At first I was going to model a fictional branch of the EJ&E but my son showed great interest in the Iowa Interstate Railroad. I would rather chase trains on my bike in Iowa than in the Chicago suburbs (getting pics for ideas), I like the paint scheme of the IAIS, and the locale of the real railroad is the general part of the midwest that I would like to model.
Are there any of you that are dedicated IAIS modelers, and or IAIS train chasers? I have a hundred or so pics of the IAIS’ current motive power that I got off of the IAIS fan page, but I still want to know some good locations to get pics. I also need some ideas for what kind of industries would be on the route. I would like to have large scale industry, elevators, a caol fired power house, and a brewery (Shatz Beer).
I basically want to touch bases with some other IAIS modelers.
I don’t model the Iowa Interstate, but I live and work right next door to it. One thing I can tell you is that you will want to buy some intermodal equipment, and lots of tank cars. Here in Davenport, IA it’s not so much about grain as you might expect, but more about corn sweeteners and ethanol. No breweries that I know of,…sorry.
I work for Deere in East Moline, our building is sandwiched right between the IAIS and the BNSF. Two opportunities to employ the old line: “Sorry boss, there was a train…”
Yea, too bad I don’t model that road. Walthers came out with some really nice looking IAIS geeps with and without sound. I thought about buying them, but I really need to stay on task with my layout. I model the quad cities here circa 1995, but just not the IAIS since it doesn’t run on the old Milwuakee/Sooline or DRILINE tracks.