THE IOWA INTERSTATE’S BUSY EAST END
It’s a Mighty Fine Line
BY CHRIS LASTOVICH/PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR
“THE ROCK ISLAND LINE is a mighty fine line” says the old blues folks song. Though the Rock Island officially left us on March 31, 1980, regional railroad Iowa Interstate has successfully oper- ated a significant portion since 1984. Over the last decade, this dynamic re- gional has seen growth in both its traf- fic volume and fan base. With the 2012 NRHS Convention being held this sum- mer in Cedar Rapids, fans from all around the country will be flocking to central Iowa where they will no doubt catch a glimpse of one of the most suc- cessful and aesthetically pleasing rail- roads in the Midwest. The Iowa Interstate formed in 1984
when it took over a segment of former Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific main line from Blue Island, Ill., outside of Chicago, westward to Council Bluffs, Iowa. In addition to this main line trackage, it also operates a branch line from Bureau to Peoria, Ill., and a small branch out of Rock Island to Milan, Ill., among a few other short stub branches in western Iowa. In 2004, the Iowa In- terstate entered an agreement to run trains into Cedar Rapids over the Cedar Rapids & Iowa City (CIC or “Crandic”) line from a set of wyes near Homestead to Fairfax. On the east end, IAIS reaches Chicagoland on trackage rights over CSX from Utica to Joliet and on Metra trackage from Joliet to
the former Rock Island Burr Oak Yard in Blue Island, Ill. At the start-up of operations in 1984,
Iowa Interstate’s traffic base consisted primarily of seasonal grain shipments and intermodal traffic between Chicago and the Union Pacific in Council Bluffs, but into the 21st century this began to change. Grain and intermodal traffic are still fairly prominent; however, corn products from shippers like ADM and Cargill have slowly become the big money maker (a trait IAIS shares with the entire rail industry). For example, ADM corn based products, in both liq- uid and solid varieties, have become one of the main commodities moving in and out of Cedar Rapids. Massive ethanol plants (more corn) have begun popping up all along IAIS. The ethanol boom has allowed IAIS to upgrade its entire main line and replace a beaten down roster of first and second genera- tion EMD’s with modern, fuel efficient, state of the art GE ES44AC’s.
Operations
The Iowa Interstate is divided into subdivisions. The 221 miles from Burr Oak Yard to Iowa City is known as Sub- division 1; included in this are both the Metra and CSX sections. IAIS’s 44-mile line down central Illinois to Peoria is Subdivision 2. This short but quaint rail line is some of the earliest railroad-
ing ever built in Illinois; uniquely, Sub 2’s mileposts start at 114.2 in Bureau stemming off of the main line, and run down to m.p. 157.5 to an interchange point with the Tazewell & Peoria at its Limit Yard. Subdivision 3 starts in Iowa City, and runs 85 miles to New- ton, Iowa, and Subdivision 4 runs the remainder of the 151.5 miles from New- ton to Council Bluffs, Iowa. The most recent addition to the rail-
road is operation over the Crandic into Cedar Rapids, which is reached via the Yocum Connection, a new wye just west of Homestead. This connection al- lows trains to reach the CIC at Fairfax without making any reverse moves on- to or off of the main line. This short 17.5 mile line toward Cedar Rapids is Subdivision 3B. The IAIS has recently begun con- struction on the new South Amana staging yard approximately one mile west of the Yocum Connection. This will alleviate congestion at what has been the railroad’s primary, albeit small, yard in Iowa City. Accompany- ing the new yard will be a new shop complex including a massive overhead crane and all necessities required to maintain the new fleet of modern GE six-axle diesels. Train frequency on the eastern half
of the railroad has been on the rise in recent years as ethanol plants open
OPPOSITE: Painted in tribute to the old Rock Island, Iowa Interstate’s “heritage unit” 513 leads a PECR (Peoria-Cedar Rapids) loaded coal train around the southwest leg of the wye at Bureau connecting Sub 2 with Sub 1, on March 13, 2011.
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