What if…The Powder River Basin Coal deposits was found along the Rock Islands Mainline in Oklahoma? Would the Rock Island have revived itstelf by serving the number of online mines? Would they still be operating today as direct competiton to BNSF and UP, or would they still have been swollowed up? Also, What if the rock had stripped itself of a number of unneccessary lines before the 1950’s? Would these two factors been crucial to The Rock if the these events did in fact happen?
Any revenue stream helps. In all probability the magnitude of the Powder River coal would have kept it alive. That assumes that the management could recognize the potential, find funding for the expansion and eliminate all the Granger lines that helped cause the demise of the railroad in the first place. My opinion is that the coal mines and the environmental regulations that spawned them would have come to late as they were all done after the Rock went under.
Disregarding the question about the PRB as total fantasy, I will try to address the abandonment question. Abandonment of unnecessary lines prior to Staggers was a long, slow and often painful process so most roads waited until traffic dried up almost completely before applying for abandonment. Consequently, even if management attempted an aggressive abandonment program, I find it doubtful that the ICC would have approved them.
In a similar vein, the ICC mandated the continued operation of a lot of almost-empty passenger trains that various roads tried to discontinue.
IIRC there was an article in an old Trains about the Rock’s demise ( dont hold me to this) and that the ICC never counted the coal fields in Oklahoma. Also cash in topped cash out up to the end.
The Rock had some great ideas and SHOULD still be here but oh well like stated before we can hash out the monday morning QB till we are all blue in the face.I dont look good as a smurf so Ill be quiet.
Consider the Rock like Penn Station in New York. The sacrifice of the Rock was a wake up call for Staggers. Think of how much worse if Staggers were delayed by another decade.
The observation that the Rock went everywhere the Burlington did, only longer, was a factor along with the unpruned branches. Like the C & NW, today the Rock would be part of somebody else if it had not gone bankrupt.
A what if to ponder is if more of the old Rock’s mains would still be viable. New Mexico to the Mississippi at Memphis, Omaha and Kansas City to Denver and Houston, would anybody have found these profitable?
More of the secondary mains may have perhaps been attractive as short lines if sold off later and in better physical shape. I remember a study showed Burlington, IA to West Liberty, IA and perhaps Cedar Rapids could have been an attractive risk with a gypsum shipper and ag service companies on line. If the Rock’s near its end trackage agreement from Burlington to major grain processing facilities in Keokuk, IA were part of the mix, so much the better.
Light rail dated 1912 with black dirt ballast created constant 5 mph derailements south of West Liberty. This section contained the vital gypsum mine and plant. No go.
What if… the Rock had sold off the bulk of its trackage, and became a regional railroad of sorts, running from Chicago out west to Council Bluffs, and down to Kansas City?
Ever hear the Aerosmith song “Dream On”? I would have loved to see the Lehigh Valley survive, it couldn’t have done so. Likewise, the Rutland. As I stated in the other RI post, the Staggers reforms would have been too late! Consider the Milwaukee and the Gateway Western! GWWR died on merit. Now, what will happen to IMRL? They have serious issues to face in the next year or so.
Do you mean the IC&E? The IMRL has no issues to worry about anymore. They went belly up cause the owner would rather send funds to MRL and bleed IMRL dry.
Funny funny! Both of the roads you speak of seem to be doing fairly well. The past year or two IAIS has put a nice chunk of change in the track across Illinois. Looks like a nice piece of railroad nowadays…
Hmm. The Milwaukee tried that and managed to sell what was left of itself to Candian Pacific. That might have been interesting. The Rock’s Chicago-Twin Cities route was the long way around (524 miles vs. the Soo Line’s 459 miles) but the “spine line” to Kansas City could’ve been an attraction for Canadian prairie grain traffic. Or an aggressive KCS might have looked north for a Chicago and/or Minneapolis extension?
Fascinating, Capitan…
If the Rock survived it would have been swallowed up by UP and they’ed paint another SD70ACe into a Heritage Redbird scheme, and we’ed have to pay a little more for model Rock Island trains and rolling stock.
The Rock Island proposed a core system of the Chicago to CB/Omaha main, the Twin Cities to Kansas City main plus the grain lines. The ICC said it would not be revenue adequate. IIRC, a number of 10 or 11 percent return on investment was the ICC’s threshold. (At that time, only 1 or 2 Class One carriers was meeting the ICC’s numbers.) The Bankrupcy court rejected the core plan and ordered liquidation of the estate.
The Kansas City Southern DID attempt to buy most, if not all of what the RI had proposed has it’s core system. They planned to set up a subsidiary, Kansas City Northern, to buy and operate the lines. From shut down in March of 1980 until sometime in 1982 when the Iowa RR expanded it’s operation, the line between Iowa City and Newton, Iowa was dorment except for equipment moves by the RI estate. One printing company opened up a new facility on the word from the KCS (according to our local paper) that rail service would soon be restored.
Had the RI been allowed to reorganize and keep operating, either the core system or the whole railroad, it would still have gone into another railroad, probably the UP.
Jeff
If the Rock had reorganized, I think a merger between KCS/CRIP/IC Would have created a Major Player in Todays Rail game.
I call this non-existant road the
Kansas City, Rock Island and Central (KRIC)
Well, truth be known there were and are substantial high sulphur coal deposits in Oklahoma that were served by the Rock Island’s branch from Wilburton to Ardmore - abandoned in 1956.
The line had traffic from a number of deep coal mines in East Central & Northeastern Oklahoma. With a county named Pittsburgh and cities named Coalgate, Lehigh, etc. Yes, coal was a big part of the economy in Oklahoma up until the 1950’s.
The Arkansas & Oklahoma operates the old Rock Island Memphis line from Howe to McAlester Oklahoma and still has a coal loading facility at Red Rock that services several strip mines in the area. This is what kept that line in place for the Katy, then UP and now the AOK to operate over it.
The Rock was just one set of rails too many over so much of it routes. Sad, but true.
Mark Gosdin
BTW it was the Soo that bought the Milwaukee, not CP. CP always had a part ownership of the Soo and took it over completely after NAFTA, but Milwaukee Road had already been part of the Soo Line for a decade or so.
There was coal mined along the Rock Island, IL to Kansas City, MO. mainline in South Central Iowa and Northern Missouri. You can see the old mine trailing mounds near Centerville, IA and for that matter, all along IA 2 on west to Nebraska. It was as Oklahoma is described above exactly.
Attempts to revive strip coal mining in Southern Iowa have gone for naught. Even with subsidies for use at state facilities, it does not pay.