The ambivelence was on the part of the UP. The RI clearly was putting all it’s eggs in one basket.
As I recall, the ICC rejected the core plan submitted by the RI as not returning the ICC’s threshold for return on investment or something on that order. The bankruptcy court followed suit and ordered liquidation.
At the time, according to an article, only one or two railroads were meeting the ICC’s standard.
For what it’s worth because this was second hand from a friend who was an agent for the MILW on a former RI segment they operated for a few years. A Milwaukee auditor told him they couldn’t understand why the RI went under. The MILW picked up so much business from the lines they picked up from the RI in the Quad Cities/Muscatine/Iowa City area that half the revenues being generated on the MILW’s reduced core was coming from there.
That was 25 +/- years ago, so whether that business is still there, I can’t say.
Jeff
PS, Much of the Denver line is still operated by Kyle RR.
As for branch line crew size. After the fireman was removed from 90% of trains in 1963, the required crew size on any branch line local freight train was one engineer, one brakeman, and one conductor. The one brakeman agreement goes back to the depression era and applied on most midwestern roads.
Skyy Vodka is now made in Pekin and “Corn Products” is now an enthanol plant. The RI line was an old interurban which was redundant. There is a double track line down the east side of the river which is now operated by the Tazwell and Peoria. There is, and never was, a need for three tracks between Peoria and Pekin and the Rock Island route was redundant and removed. The ethanol plant is still rail served. Don’t know about Skyy.
Corn Products’ Pekin plant transformed into Pekin Energy Company in late 1981. Pekin Energy was acquired by Williams Companies in 1995 and renamed "Williams Bio-Energy) in 1998. The present name was adopted in 2003 after acquisition by Morgan Stanley Capital Partners. A dry corn mill was opened in January 2007 adjacent to the existing ethanol plant.
“Skyy Vodka” is a San Francisco-based company which contracts with MGP Ingredients of Illinois to manufacture high-purity alcohol for its product. MGP ships the alcohol (via Union Pacific) from Pekin to Frank-Lin Distillers in San Jose, CA, where Skyy’s products are blended and packaged. MGP is served by the Tazewell & Peoria RR (P&PU successor) and is located on the old Peoria & Eastern “Whiskey Main.”
The Peoria Terminal’s line to Pekin closed when their Illinois River Bridge was damaged by a barge in 1973 (same thing happened to TP&W 3 years before). Since the PT’s parent didn’t have the funds to repair it, they sought and obtained trackage rights on P&PU from Iowa Jct. to Pekin. PT chose to continue service to Pekin because of a large customer, Corn Products, and also Quaker Oats.
Current customers located on Rock Island’s Bureau - Peoria - Pekin line are:
BUREAU JCT. - PEORIA MAINLINE
PolyOne (Henry, served by IAIS)
Emerald Performance Materials (Henry, served by IAIS)
John Reed was Santa Fe president during that era and, according to an interview published shortly after his recent death. ATSF did look seriously at acquiring the Oklahoma City-Memphis route. Apparently the poor condition of the property helped kill the idea. Reed expressed only minor disappointment over the failure of the deal. Subsequent events have certainly made it even less worth the trouble and expense.
The interview was published by the Santa Fe Historical & Modeling Society, I think!
I would generally agree that Iowa Interstate is the closest thing to a successor to the Rock Island, although it took a while for IAIS to get going on the Chicago-Omaha line. EJ&E operated the Peoria line for a while before CSX took over and the Iowa RR tried to run on the Omaha main but couldn’t operate east of Bureau for some reason.
I believe that Arkansas & Oklahoma also uses a version of the RI herald.
Now only if IAIS had some nicely-painted rolling stock. Either red or black with IAIS’s Rock-inspired herald. IAIS has a bunch of patch-job 3-bay ribbed covered hopper. Some of these are former Rock.
