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Chicago, Rock Island And Pacific Railroad
The original Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad (CRI&P RW, sometimes called ''Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway'') was an American Class I railroad. It was also known as the Rock Island Line, or, in its final years, The Rock. At the end of 1970, it operated 7,183 miles of road on 10,669 miles of track; that year it reported 20,557 million ton-miles of revenue freight and 118 million passenger miles. (Those totals may or may not include the former Burlington-Rock Island Railroad.) The song "Rock Island Line", a spiritual from the late 1920s first recorded in 1934, was inspired by the railway. History Incorporation Its predecessor, the Rock Island and La Salle Railroad Company, was incorporated in Illinois on February 27, 1847, and an amended charter was approved on February 7, 1851, as the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad. Construction began in Chicago on October 1, 1851, and the first train was operated on October 10, 1852, between Chicago and Joliet, Illinoi ...
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Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the West South Central region of the Southern United States. It borders Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, and Oklahoma to the west. Its name derives from the Osage language, and refers to their relatives, the Quapaw people. The state's diverse geography ranges from the mountainous regions of the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains, which make up the U.S. Interior Highlands, to the densely forested land in the south known as the Arkansas Timberlands, to the eastern lowlands along the Mississippi River and the Arkansas Delta. Previously part of French Louisiana and the Louisiana Purchase, the Territory of Arkansas was admitted to the Union as the 25th state on June 15, 1836. Much of the Delta had been developed for cotton plantations, and landowners there largely depended on enslaved African Americans' labor. In 1861, Arkansas seceded from the United St ...
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Iowa Interstate Railroad
The Iowa Interstate Railroad is a Class II railroad, Class II regional railroad operating in the central United States. The railroad is owned by Railroad Development Corporation of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. History The railroad was formed on November 2, 1984, using former Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad rail tracks, tracks between Chicago, Illinois, and Omaha, Nebraska, four years after the Rock Island folded. It was in partnership with real estate firm Heartland Rail Corporation that the IAIS was able to operate. Heartland purchased the Right-of-way (railroad), right-of-way and infrastructure for United States dollar, $31 million (of which, $15 million was a loan from the Iowa Railway Finance Authority), and then leased it to IAIS for operations. The IAIS and the railroad infrastructure were purchased from Heartland by Railroad Development Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 2003. In recognition of the railroad's Rock Island Railroad heritage, the IAIS logo uses a ...
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Rock Island Line
"Rock Island Line" ( Roud 15211) was originally sung as a spiritual by slaves on the plantations of the Mississippi River Valley, and was first transcribed as a folk song in 1929. The first recording was made by John Lomax, who was traveling among the prisons of the American South to record the spirituals dating from the antebellum South before they were lost forever. Lomax met a remarkable Tenor named Huddie Ledbetter (who later performed under the name Lead Belly) at a prison in Louisiana in 1933 and helped secure Ledbetter’s release from prison. Lomax then traveled with Ledbetter to other prisons, recording the inmates of the Arkansas Cummins State Farm prison in 1934. This recording is sometimes identified as "Kelly Pace and Prisoners". Lead Belly first recorded his own, narrative version of the song in 1937, and numerous top musicians covered that version of the song, which was ostensibly about a train to New Orleans. However, there was a real train by that name that was ...
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Burlington-Rock Island Railroad
The Burlington-Rock Island Railroad was a joint railroad in Texas, United States. It came into existence on July 7, 1930, through the reorganization of its predecessor, the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway Company (T&BV), nicknamed the "Boll Weevil Line." Like its predecessor, the BRI was jointly owned by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q) and the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad (Rock Island), with each company owning half of the railroad. "It took its new name from the two owning systems and operated of track in 1930." In 1965, the BRI was foreclosed and its assets were divided evenly between the CB&Q and the Rock Island. In 1970, the CB&Q became part of the Burlington Northern Railroad, which assumed exclusive control of the former BRI after the Rock Island was liquidated in 1980, and fully absorbed the line in 1982. The line is now part of the BNSF Railway system. History The Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway (T&BV) was originally chartered on Oc ...
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Class I Railroad
Railroad classes are the system by which Rail freight transport, freight railroads are designated in the United States. Railroads are assigned to Class I, II or III according to annual revenue criteria originally set by the Surface Transportation Board in 1992. With annual adjustments for inflation, the 2019 thresholds were US$504,803,294 for Class I carriers and US$40,384,263 for Class II carriers. (Smaller carriers were Class III by default.) There are six Class I freight railroad companies in the United States: BNSF Railway, CSX Transportation, Canadian National Railway, CPKC, Norfolk Southern Railway, and Union Pacific Railroad. Canadian National also operates in Canada and CPKC operates in Canada and Mexico. In addition, the national passenger railroad in the United States, Amtrak, would qualify as Class I if it were a freight carrier, as would Canada's Via Rail passenger service. Mexico's Ferromex freight railroad would also qualify as Class I, but it does not operate with ...
