Nostalgia & History > A Rock Island track report

Sept 1977

Not very good.
Looking towards Chicago at Joliet as E6 630 heads to the yards.

Gary

 

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Very sad indeed. As an ex-railroader I can only imagine how depressing it would have been to work for a RR that will probably go bankrupt before I could reach retirement... :^(

Lance

As they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words..."

A historical gem.

Greg Stadter
Phoenix, AZ

While the Rock Island's right of way was in particularly bad shape in the 70's, I'm amazed at then and now photos comparing overall track quality across the country from the 70's to the present.   There were a lot of railroads deferring track maintenance in that era.   That's one place you can't look at the present and say "It's all crap now" because for the most part track condition it is much better than it was in the 60's and 70's.   

Milwaukee Wrote: > ... you can't look at the present and say "It's all crap now" ...

True! But they're not saying "It's all crap now" because of any track conditions. They're saying it because they have lost their youth...

Lance/199 (69 in June and still a railfan shooting regularly)

That was a serious collection of well worn stick rail! So prevelent in the day, thinking back to all the roads that were dumped into Conrail.
gonut

Most interesting about the condition of those tracks is that it takes a long time for good track to become dilapidated. And once dilapidated, you can soldier along with it if you keep speed limits to the point where stuff doesn't just drop between the gauge....and gauge rods....one or two good ties here and there. 

Milwaukee Wrote:
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> While the Rock Island's right of way was in
> particularly bad shape in the 70's, I'm amazed at
> then and now photos comparing overall track
> quality across the country from the 70's to the
> present.   There were a lot of railroads
> deferring track maintenance in that era. 
>  That's one place you can't look at the present
> and say "It's all crap now" because for the most
> part track condition it is much better than it was
> in the 60's and 70's.   

Yep. While better than this, I have been surprised to see photos on the Sunset Route with Amtrak trundling along on what seemed to be pretty rough track in TX and LA. Same with some of the Katy (I think) trackage between DFW and Houston/San Antonio that Amtrak (I think) plied in the 80s.

In the late 1950's the MKT between Dallas and Hillsboro was just terrible.  And they were running passenger trains on it.  You could scramble an egg just by pouring in a skillet and letting the sway of the car do the scrambling part.

engineerinvirginia Wrote:
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> Most interesting about the condition of those
> tracks is that it takes a long time for good track
> to become dilapidated. And once dilapidated, you
> can soldier along with it if you keep speed limits
> to the point where stuff doesn't just drop between
> the gauge....and gauge rods....one or two good
> ties here and there. 

This is true, and it is the mantra much of rail management hung their hats on during the 1950's and 1960's to rationalize reduction or elimination of track maintenance programs.  It didn't turn out very well for most of them however.  BSB

Yes, a review of Moody's and other books show a sharp decline in tie replacements by the late 1950s. For Rock Island, 1957, a year in which the national economy slowed down, was a time when the Rock Island and maybe some other roads were more focused on protecting the dividend than in maintaining the property.  Rock Island never really pulled out of that thinking until such time as even the Board of Directors came to realize that they could no longer distribute a dividend.

A fellow I knew from the Milwaukee Road pinpointed the same basic period as the time in which maintenance levels were reduced there as well.

I worked with some Old Heads that said 1960ish was kind of a watershed time for the industry. It’s when some companies really started to give up on their passenger business and many boards started to looking at sucking the blood out of their companies and fleeing. For sure many Midwest and eastern roads started the slow 20 year sink into the weeds about this time

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