I believe that the combine was still running as late as 1958. I believe that
it was in one of the Burlington Bulletins a few years ago that there were a
couple of photographs of a railfan special run between Keokuk and Humeston
just prior to the abandonment of the line between Centerville and Corydon.
In addition to several regular heavyweight coaches the train also carried the
heavyweight combine on the rear end. I would presume that it continued to
run on the abbreviated mixed between Keokuk and Centerville
In January 1966 I was in Centerville handling a Rock Island derailment near
there. We needed an mty spotted for loading of salvage from the derailment.
The Q spotted an mty for us at one of the old warehouses in Centerville.
There was heavy snow that day and the local was on the Centerville end. They
just spotted the car for us and did whatever switching they had to do and
tied up. Didn't try to go back to Keokuk. If memory serves, and it usually
does that far back, they were using a regular waycar at that time.
I think that you can assume that the combine ran as late as 1959 and after
that it probably was just a regular waycar.
Pete Hedgpeth
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