Nostalgia & History > Some Iowa Railroad Company Pics

Who here in the midwest remembers the old Iowa RR Co? They were the predecessor road to todays Iowa Interstate.

IRRC began in August 1981 out of Atlantic, IA and by November, got a lease from the RI Trustee to operate Council Bluffs to Stuart. June 1st of 1982 saw the road operate the remainder of the RI Main to Bureau. They had to "Share" trackage with CNW in Des Moines and with the MILW from Iowa City to Missouri Div Junction(Davenport).

Here is Round 1 of some IRRC slides taken by Rik Anderson that I bought for my collection. Rik's dad was a longtime agent for the Rock in Atlantic, IA.

1. IRRC #10, a former RI unit, works the yard at Council Bluffs, IA on 3-23-82.

2. After the road got the lease to Bureau, they picked up some former IC U30B's. Ex-IC 5001 is outside the Bluffs Engine House on 6-21-82, awaiting to be painted.

3. IRRC Train #1 is spotted near Hancock Jct, IA on 9-21-82. How the operation worked was like this: Train #2 departed Council Bluffs, and would meet Train #1 out of Altoona, and would meet at either Atlantic, Anita, or Casey. The two trains would swap crews and return. Train #2 would depart Altoona at night and meet #1 at Marengo. At Rock Island, the crew that would take #2 into Bureau and come back as #1.

I will have more IRRC stuff here soon, but for now, enjoy and thank you for looking.

MILW86A

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Very nice Dave; thanks for posting. I can't get an accurate fix on the location of the Hancock shot but I really like it, especially the old RI tri-color signal, and it's even lit!

I can count on one or two hands the number of IRRC freights I saw, but never did catch the GEs (or Alcos for that matter). They were running the Milw and IC geeps and BN SD7s when I saw 'em. Never took a picture, alas...

Andy

Dave, im to young to have seen them but i do know about the railroad and ive never seen many photos of the them either but i do like the photos!!!

Your wayback machine is working well! Thanks for sharing.

Even in broad daylight the IRRC seemed like a fly-by-night outfit...

NZ

Thanks for posting the "Iowa" shots. I remember the railroad well. Besides the U30Bs, I also liked their rare ex-ICG GP28's.

Gary