While working for the same customer, I couldn't help but notice this picture in the house. Geek that I am.. After a bit of discussion and some research on my own. This is what looks like Rock Islands place in Valley Junction. The Minneapolis and St. Louis comes in from the west and the Rock travels southwest. Both travel east. I believe a lot of Des Moines tracks were shared. Their were to many Railroads that traveled to Des Moines not too. CNW, Milw, RI, M&StL, Wabash, Norfolk Western, CBQ, Iowa Interurban, and I am sure I am missing more. I do not know when the photo was taken. But if any one knows more please share. I will show a map of old Des Moines so we all can see how much train action there once was, Enjoy
I like the map too, I'm funny that way. I didn't realize that Des Moines was such a extensive railroad hub. How many of these lines exist today in any form?
Iowa used to have a whole lot more railroad than it does now. It was said you could find railroad tracks every seven or ten miles at one time. Look for an old Iowa rail map and its there. As for Des Moines. The only railroads left are the BNSF, Iowa Interstate, Ugly Pete, and Norfolk Southern. And there are not as many yards either.I know of two major ones on the east side. Dean Street yard and One over by Guthrie Ave. Des Moines had a great system at one time. the Iowa Interurban ran east west from Newton to somewhere by the Firestone plant to Perry. From there you could take a streetcar to many places in town. The Interurban dried up when it went diesel. The streetcars went before that. And of course trucking dried up all the smaller rail services in the rural towns. There are still lots of groups that try to preserve Iowas railroad history, but its pretty daunting when folks think it should all be converted to bike trails. And a bunch of it has been turned to trails. Here is Iowas current Rail systems map. http://www.iowadot.gov/iowarail/railroads/maps/basemap.pdf Enjoy. I will try to find that old map.
You're right, maps tell the story. I was once told that the Granger roads built midwest branches so that no farmer was more than a day's wagon trek from a railhead.
The UP's large exRI yard is Short Line Yard. The other UP yard is Hull Avenue Yard. The BNSF has a yard, which is also used by the NS, on the Southeast side, but I can't think of it's name right now. One of the large buildings in the picture of the Valley Junction complex still exists.
57A26, the BNSF yard I think is the Glake Yard (Ex-CB&Q, Wabash, back in the day) though I could be wrong. There also used to be a pretty big yard on the south side called the Bell Avenue Yard, owned by the CGW originally. Then, the C&NW took over in 1968, and usage of that yard dwindled after the CGW mainline to KC was torn up by C&NW in 1984. I recall that the yard was truncated to use for rail car repair in the 1990s. I took photos of the C&NW clearing out that yard during the floods of '93, which I'll try to find and post. The CGW depot was still there at the eastern edge of the former Bell Avenue yard as of at least a few years ago, but all the tracks, and the once fantastic bridge crossing the Des Moines River, are now gone. I have great memories of going to Iowa Oaks (later Iowa Cubs) baseball games with my dad. You could see trains crossing the river, heading to and from Bell Avenue Yard, from the top of the ball park, when the ex-CGW main was still intact.
