Category: Uncategorized

The Ski Train will once again be returning to Iowa to serve as the Hawkeye Express – a passenger shuttle between Coralville and University of Iowa football games. However, citing losses last year, ticket prices will double this year to $10 round trip. See the article in today’s Iowa City Press-Citizen. For handy reference, this…

On 7-Jul-2005, IAIS announced that it had been approved for a 32.7 million dollar loan from the FRA’s Railroad Infrastructure Fund (RRIF). From IAIS’s press release: "The funds will be used to upgrade and rehabilitate approximately 300 miles of track between Atlantic, Iowa and Bureau, Illinois. The end result will be a railroad capable of…

The M420Rs (800 – 802) have begun their final trek across the IAIS system. They are on CBBI19 and left Council Bluffs with 5 other units: 709-718-702-714-703-801-802-800. Joe Atkinson provided this picture of the line-up, prior to departure in Council Bluffs. Update (20-Apr-2005): CBBI19 was out of Iowa City, IA, at 1705h. – MDP

For those who aren’t familiar with the name, Mr. Henry Posner III is the chairman of Railroad Development Corporation, Iowa Interstate’s parent company. The Pittsburg Post-Gazette ran a short article on him today – you can read it online here. For those that have never read anything about him, or more significantly a few of…

The word on the IAIS list is that the M420Rs (800 – 802) have been sold off, and as such will be leaving the railroad soon. No idea when they’ll be leaving exactly, but for anyone wanting to see them one more time, all three are stored at Council Bluffs. Thanks to Dave (DDA) for…

Joe A. has posted that IAIS has signed a ten year lease withn an option to buy for the LLPX SD38-2 units that run the Rock Island-Iowa City-Cedar Rapids trains. One by one, they’ll be sent down to Mid-America Car in Kansas City to receive SmartStart units (same as the new 700s) and to be…

Welcome to www.iaisrailfans.org, the new home of the Unofficial Iowa Interstate site. Over the past two months, the site has now undergone its fourth major redesign in its nearly 9 nears of existance, and gotten its own domain in the process. Mostly it was just an exercise in rearranging things and bringing formatting up to…

LLPX 2805 and LLPX 2807, the last of the quartet of SD38-2s to be delivered, were trailing (but providing power) on Saturday, 28-Aug-2004’s BICB. Also on the train were the other two SD38-2s and four other 4 axle motors. IAIS 706, the first of the new 700s placed in service, is at Iowa City and…

As as been somewhat unofficial now for several months, the Ski Train, along with two of its F40s, will be leased to Iowa Interstate for operating a shuttle between parking in Coralville and Kinnick Stadium. This will allow University of Iowa football fans to park for free in Coralville and be shuttled to the game…

The second leased SD38 for the ICCR/CRIC jobs is now on the railroad. It’s apparently on NTBI today (16-Aug-2004) to be set out at the Iowa City shops. Also, the 700s will apparently be sent out to the various crew terminals for training on the new hot start feature they’re equipped with, and after that…