like that right-hand branch is the original ROW established by the Dubuque, Southwestern Railway when it was built through Marion to CR in 1865. LOL- the account says this RR soon acquired the name, taken from its initials, of "D***ed Slow Way of Riding".

[Murphy Siding]

QUOTE: Originally posted by nanaimo73

QUOTE: Originally posted by blhanel

I take it you're retired, hence your ability to spend lots of time on this?

Nah, I'll retire in 15 or 20 years. I work afternoons so I do this in the mornings. I have not railfanned since my camera got stolen several years ago, I have not started modeling yet, and golf costs to much in my view.

When you retire,write books! Remeber, you heard it here first.[;)]

[blhanel]

QUOTE: Originally posted by blhanel

Great minds think alike! They've beaten you to it. Took awhile, though- for many years, whomever had title to the abandoned RI bridge (I think it was CRANDIC?) blocked all attempts by UP to remove it so they could double-track the Cedar River crossing. They called it a "historic structure". Finally, IIRC, the city took over the property, and now we do have an excellent paved trail that ties into the trail system, including the 50-some-mile Cedar Valley Trail that runs from CR to Waterloo. This stretch follows the old RI ROW from downtown to Highway 30. Unfortunately, due to the mesh used on the pedestrian overpass and the proliferation of power poles/power lines paralleling the ROW, picture-taking from the ped bridge is not that great. I do have a few shots from there that I've neglected to get uploaded to rrpicturearchives- maybe tonight.

Found those shots and uploaded them- I may reconsider my choice of favorite photo spot. I hadn't realized that the east-facing shots were this good!



But, as you can see, the westward view leaves lots to be desired-

[nanaimo73]

QUOTE: Originally posted by blhanel

The April 1986 Iowa issue of Trains has a picture by Thomas E Hoffmann taken in 1979 very similar to that but with the gantlet bridge. I guess the CRI&P bridge was still in use then. I wonder if IANR could have made a go of the rest of the line to Burlington ?

Your other shot is one of those artsy-fartsy glint shots that some people love.

Cedar Rapids and Sioux Falls seem to be a bit similar to me. Cedar Rapids had C&NW, CMSP&P, CRI&P and IC (and CR&IC) while Sioux Falls had C&NW (CSPM&O), CMSP&P, CRI&P, IC and GN.

[Murphy Siding]

From what I see in Brian's pics, Cedar Rapids has a lot more scenerey. Our landscape consists of bean and corn, corn and beans.[xx(]

[nanaimo73]

Murph-
I get really tired of working on these after two or three weeks. I can't imagine spending two or three years on a book.

Perhaps Brian is adding that scenery via Photoshop ?[(-D]

[blhanel]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding

From what I see in Brian's pics, Cedar Rapids has a lot more scenerey. Our landscape consists of bean and corn, corn and beans.[xx(]

[(-D][(-D][(-D]

Sure, if you like power poles! And, if I go a few miles east or west, I could get you some shots with beans and corn, or corn and beans!

[jeffhergert]

QUOTE: Originally posted by nanaimo73

QUOTE: Originally posted by blhanel

If you're referring to the spur that curls north from the right edge, that's still there- not used for much, other than to park an occasional low-priority UP train on, such as this one.

It's my understanding that all of the C&NW passenger trains used that line, so they must have had their station closer to downtown. The Kate Shelly 400 last served your city in October 1957, so that's a passenger spur without passenger trains for almost 50 years. I wonder if Amtrak had started that Chicago-Seattle Pioneer passenger/fast freight train a few years ago where it would have stopped.

QUOTE: That little parking lot on the right center edge of the terraserver picture, just west of the interlocking, is my favorite railfan hangout. Alot of my UP shots are taken from there.

Perhaps they could put a hiking-biking trail on the former Rock Island line on the west side of the river with a bridge over the tracks. That would be a great place for photos.

That CNW passenger line is the remains of the original CNW main line. Once in a while they will stick a Quaker Oats grain train in on the east end (Otis) and send a yard engine down and pull cuts up to the North Yard as needed. At one time, it was also double track.
The present route was built around 1900-1901 time frame and was called the Linn County Railway. You lose about 3.5 miles in mileage. The mileage equation point is at the crossing under US 30 east of Edgewood Road. Where the MILW used to cross.
I believe the CNW used the Union Station that was at 4th Avenue, torn down in early 60s'. Before the end of CNW passenger service, they had moved the Cedar Rapids stop out to Beverly.
Jeff

[blhanel]

QUOTE: Originally posted by nanaimo73

Hey Brian. I was wondering if I could fini***his before you found it.
I should be done Arpil 25th.
Do you have the April 1986 Trains ? 20 years later and it is still one of the best.

