RI Any Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific fans left...

Stourbridge Lion Aug 29, 2006

  1. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    At Fordyce are you simulating any activity with the F&P?
     
  2. Allen H

    Allen H TrainBoard Supporter

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    Thanks, I hope to get a thread started shortly and will include a couple for the shots of the yard that I'm in the process of modifying, both track work and wiring.

    So I take it you model The Rock as well? Do you have any pics?


    No, I'm freelancing the entire layout. I doubt there is anything on the layout that was on the real line. I've had this idea bouncing around my head for years. Back then I never thought of modeling as close to prototype like a lot of guys have now. Sometimes though I do regret not thinking that way.

    I was going to have a diamond at Fordyce, but just didn't have the room for it. Once I get some of the buildings set in place and I see how thing play out, I might still insert one for looks.
     
  3. fireball_magee

    fireball_magee TrainBoard Member

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    Dont have anything yet.....But I am in a planning stage.I have a friend who runs a online hobby shop whos got me interested again. Just at the moment I live in an apartment and it kinda sucks for macro ideas lol.

    I want to do what your doing. Give it a flavor of the area but not to get so prototype that I have to get everything down to the last rivet.I want to o where I lived in Illinois but to be honest I dont know if it would work as well as say Generic Iowa with a Milwaukee Road Interchange....decisions.I am planning on getting started with modeling the train before the layout.I am a fan of the Rock Island Mini Train experiments. So I am going to do one get it done and go from there.Maybe by then I will have a more viable space.
     
  4. Allen H

    Allen H TrainBoard Supporter

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    I don't know why an Iowa or Illinois layout wouldn't work. Yeah scenery would be kind of generic. A Milwaukee interchange would easy enough to grasp. What you could do is zero in on a specific type of operation that Rock did. In Illinois they had one coal train that they used a dedicated set of power on. I think it was the Lafayette coal train. I hope I get the pics attached correctly.

    One thing I found about zeroing in on a specific, is it's easier on Mr. Wallet!

    After I settled on The Rock and before settling on a era & location, I was buying a lot stuff for Rock Island in general, then I ran across the article on The Little Rock Line, and before I started on the layout, I decided to settle on a specific era.
    That made a huge difference for Mr. Wallet. I wasn't buying anything and everything for Rock Island.

    Just my 2ȼ worth.
     

    Attached Files:

  5. fireball_magee

    fireball_magee TrainBoard Member

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    LOL Thats kinda funny. I grew up on Sub 3 a where that train came through. Orion to be exact. I dont ever remember seeing it out there,but in RI I did.Lafayettte still has its depot and a crossbuck guarding the road where the branch to the mine went.The mine leased a RI loco and its employees did all the work.I would LOVE to do a rendition of the old RI&P but right now I am kinda stranded on space. Thats why I was going to do a "generic" line. Like Washington Iowa where the Milwaukee and Rock Met up. Just didnt feel like scratchbuilding a ton of stuff. But give it a feel.I might just model Cambridge illinois for now. Or Lafayette Would love to find some track diagrams but the 3 a sub is kinda like the Little Rock! very little information.BTW your dead on with the coal train power.It took it from Lafayette to Cedar Rapids and could be seen on weekends running other trains around the area.Ahhhh to be back there again ;)
     
  6. Allen H

    Allen H TrainBoard Supporter

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    Well at least you got see them in person and knew what you were looking at! I did somewhat, but I was very young and all I knew were they were trains. I some vivid memories. I remember one summer must have been 68 or 69 I was taking swimming lessons and the tracks pasted with several hundred feet of the pool. When this train came through town, I remember seeing a rounded nose loco [probably a f7or 9] with a yellow wing on the front, folowed by a Maroon and white striped loco following it [I suppose it might have been a gp 7,9,or 18 and then the third unit that I can't remember. All of a sudden the pool water started to vibrate! That was awesome!

    Well whatever you decide to do for a layout, best of luck to you!@ You'll have one thing going for at least........It'll be Rock Island! LOL

    Regards,
    Allen...
     
  7. fireball_magee

    fireball_magee TrainBoard Member

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    LOL well I was the same " Look a train!"But Iknew it was a Rock Island train! My favorite Rock Memory was watching the brakeman ( conductor I have no idea) bail off the engine at 12th street in Orion and hop on the Caboose!!! Granted I was like 7 and was just stunned anyone would hop on and off so casually. It impressed me to no end.It was a GP9 or 7 in the Blue and white. The caboose was even blue and white (Most days it was red and yellow bay window IIRC) I wish I could have known then what I know now.I always assumed I would be an engineer there and get to run a train past the High School.THAT I want to model plus the Twin State plant right there where m Grandfather worked and I got to get in a Rock Island Loco.I have done that again but it had other names and paint on them :(GTW 5850 is like a touch of home )But I am loving my J engines! Might have to throw one on the layout for grins ;)

     
  8. pilgrim45

    pilgrim45 New Member

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    Sorry I've been gone for awhile. I worked in the Topeka yards from May 1963-April 1982.
     
