Waiting for a call on a freight train east, three Rock Island locomotives rest at Rio Grande’s North Yard in Denver, Colorado, in August 1979. Motley lettering on some swapped doors decorating t... (more)

Eastbound Rock Island train rocking along at 10 mph approaching Pullman Jct

A westbound Rock Island suburban commuter train is arriving Joliet Union Station as a westbound F unit led Santa Fe freight train waits for it's turn through the interlocking

The GM Aerotrain from the mid-50's

A string of transfer cabooses mingle with unused cars awaiting disposition after the demise of the Rock Island. Gondolas on the right are loaded with salvaged rail.

Rock Island GP18 #1344 with DRGW GP7 #5103 and DRGW F7A&B in Denver's North yard November, 1968.

Three years have passed since Rock Island's abandonment, but the trustee's decrepit GP18 - bent frame and all - is still shuttling up and down the mainline tying up loose ends. On this afternoon,... (more)

Salvage company Carney & Hancock workers transload a damaged FGDA covered hopper, moving the corn from the railcar to truck. This was in RI's Short Line Yard in Des Moines, IA back in the summer ... (more)

A Rock Island train is about to cross the maze of tracks and railroads at Pullmand Jct departing it's 95th Street yard on the south side of Chicago

A Rock Island intermodal train has just come off joint trackage onto Kansas City Terminal trackage at Sheffield interlocking for the trip through downtown on it's way back to it's own trackage in ... (more)

Tenant Rock Island F7(A) #114, with F7(A) #127, and GP18 #1334 in full pin striped paint scheme, share North Yard space with D&RGW F7(A) #5604. Photo from my slide collection, photographer unknow... (more)

I never spent much time on the Rock as I didn't start shooting slides until 1975-76 and even though I traveled the mid-west before it shut down I always seemed to concentrate on Soo, BN, CNW and t... (more)

On the east side of Joliet around the turn of the century, and in the heyday of railroads, there were four rail yards within one mile of each other. The Elgin Joliet & Eastern, The Michigan Centr... (more)

Rock Island's bicentennial E8 652 debutes on the 20th Century Railroad Club's Railfair '76 special from Chicago to Bureau, shown here departing Chicago.

a westbound RI grain train comes around the connector at Sheffield Interlocking on the east side of Kansas City