I’m looking for a good, detailed account of the end of the Rock Island. I’m interested in the legal proceedings and board room discussions the preceeded the liquidation order. I’m not entirely sure such a thing exists, but i was inspired by a book i dug up recently detailing the death of the Penn Central called Derailed… The end of the Rock Island is such an epic and dramatic event in american history, someone somewhere MUST have written some account of the events that conspired to kill the Rock.
Trains magazine covered it pretty well at the time. Hardly a month went by without an update on the proceedings. Feature articles later covered the railroad apsects of what caused the demise. there was also a feature article by the guy who ran their commuter service. The court proceedings should be available as well as newspaper files. The Chicago Trubune or the Wall Street Journal might be good places to start.
The March 1983 issue of Trains was all about the CRI&P. It is one of my favorite issues, and well worth a couple of dollars to get from Railpub.
Thanks, I’ll check that out. I have a handfull of Trains magazines from '78 and '79, but i’ve never been able to get a hold of the '83 Rock issude. Thanks again
You might want to check out “Main Lines : Rebirth of the North American Railroads, 1970 -2002”, by Rich Saunders of Clemson University. It’s still available on Amazon, hardcover. It does a pretty good job of covering the entire Midwestern rail mess during that period. J.G.
Ditto on the March '83 Rock isue. Although Im not in favor of an ‘all issue’, this was one of the best DPM put together. Reading about how Cotton Belt took over the Golden State route was my introduction to that section of KS railroading. Soon I began taking the 35 mile drive trackside to check it out. Became sort of a SSW follower.