  9. The Rocket

    The Rocket Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    I grew up in Muscatine, Iowa. When I was 5 we moved to a house on the bluff of the Mississippi River just above the tracks. As the Rock Island went through the downtown/River Front area of Muscatine it was back further from the bank of the river. The track was directly inline with my bedroom window. I used to lay in bed at night with the shade raised so I could watch the trains approach, until they moved east toward the river and their headlights to longer lit up my room. Many a night growing up I went to bed with the vision of the Rock Island in my mind. My room would go dark as I listened to the diesel roar by... followed by the clack, clack, clack... when silence.
     
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  10. fireball_magee

    fireball_magee TrainBoard Member

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    Rocket I am guessing you lived just north of the town by the high bridge? I used to run on the IC&E through there with some old Rock guys. Loved Muscatine for all the rail history, not so much hitting the grade crossing with the plow at 25 one night.....that was a smidge scary lol
     
  11. The Rocket

    The Rocket Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Fireball.. you are correct. Just about 1 block North of the high bridge in fact. Have loved the Rock all my life. Most interesting story to me was when the Rock Island was the first railroad to cross the Mississippi. If I remember correctly they came to Muscatine first, before going to Iowa City, even though it was then the Iowa State capital. They had a depot already built and waiting on the tracks as the first train (The Rocket with three heavyweight coaches) came to Muscatine because of the pearl button business and three threatres. The story, as I remember it, that the city of Iowa City put up a bonus of $50,000 if they had a train setting in front of their depot by midnight on December, 31 of that year. They still came to Muscatine first. Then started laying rail in front of the engine and moving as fast as they could go to get to Iowa City to claim the bonus. On that freezing cold night, on Decemebr 31st, just yards from the depot, the steam cyclinder froze up on the locomotive. The sorty goes that the workers all grabbed spud bars and slide the egine and tender in front of the depot by hand to collect the money. Can you imagine how much money that was back then?

    Some of the facts in that version of the story might be a little off. Been a long time since I heard or read it. But none-the-less... a great story!
     
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  12. fireball_magee

    fireball_magee TrainBoard Member

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    That sounds about correct lol. I grew up in Orion on the old RI&P. Was one of my favorite lines. Finally seeing some coverage of it in Remember the Rock.Cant seem to get too much info on it.Seems no one was interested in going out that way and I dont know why.
     
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  13. PGE-N°2

    PGE-N°2 TrainBoard Member

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    I'm not sure if it qualifies me as an RI fan, but after seeing the latest Microtrains release for N scale, I have a sudden blinding attraction to that beautiful blue pain scheme.
     
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  14. rock$sland586

    rock$sland586 TrainBoard Member

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    The coal went Cedar Rapids, but the Rock took it to Iowa City where it was interchanged to the CRANDIC who did the delivery. At least it was that way up to June '76. The coal train picture shows it leaving out of the westbound departure yard headed west. Note the Flamingo Supper Club/Bar in the background. The Rock also delivered four 30 car sets (BN cars) of coal per week to the BN at Galva, destined to Iowa Southern Utilities at Burlington. The Rock shoved east around the north side of the BN depot and out to the BN west siding at Galva.
     
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  15. r_i_straw

    r_i_straw Mostly N Scale Staff Member

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    A friend in Kansas City sent me these today. Enjoy.
    022712 015.jpg 022712 018.jpg 022712 029.jpg
     
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  16. fireball_magee

    fireball_magee TrainBoard Member

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    They are going to be rebuilt then on to Manly Iowa! Supposedly the Iowa Northern will be running them on a museum style train! I can only hope Mr Sabin has "guest engineers" and lets me run a Rocket!I would love to run the 630 and would give my neighbors first born to do it! ( sorry i love my kids too much to even give them away lol)
     
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  17. Doorgunnerjgs

    Doorgunnerjgs TrainBoard Member

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    It's been 7 years, time to resurrect this thread! lol
    Anyone modeling the Rock in Minnesota near the Twin Cities? My hope is to interchange with NP, if only in a fictional town. Perhaps in conjunction with the Minnesota Transfer Railway Company?
     
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  18. The Rocket

    The Rocket Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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  19. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Weren't these sold to a RR museum startup in Iowa? Can't think of the fellow who founded the museum. He was a RI dispatcher when the RR shut down, then went to the BAR, then back to Iowa with an operation there. Argh. Had to do some searching- Dan Sabin. Manly Junction Railroad Museum.
     
  20. Tad

    Tad TrainBoard Supporter

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    I’m a Rock Island fan.

    It’s one of the railroads that I model. The Rock interchanged with the AD&N.
     
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