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Chicago, Illinois
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of United States cities by population, third-most populous city in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles. As the county seat, seat of Cook County, Illinois, Cook County, the List of the most populous counties in the United States, second-most populous county in the U.S., Chicago is the center of the Chicago metropolitan area, often colloquially called "Chicagoland" and home to 9.6 million residents. Located on the shore of Lake Michigan, Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a Chicago Portage, portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, Mississippi River watershed. It grew rapidly in the mid-19th century. In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless, but ...
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Kyle Railroad
The Kyle Railroad is a regional railroad line that runs from North Central Kansas into Eastern Colorado. It is based in Phillipsburg, Kansas and runs on of track, mostly the former Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad's Chicago to Denver main line. The Kyle was owned by RailAmerica from 2002 to 2012. Genesee & Wyoming Inc. bought RailAmerica in late 2012. As of 2024, KYLE holds 508 total miles (89 in Colorado and 419 in Kansas), has a maximum capacity of 286,000 gross pounds per railcar. KYLE also has two interchanges with two railroads: BNSF at Courtland, Kansas and Concordia, Kansas, and Union Pacific at Limon, Colorado and Salina, Kansas. History The Kyle Railroad was formed for the 1982 northern Kansas harvest season by the Willis B. Kyle Organization, which consisted of several railroad properties, including the San Diego and Arizona Eastern Railway, the Oregon, Pacific and Eastern Railway, the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad and the Pend Oreille Valley ...
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Atchison, Topeka And Santa Fe Railway
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the largest Class 1 railroads in the United States between 1859 and 1996. The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport; at various times, it operated an airline, the short-lived Santa Fe Skyway, and the Santa Fe Railroad tugboats. Its bus line extended passenger transportation to areas not accessible by rail, and ferryboats on the San Francisco Bay allowed travelers to complete their westward journeys to the Pacific Ocean. The AT&SF was the subject of a popular song, Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer's " On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe", written for the film '' The Harvey Girls'' (1946). The railroad officially ceased independent operations on December 31, 1996, when it merged with the Burlington Northern Railroad to form the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway. History Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway The railroad was chartered in February 1859 ...
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Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad
The Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad was a Class I railroad company in the United States, with its last headquarters in Dallas, Texas. Established in 1865 under the name Union Pacific Railroad (UP), Southern Branch, it came to serve an extensive rail network in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri. In 1988, it merged with the Missouri Pacific Railroad; today, it is part of UP. In the 1890s, the MKT was commonly referred to as "the K-T", because for a time it was the Kansas–Texas division of the Missouri Pacific Railroad and "KT" was its abbreviation in timetables as well as its stock exchange symbol. This soon evolved into the nickname "the Katy". The Katy was the first railroad to enter Texas from the north. Eventually, the Katy's core system linked Parsons, Emporia, Fort Scott, Junction City, Olathe, and Kansas City, Kansas; Kansas City, Joplin, Columbia, McKittrick, Jefferson City, and St. Louis, Missouri; Tulsa, Wagoner; and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Dalla ...
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Southern Pacific Railroad
The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I Rail transport, railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the names Southern Pacific Railroad, Southern Pacific Company and Southern Pacific Transportation Company. The original Southern Pacific began in 1865 as a land holding company. The last incarnation of the Southern Pacific, the Southern Pacific Transportation Company, was founded in 1969 and assumed control of the Southern Pacific system. The Southern Pacific Transportation Company was acquired in 1996 by the Union Pacific Corporation and merged with their Union Pacific Railroad. The Southern Pacific legacy founded hospitals in San Francisco, Tucson, Arizona, Tucson, and Houston. In the 1970s, it also founded a telecommunications network with a state-of-the-art microwave and fiber optic backbone. This telec ...
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Burlington Northern Railroad
The Burlington Northern Railroad was a United States–based railroad company formed from a merger of four major U.S. railroads. Burlington Northern operated between 1970 and 1995. Its historical lineage begins in the earliest days of railroading with the chartering in 1848 of the Chicago and Aurora Railroad, a direct ancestor line of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, which lends Burlington, from Burlington, Iowa, to the names of various merger-produced successors. Burlington Northern acquired the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway on December 31, 1996, to form the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway (later renamed BNSF Railway), which was owned by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation. That corporation was purchased in 2009 by Berkshire Hathaway, which is controlled by investor Warren Buffett. History The Burlington Northern Railroad was the product of the merger of four major railroads: the Great Northern Railway (GN), the Northern Pacific Rai ...
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