About 2x year I travel to Muscatine, Iowa. My preferred routing is to exit at Rt 22 and take it into Muscatine, even if it is slower. The highway parallels the Mississippi and the IC&E.
Today, it was a busy railroad. Heading west at 9am there were two trains tied down. IC&E 4002 was near the LaFarge facility with about 25 cars. At the Heinz siding east of Muscatine was a empty hopper (coal) train tied down with UP 5700.
Coming back at noon the hopper train and 4002 were still tied down. In addition was a monster manifest led by ICE6365 and four other units (ICE and CP) with over 150 cars. It was just west of the junction to the steel mill, heading east. No crew was on the train. At the junction were two units (I didnt get out the car) stopped at the signal. The switches were lined for it to proceed up to the mill, but it wasnt moving.
So, there were four trains either tied down or working between Muscatine and Nahant Yard.
Just how busy is this line. I always seem to see a couple of trains when travelling out that way, usually in the morning.
How often do the coal trains run (I assume to the power plant south of Muscatine)? How many locals switch the steel mill (one per day or more?)
What a great stretch of railroad, adjacent to the river. Luck was with me as it was a sunny day.
No answers from here, Ed–just reaffirming that Muscatine is an interesting place. I first became familiar with the name more than 40 years ago when I saw it on the “return when empty” instructions on a number of Rock Island covered hoppers used for cement or sand. I’ve been there a couple of times myself, and located a number of exotic (to me–might be more routine to others) freight cars. Might be able to travel that way again later in the spring.
Thanks for posting to the Yahoo board. I have always found the ICE operations interesting. The manifest train I saw was massive. The five locomotives made quite a site. Unfortunately the camera angle wasnt too good, so I didnt really get to pickup all five units in my photo.
Carl, I would suggest the trip. It has always been one of my favorite towns (along with Dubuque & Fort Madison…all three are river towns).
Thanks for the linkup. That pretty well explains things. It is an interesting stretch of railroad. The quarry area just west of Nahant is certainly interesting. The hopper cars were loaded with very large stones. Anyone know what it is used for?
With the hopper cars of stone, the Cargil plant, IPSCO mill with gons of scrap, coal trains, and manifests, this is certainly a diverse stretch of railroad. About the only thing missing seems to be intermodal. Is that gone now? I recall seeing UP trains using the route about 10 years ago.
Glad I could help, Ed. I just found out about these groups a couple of months ago- so far I’m in four of them. The IC&E is the first one that I’ve posted anything in.
The UP stopped the intermodals about the time the DM&E bought the IMRL and created ICE. I think something about a little project the DM&E had in mind soured the UP.