Nostalgia & History > How about some Milwaukee Road Iowa Division

A few years ago, I purchased some slides from Lance Wales via Mark Llanuza from the Dennis Hertrich Collection. Dennis died in late 2003 IIRC.

Dennis and Mark made several trips out to Iowa to catch the last few months of the MILW Road Iowa Division, by then, at least between Green Island and Marion/Cedar Rapids, regulated to a branch line with CTC. So I thought I would share some of Dennis' work:

Photo 1: A Northbound train heading towards Dubuque and Marquette rolls past the depot at Green Island, IA in May of 1979. Green Island is where the Iowa main turned west towards Marion and Perry. There was an op 24/7 here at Green Island. The day op towards the end was Rich Marburger.

Photo 2: Later on in 1979, train 107 rumbles at 10 mph past the depot at Delmar, IA. Delmar had a branch that went north to Maquoketa and a line to De Witt and Eldridge, abandoned by the time this photo was taken. 107/106 were the Savanna to Marion trains that served the Marion and Cedar Rapids customers til the end. Power for this train was almost always a set of A-B-B-A F7's. The depot today still stands as a museum.

Photo 3: One of the last trains from February 1980 rolls through Lost Nation, IA with a set of F's and a in tow SW from Cedar Rapids or Marion. Come March 1, the Iowa main will shutdown for good, except for a few clean up moves. On December 1, 1980, the Iowa Main, once a 79 mph freeway for the Cities trains some 8 years earlier, was abandoned for good.

All photos taken by the late Dennis Hertrich. Thank you as always for looking. Long Live the Iowa Division of the Milwaukee Road.

MILW86A



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/11 16:49 by MILW86A.

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A little GIMP.

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Outstanding!!!!! What a great collection older Milwaukee power.

Wow, Green Island sure has changed. All that stands there now is that grey building to the left. I didn't believe my engineer when he pointed out the old wye for the Iowa division. Green Island is now a radio controlled siding in track warrant territory on the Marquette sub. It is sometimes used as a storage, the 270 will drop Chicago traffic off and a local in savanna will swap it with Marquette traffic for the 271 to pick up. Keep them coming.

The gray building I think used to be the old Tarrs Tap.
MILW86A

the branch lines Dave referred to (at least going south) used to host a passenger train locals called the 'bumblebee' IIRC. Today, the Eldridge spur, coming off the IC&E at Waterworks in Davenport is all that is left. If you travel south on Hwy 61 through Welton parts of the ROW are dicernable account of easement for power lines. At Maquoketa there is an old depot still standing IIRC. There was an interurban that came out that way to Goose Lake from Clinton too, using part of today's Hwy 136.

Other than the Eldridge spur, those branches off the MILW have been gone for generations.

chico
http://www.heartlandrails.com

I believe Mark posted some of his photos from that time period on his Flkr account recently.

KC

Outstanding results from just a little retouching with digital darkroom software. I'm amazed how well a little Photoshop or even iPhoto or Elements can improve things for green/blue/magenta dominated slide or even help exposures. Scratches? We don't need no stinkin' scratches! SOOO easy to fix nowadays...

Good work!