[RITSlist] My Rock Island Train Rides

[jhn]

1st: Corn Belt Rocket trip around 1950: A birthday present for me:  Newton to Grinnell, age 3 or 4 with mom, I slipped on an icy puddle and got soaked, mom had brought along a spare woolen "snow suit" which itched like heck.  For a couple of hours,  Mom shopped with me tagging along until my dad drove over to meet us for beans at a local hotel - probably the one the M&STL used for meal stops, then it was back to Newton, with me scratching and miserable all the way home.

 

Not a train ride but at about the same time, my dad lifted me into the cab of a RI mike or consolidation in Newton.  I remember the crew opening the firebox, ringing the bell and being scared when the engineer blew the whistle.

 

2nd Corn Belt Rocket trip: alone, age about 10 Des Moines to Newton:  I'd accompany my parents while my dad would take mom shopping in downtown Des Moines and I would hang out at the RI and DM Union depots.  After picking up a BIG stash of public timetables from other lines, I rode back to Newton,  east of Metz I saw an abandoned roadbed north of the Rock Island's.  It was the remains of the Newton and Northwestern.

 

3rd Corn Belt Rocket trip:  Des Moines to Newton alone, age 10 or 11.  Walked down the remaining leg of the Newton wye to Gate's Bicycle Shop to retrieve my bike which had been  repaired, said bike was my main means of transport the mile or so from home to the Rock Island depot.

 

Round trip Des Moines-St Paul on the Twin Star Rocket:  Age 11, with my grandfather. Had a Coke at the Otto Kuhler designed lunch counter at the Des Moines depot, off to St Paul, with usual fan-type sight-seeing for me including and seeing Milwaukee Road power pass by as we got close to St Paul U.D. RI had trackage rights on the Milw. --Trip was slightly spoiled when a young child - using the nautical term -  "fed the fish" right next to our seat.  A seasoned salesman who spent most of the 20s and 30s on sales trips via rail, my grandfather told me: the most comfortable and safest seats in case of a crash are in the center of the car.  On the way home we were seated right over the front truck!

 

Round trip, Newton-Chicago on the Corn Belt Rocket, back on the Des Moines Rocket:  I was really into ham radio and was a sophomore in high school (missed playing in a football game for the trip)  and my dad took me on a business trip to the National Electronic Conference.  There was street running in Davenport and the "crunch"  as the diner was added in Rock Island, then the fun of "beans" in the diner with it swaying back and forth through the Illinois countryside and the lighted neon "JOLIET" sign at that UD.

 

Rode the IC Electric Line out to the Museum of Science and Industry and bus to the Dresden Power Plant, attended the show at old McCormick Place.  Fun -- people watching in LaSalle Street Station, seeing out-bound commuter trains as we boarded the Des Moines Rocket and more fan-type watching through Chicago.  The heat was stuck on the "on" setting and we roasted and then the train went into "emergency" somewhere near Marengo.  The brakeman came running through our car, but I never did find out what the problem was. We arrived in Newton at 10:55 PM, on time, but cab was late for the ride home (night running on my bike with my dad on the handlebars was out of the question -- even if we had taken my bike to the station and left it in the baggage/express room where I was told to keep it so it wouldn't foul the platform for passengers.) As was common practice, part of a westbound freight had been split in Newton and passed by the depot from the west yard backing up eastbound  with a brakeman riding on a "gon" with a fusee stuck in the coupler for light/warning to pickup the rest of the train parked on the siding east of town.  

 

That's it.

 

John Nelson

 

 

 

 


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