I was looking thru my March 2005 issue of Trains, as well as the all-Rock issue back in 1983, and was reminded that as of March 31, 1980, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific ceased operations on all parts of its system, from Chicago to Denver, from Eunice, LA to Tucumcari, NM, from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Houston. Some cleanup trains were running to gather rolling stock & motive power for disposition afterwards, but no freight was ever handled by the Rock again. So far, this is the largest US railroad ever to cease operations. While there are some portions that wound up with Class 1s (Wichita to Ft. Worth to the MKT, Kansas City-Tucumcari to the Cotton Belt, Minneapolis-Kansas City to C&NW), regionals (Blue Island-Omaha to Iowa Interstate, Phillipsburg, KS- Limon, CO to Kyle) and short lines (Elk City-Hydro, OK to Farmrail, McAlester, OK-Howe, OK to Arkansas-Oklahoma, Mason City southeast to Iowa Northern, Sunray-Stinnett to Texas North Western, Little Rock-Danville, AR to Little Rock & Western), some lines faded into oblivion, such as the Choctaw Route from Howe east to around Boonville, AR; Limon west to Colorado Springs, CO; and the line between Kansas City to around St. Louis (largely overgrown with vegetation). The above list is by no means complete, and the MKT, SSW, and CNW are now of course Union Pacific properties (remember, UP tried to get Rock Island from 1964-1975, but was thwarted due to too many obstacles to get into here). In honor and memory of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, I ask you, fellow railfans, what your favorite memory of the Rock is. You don't even have to be a Rock fan to answer.
It's a bummer! The Milwaukee Road was also cut off 25 years ago. I have only a couple of brief memories. Seeing a switcher in the Denver area, as I wasted some time awaiting a flight home. No. I didn't have a camera. And then a few glimpses of their line south of El Dorado, Arkansas. While I was stationed down that way in the Army. Oh well. No. I didn't have a camera. *Argh!* This was all nearly 35 years ago. Who'd have thought two major Class 1 companies would essentially go away, within one month? Boxcab E50
My first memory comes from a field trip my kindergarten class took when my family lived in Tucson, Arizona. Our class took a bus out to Benson to flag the Imperial, #39, for a ride back to Tucson. Now in my mind this was supposed to be an SP train so I remember being confused when the conductor tried to explain we would be riding on a Rock Island coach. Hey, I did not know about the Golden State Route going all the way to Chicago on the Rock. Then back in the late 70's I remember poking around at the Milby Street "Round House" in Houston trying to get some photos of ATSF diesels that were being serviced there. There was a scruffy looking CRIP Geep (I don't remember if it was a GP-7 or GP-9) that was in the way for all the good shots. I kick myself now for not shooting it. Most of the road power on the Burlington Rock Island joint line between Dallas and Houston seemed to always be from the Fort Worth & Denver but the Rock kept an engine in Houston for switching.
CTC Board did an article many years ago. (March 1990.) "High Plains Drifter." As fifteen years have passed, and it's the 25th for Rock Island going away, maybe they'll do something in a coming magazine? Boxcab E50
What comes to mind for me is going to Blue Island in the evening to watch the outbound commuter rush. The highlight being when the "Bankers" express, which did not stop at Blue Island blew through about 5:30pm. They don't go thru Blue Island at 60mph anymore. The engineer would start blowing that 5 chime air horn before the train was in sight, for Vermont St. as the public was used to most trains stopping or being slow freight moves. That was a sight to behold and hear.
txzephyr, welcome to Trainboard! Say, aren't you the same fellow who has the DGNO website? [ March 19, 2005, 03:02 AM: Message edited by: friscobob ]
My first real employment was with the Rock Island in my hometown of Ottawa, Il. I was the second trick operator from Jan 1979 to the end. I also worked Bureau Jct. for a very short time. My best memories were the years 1973-1974. My father passed in Nov. 1973 when I was 13 years old. My grandparents raised me from that point on. For nearly a solid year I was at the Ottawa station every night to watch the Rock Islands last two passenger trains. I met many great people and watched a lot of trains. Anytime my granfather could spare the time he was happy to drive me to the tracks to watch trains. It truly helped me through the most difficult time of my life.