I have it now, thanks to jeffhergert!!! IN MINT CONDITION, TOO!

And that shot of the gantlet bridge sent a shiver up my spine- if it weren't for the trees growing on the embankment to the left, I probably would've opted to get the exact same angle on my shot 20 years later!

[nanaimo73]

Good to see you got that issue. I think it will be your favorite by the time you finish reading it.

IMHO, 1986 was when Trains magazine reached it's peak. They are certainly drab compared to todays issues, but they contain 2 or 3 times as much information as the current issues. Other favorites of mine from '86 are the March issue, with the IHB article (and excellent Chicago map), the October Twin Cities issue (another excellent map), and the November issue, with the Motive Power Survey focusing on Soo Line merging the CMSP&P.

The picture of the Gantlet is from 1979, when the Rock was still running. It looks like the north side gaurdrail was torn off of the bridge in a derailment.

[blhanel]

Oooo, October '86 focused on the Twin Cities? Hey Jeff, got an extra one of that?[:D]

[Rwulfsberg]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jeffhergert

QUOTE: Originally posted by nanaimo73

QUOTE: Originally posted by blhanel

If you're referring to the spur that curls north from the right edge, that's still there- not used for much, other than to park an occasional low-priority UP train on, such as this one.

It's my understanding that all of the C&NW passenger trains used that line, so they must have had their station closer to downtown. The Kate Shelly 400 last served your city in October 1957, so that's a passenger spur without passenger trains for almost 50 years. I wonder if Amtrak had started that Chicago-Seattle Pioneer passenger/fast freight train a few years ago where it would have stopped.

QUOTE: That little parking lot on the right center edge of the terraserver picture, just west of the interlocking, is my favorite railfan hangout. Alot of my UP shots are taken from there.

Perhaps they could put a hiking-biking trail on the former Rock Island line on the west side of the river with a bridge over the tracks. That would be a great place for photos.

That CNW passenger line is the remains of the original CNW main line. Once in a while they will stick a Quaker Oats grain train in on the east end (Otis) and send a yard engine down and pull cuts up to the North Yard as needed. At one time, it was also double track.
The present route was built around 1900-1901 time frame and was called the Linn County Railway. You lose about 3.5 miles in mileage. The mileage equation point is at the crossing under US 30 east of Edgewood Road. Where the MILW used to cross.
I believe the CNW used the Union Station that was at 4th Avenue, torn down in early 60s'. Before the end of CNW passenger service, they had moved the Cedar Rapids stop out to Beverly.
Jeff

I'm too young to have ridden passenger service on the CNW from CR, but my mother took it from CR to Marshalltown, both from the Union Station, and, later, from Beverly. I watched many a MILW transfer freight roll by Arthur elementary school.

CR's Union Station sat on what locals call the 4th street tracks. No street running, but sidewalks on either side of the ROW, street signs and businesses with 4th street postal addresses. The depot sat at 4th Avenue, with platforms extending from 3rd to 5th Avenues.

When Union Station was torn down, the CNW moved out to Beverly. The CRI&P built a small cinder-block station under the shadow of the Quaker Oats plant, roughly B Avenue, just north of where the MILW tracks turned eastward. The building was still standing in the 1970's.

[nanaimo73]

I'm starting to think it's time for Trains to do an article on Marion and Cedar Rapids.

[blhanel]

Now that would be a definite keeper... multiple copies, even!

[billbtrain]

I'm starting to think it's time for Trains to do an article on Marion and Cedar Rapids.

The Milwaukee Road Historical Society did an excellant two part article on Iowa with one part concentrating on the Cedar Rapids/Marion area.I'll have to look up the issue numbers and dates as I no longer have those issues myself.

Thanks to Brian for pointing out this thread.

Have a good one.

Bill B

[spokyone]

Dale:
I also say thanks for all your work. This pic is on the ICE, upstream from Dubuque at a settlement called Clayton. Two restaurants, a marina and 25 homes. That's it. We like the Claytonian B&B there. And the benches are great to watch trains and barges. This DM&E hospitality train caught me by surprise. There is only the one grade crossing.

[nanaimo73]

I really enjoyed the drive I took several years ago down the river from St. Paul to Dubuque. I can't remember stopping in Clayton. Dyersville is not to far from there.

Is this heaven? No, it's Iowa.

[blhanel]

Now that you mention that great line from the movie, did you check out the Field of Dreams on that trip, Dale?  This year was the last one for the "Ghost Players", who annually come out of the corn in left field to entertain visitors.

