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Believe it or not the Rock Island was one of the "Pioneers"..if not actually the first to introduce the concept of Unit Trains.. Shortly after the Langdon regime took over the traffic department was set up on a commodities marketing concept. A guy whose name was Ted Wells was hired as Grain Marketing Manager. Wells, IIRC had been with the Kansas City Grain Exchange and "came up with"..or maybe copied somebody else with the concept of unit grain trains. I think the first arrangement required 54 cars to make a train and there was a limited time for loading a train. The first elevators to participate in this concept were up in what was known on the RI as "Bow and Arrow Country"..ie northwest Iowa branches...ie Superior Belmond etc.
In typical RI fashiion they just started trying to run those 100 ton hoppers in long trains over what a been, in the words of one track man I knew.."a good 40 mph railroad with Sod ballast and mostly 85-90 lb rail. The track in most cases was good for 40 or so with a few grain boxes and some reefers of meat out of Sioux Falls, Esterville etc running down to Iowa Falls and/or Cedar Rapids.
Well things went fairly well until winter hit..It was OK as long as the ground was frozen, but when the thaws came and the lack of ballast and decent ties reared their combined ugly heads things went South..big time.
The RI continued to run grain trains and some of the elevator folks up in NW Iowa formed an association to; help RI finance some track rehab work and trains continued to run, but very slowly and with great difficulty.
After RI shut down CNW, MILW and other lines up in that NW Iowa territory were consolidated and combined and some abandoned, leaving the lines with the big Co Op's left.
You guys have probably seen some of the "New" and Rehabd engines which were named for some of the "Moguls of Grain" who spearheaded the track rehab stuff and the financing..The names of "Ivan Summa..ie "Ivan the Terrible", Fred McKim and others were names of note in keeping the unit trains moving on the RI during the 1970's.
Pete
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From: 'Douglas Harding' doug.harding@iowacentralrr.org [CBQ] <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> To: CBQ <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Wed, Aug 17, 2016 12:08 am Subject: Re: Is: unit grain trains was: Re: [CBQ] CB&Q Large Cubic Foot Covered Hoppers Jeff it may have been because the Q’s branch lines were not located in areas with heavy grain production. At least Southern Iowa was not the grain producer like northern Iowa, where the RI and CNW prevailed.
Doug Harding
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