Western Railroad Discussion > Thirty Thursday on the Waterloo Railroad

On Monday I caught the recently formed Waterloo Railroad in Waterloo, Iowa. They are a Jaguar Transport railroad and took over serving the isolated Union Pacific trackage in Waterloo in early September. Iowa Northern was taking care of this 7 mile stretch, but UP broke their lease with IANR with the impending CN takeover. Iowa Northern still has trackage rights to serve the remainder of the line to Oelwein. Waterloo Railroad operates between the yard at Linden Ave. to Dewar which includes John Deere, Tyson Fresh Meats, and the Watco Blackhawk Transload Terminal. They have this ex ATSF GP30u which was built as ATSF 1222 and spent time at the Southwestern Railway and Washington Eastern Railroad which are other Jaguar properties. They also have an ex NS B32-8. On Monday the Waterloo Railroad started their day by taking two potash hoppers from Liden to the Watco transload. 

Joel Poland
Columbus, NE

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Hey, that's Funnelfan's old ride!  Here she is as AT&SF 2722 working as a Cajon Pass helper in 1984.

mike woodruff
north platte ne

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Fun power and nice lighting!

I hope I never tire of Geep 30s images!
Thanks for sharing.

S_W

Yep, I put some hours in behind the throttle of that machine. I see they have done some improvments since I last ran it too. They painted the plow, installed LED headlights and ditchlights, put a working A/C on top and a full sized mirror on the engineer's side.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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Thanks for this update.  A GP30 on former CGW trackage is not that rare, as the CGW had a bunch before CNW got them.  Unfortunately, my train chasing days are over, and I have to rely on shots like this for a sense of what's going on.  

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/24 18:38 by ntharalson.

That short piece of trackage is pretty busy, even Tyson produces a fair amount of reefer business which
is good to see. I hope Tyson allows them to in plant switch, their Trackmobile in Winter is a hoot to watch
though it usually blocks the in plant crossing while slipping away in the snow. Persoanlly, that GP30
would be a huge improvement!

Out