I bet living on a big island on the Pacific coast can seem like heaven at times as well... 

[nanaimo73]

No, I didn't get over there to Dyersville. Kind of forgot about it.

Didn't make it over to Cedar Rapids/Marion either. I think Sleeping With the Enemy takes place there.

As for living on this Island, W. P. Kinsella (Shoeless Joe) did it for several years. 

[blhanel]

Hmmm... did alittle search through IMDB's database on that one.  If it's the movie filmed in 1991 with Julia Roberts that you're referring to, it does mention that she moves to a small town in Iowa in the movie, but it was filmed in Abbeyville, SC.  The closest we've come to hosting a movie-making venture around here, IIRC, is for The Final Season, which was just recently released to a few theaters.  It was filmed on-location in Norway, IA, just southwest of us, and is about the last baseball season of their small-town high school team before the district consolidated with another.

We do have a few home-grown actors in the business- Ron Livingston of Office Space and Band Of Brothers fame hails from Marion; in fact, his parents are good friends of ours.  Ashton Kutcher hails from the Amana area, and there are a couple of others that I can't think of their names right now.

[nanaimo73]

So Dubuque is used for Boston (Field of Dreams), and then Wilmington NC and Clinton SC were used for Cedar Rapids (Sleeping). That means that the Iowa railroad scenes in The Natural were filmed somewhere outside the Hawkeye State. Fredonia, New York???

Several miles south of Iowa City is Riverside, where James T Kirk will be born in 225 years.

[blhanel]

Heh- been through there several times, they even have a park with a crude scale model of the Enterprise mounted on a pedestal there.

[jeffhergert]

So Dubuque is used for Boston (Field of Dreams), and then Wilmington NC and Clinton SC were used for Cedar Rapids (Sleeping). That means that the Iowa railroad scenes in The Natural were filmed somewhere outside the Hawkeye State. Fredonia, New York???

Several miles south of Iowa City is Riverside, where James T Kirk will be born in 225 years.

The Sleeping with the Enemy town is Cedar Falls.  The author of the book had ties to the University of Northern Iowa up their.

BTW, I got to ride the last west bound Central Iowa Railway train thru Riverside to Kalona.  The line's SW-1 (exBN) and two empty RI 40' box cars.  My father and I were part of a group of volunteers who were trying to reopen the railroad.  The two cars had derailed a few days earlier south of Hills, Iowa.  That derailment was the last straw for the railroad.  Once the cars were loaded (with turkey feathers!) they, the SW-1 and their caboose were taken over to the RI interchange at Hills.  IIRC, the engine went to California and the caboose to South Dakota, or the other way around.  That would've been about 30 years ago now.  Before James T. Kirk's ancestors ever thought of settling there.

Jeff   

[blhanel]

Jeff, you lucky dog you... get any pictures?  It's getting real hard to find the old ROW through there lately.

[Los Angeles Rams Guy]

Funny I have not checked out this side of the forums until tonight and found this thread on my home state.  To borrow a quote from Brian Hanel of good ol' Cedar Rapids - "HOLY SH**!" - is right!  FREAKING GREAT WORK, Nanaimo, just freaking awesome!  I'm not sure where to start but I'll take a crack.....

1.  First, the pictures provided at Lansing on "My Mainline" (between River Junction, MN. and Sabula) just simply knocked me out of my chair; especially the shots of MILW 261 doing the street running through town.  Christ, how I WISH I could have caught that.  Of all the shots I have taken between Sabula and St. Paul I have NEVER got anything like that; not even the shot of that DME hospitality train at Clayton.  All I can ask is when will the MILW 261 be making another trip on "my mainline"!?

2.  I was a bit too young to remember Union Station in downtown Cedar Rapids as it was torn down (sadly) sometime in the early 60's.  I was not aware that CNW used Beverly as its station stop in the remaining years of passenger service on the "Overland Route".  But my Dad definitely remembers passenger trains of the CNW stopping there.  And I most vividly remember the Cities streamliners when they were on the Milwaukee Road up until 1971; stopping at Marion on several occasions.  Yeah, without question, Cedar Rapids and Marion really had it "goin' on" at one time.  BTW, as a little kid in the 60's, I can vaguely remember banjo-type crossing signals on the MILW mainline at the crossing just east of the Marion depot (what the heck street is that?).  Anybody else remember that?      

[blhanel]

That would have been 13th St.- banjo type?  Can you find a link to a picture?

[nanaimo73]

A wigwag ?
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/srchThumbs.aspx?srch=wig&Page=13