The Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad went out of business in 1980. After a long futile struggle against competing railroads, trucks on the interstate, and high labor costs, Rock Island’s stockholders finally persuaded U.S. District Court Judge Frank McGarr that their railroad–operating in bankruptcy since 1975–was worth more dead than alive. The offices at 332 S. Michigan were closed, the freight trains and switch engines stopped operating, the employees were laid off, and the Rock’s court-appointed trustee, William Gibbons, began liquidating company assets: real estate, rolling stock, locomotives, and 11,000 miles of line running across 13 midwestern and western states.
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The original end of the Rock Island line had been its namesake city on the Mississippi, site of the U.S. Army’s Rock Island arsenal. But the directors had ambitions. They extended the road to Omaha, the starting point of the railroad Union Pacific had begun building toward the west coast after the Civil War.
The 1970s and ’80s proved the commission correct. Two big companies closed their routes in the corridor. A third sold its route to entrepreneurs who secured employee give-backs that made the line successful. But the Rock went bust, and all its lines shut down.
But the resurrected Rock has no passenger trains. Amtrak’s sole Chicago-to-Omaha train uses the competing Burlington Northern tracks. That’s something of a shame. Rail enthusiasts agree that of the six lines running west from Chicago to the Union Pacific line, the Rock’s was the prettiest. The 61 miles paralleling the Illinois River west of Joliet are postcard stuff–mingled water, foliage, farms, and villages. West of Bureau the line leaves the river, twisting along the Illinois’ tributaries as it climbs out of the valley and up onto the plateau of cornfields. For 15 miles it follows the old Hennepin Canal, which connects the Illinois with the Rock River. Recreational boaters sail through the old wooden lock gates into a time warp.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Bill Fahrenwald.