I missed it, but I was going to post a thread back on Thursday (March 31), the last day of the Rock ISland's existence. Effective on that day, all originiating and terminating traffic was to embargoed at all connections and all agencies, with no exceptions. Except for the cleanup trains, not another wheel of a Rock Island freight train turned. In May 1981, I was in Council Bluffs, IA, shooting stored power, and came across a long string of Rock Island motive power (the stuff UP had and leased out to RI, mostly GP40s, U28Bs, and the like). Still a lot of running time left, but nowhere to run. Same up in Oelwein, IA- the ex-CGW yard became a storage lot for retired locomotives from CNW and CRIP- even say a Frisco GP7 or two in the mix. Oelwein Shops was busy rebuilding & rehabbing GP7s for service- quite a few ex-Rock Geeps were repainted & pressed into service. Visiting my first wife's family in Mansfield, AR around the Thanksgiving holiday in 1985, I witnessed salvage crews taking up the rails on the Choctaw Route through town- it was removed from Howe, OK to around Booneville, AR. The former RoW runs right in front of my ex-wife's home now. You can still see where the Mansfield depot used to stand not three blocks away to the west of the house. The local paper ran a picture of the depot the ex was kind enough to send me. No more will I see the Rockets converge from all directions at the Des Moines (IA) depot.....or see the switcher out of Joliet (an old Alco RS3) run the night job to switch the customers between Joliet and Channahon, on the Illinois River.....or ride the Rocky Mountain Rocket at night thru the Iowa countryside to a rainy morning arrival at Davenport, IA, where Dad was waiting to greet us & take us to our new home......or see a freight on the Choctaw Route in eastern Oklahoma, running between the ridges eastbound thru Red Oak.........
Viewing a westbound Rock train pass under the ATSF main @ Vaughn, NM fall '72. It was my first visit to Vaughn and this turned out to be a perfectly timed over-under. ATSF F units and Rock GPs. Rock was at this time running through to El Paso. I returned to that location many times during the next 15 years before I saw another over-under. It was only when I started spending multiple weekends there in 1996 that I saw another perfect crossing.
I stopped in Dalhart, Texas this summer to pay my respects to the old Rock Island. The tracks there are still busy. Don't know if that is a CRIP or a FW&D locomotive in the city seal.
Interesting how much of the Rock Island still exists. And is doing well. Too bad the present user doesn't own the rights to it's emblems. They could do a so-called "heritage" unit. But that would certainly not look right..... Boxcab E50
Interesting page. The author noted that RR died cash strapped. Also bringing the RR to a close, was a s-t-u-p-i-d-l-y timed strike. Why those employees felt they'd get more from a company in bankruptcy??? Instead, many ended up unemployed. Never working on a RR again. Boxcab E50
It kind of goes both ways. Management should have said "come in and lets sit down and look at the books together. Gee, no money, how about we work together somehow?" I suspect ragardless of either of these items the railroad would have foundered, it was just the way things went for so many lines back then. then again I wasn't there so who knows what the game was.
Rock's demise was almost inevitable as it was in almost all cases the additional line in any major community. They skipped OKC on the N-S line and went to El REno? Passengers rarely picked Rock to get to OKC. This is just one example of errors in judgement.
The Rock Island made two street crossings near where I worked im amarillo, Tx. Got to see Rock island freights entering Amarillo from the north. Many lashups included FA units. Last time I saw FA's of any kind in operation. Farwell
The Rock was my first real job too. To me I was being paid to get to ride and have fun and see the sites, not really work. Of course At the begining of my 28 year rail career I didn't know what I was doing really just seemed I was getting paid to ride them frieghts. First thing I used to do was get up and clean off the arm rest on the window so I could hang out and wave. I used to keep track of all the unit numbers I worked on and kept all my orders. My brother hired out in the same class of brakeman out of Shawnee and we used to compile and compete for who would get see the most named locomotives. Didn't get to see all in my brief career. Used to love to work into El Reno so I could go into the Diesel shop and see all the engines in all kinds of conditions. The worst part of the experience were the acomadations the Rock used to put us up in. In El Reno it was a run down flea bag motel that didn't have one screen window or door that wasn't torn an no A/C. With hispanic kids playing all over the parking lot. In Hartshorne we had prefab trailers that were right next to the tracks, so you were sure to be awaken by any track movement. I like going to Hartshorne because we crossed several other railroads along the way. MKT, MOP(kog), and Frisco. I remeber once being stopped at the Frisco Interlocking and the engineer told me to go run the timer down, so I did. I guess I threw the block red in the face of a South bd because on the way back to my engine I looked up north and saw this gyrating head light coming and when they got stopped and we went thru they didn't look to happy. Who would have imagined that 4 or 5 years later I would be working for that Frisco coming thru that same plant. Oh the times when railroading was fun to come to work and wasn't a job!!!
Yes took some when I was foaming, none while working. The camera I had was an old compact and I was a terrible photographer But the really sad thing is I can't find them.
