Western Railroad Discussion > Davenport (Iowa) Industrial RR

Davenport Industrial RR operates the Industrial Park trackage for the city of Davenport IA.  Only one customer (Sterilite) but they're hoping to get more.  Motive power is a former NS B32-8 (I think) but a "new" switch engine just showed up and the crew pulled it off the CP interchange and shoved it into the enginehouse today.

1.  After pulling mtys from Sterilite, the crew is shoving them into the east end of the interchange yard north of the airport (a mile or 2 south of Eldridge).

2.  Tieing onto the recently delivered switch engine plus inbound loads for Sterilite.

3.  After running around the switcher, shoving it into the enginehouse for a going over by the motive power foreman.

Thanks for looking!

Andy

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Yes the 558 is a B32-8 locomotive. 

SantaFeRuss

I was still working when they built that line, several miles of premium track connecting a branch with the middle of nowhere
next to an Interstate. Nice to see that they actually have a shipper!

Out 

I believe that switcher went past the Elkhart IN camera a few days ago

callum_out Wrote:
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> I was still working when they built that line,
> several miles of premium track connecting a branch
> with the middle of nowhere
> next to an Interstate.

Yes the track is very nice!  I definitely noticed that.

Andy

Nice pics of an interesting operation!

Good stuff, Andy.  How did I never realize that the industrial park is its own railroad?  I always just thought it was switched by the CP. 

Any idea what days the local comes up to interchange these days?  I've been gone so long now I've completely lost track of the usual operating pattern back home.

Good question on the local on the Eldridge line (which has the signs of used to be busy) since I think the only active customer is
Ryerson Steel and that would be served as needed. They have stored cars on the line from time to time but I think the branch runs
as needed out of Nahant. The wood bridge at the D'Port end of the line is pretty cool and I believe that at one time Nahant kept a
pair of GP9s just for the branch.

Out 

Neat catch and shots!

NDHolmes Wrote:
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> Good stuff, Andy.  How did I never realize that
> the industrial park is its own railroad?  I
> always just thought it was switched by the CP. 

Well it's not really well publicized.  I don't know why CP doesn't switch the whole thing either (maybe something to do with their award winning customer service).  But this is the way it's set up.  Savage was operating it until last year when these new guys took over.  I hope they can make a go of it; seems like profits would be pretty slim with just one customer and once/week service, but they don't own the property so that helps.

I think Trainboy said the CP "usually" goes up on Sunday but I'll double check.

Andy

When the line was built they had zero customers, and no immediate hope of any. It was built to attract customers to the rather large industrial park. I said to my buddy who was our #1 account
manager in the D'Port store, a native of D'Port, that we should go up and look at the new railroad in the industrial park he looked at me like I was nuts! The "Hey I live here and they're isn't any
such thing" look. 

Out 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/21 20:29 by callum_out.

callum_out Wrote:
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>  The "Hey I live here and they're isn't any
> such thing" look. 

Well, I only live 25 miles away and while I vaugely knew they were building "something" out there, I never was there in person until the B32-8/switcher consist was enough to spur me into action.  I had to review Google aerial just to know where I was going...

Andy

Which is pretty funny since one end is next to an offramp on the Interstate! Good fun, hope that their business keeps getting better.

Out