Iowa
Interstate Railroad - (en)
The Iowa Interstate Railroad (AAR reporting marks IAIS) is a Class II
railroad operating in the central United States. The railroad is owned by
Railroad Development Corporation of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The railroad was formed on November 2, 1984, using former Rock Island
Railroad tracks between Chicago, Illinois, and Omaha, Nebraska. It was in
partnership with real estate firm Heartland Rail Corporation that the IAIS
was able to operate. Heartland purchased the right-of-way and
infrastructure for $31 million (of which, $15 million was a loan from the
Iowa Railway Finance Authority), and then leased it to IAIS for operations.
The railroad's mainline is roughly a straight line between these two
terminal cities with a branch line connecting Bureau to Peoria, Illinois.
In recognition of the railroad's Rock Island Railroad heritage, the IAIS
logo uses a shape similar to the original railroad's logo.
Operations on the railroad are controlled by track warrants rather than
signals. When the IAIS took control of the track, the signal system was
already damaged beyond repair, so the trains were operated by warrant
control. A centralized traffic control system has yet to be installed on
the railroad's mainline.
Beginning in the mid 1990s, the IAIS mainline has been identified as a
potential route for high speed passenger train service between Wyanet,
Illinois (where the IAIS connects to the BNSF Railway), the Quad Cities
and Iowa City, Iowa, as part of the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative (MRRI).
The ultimate goal of the MRRI is to establish passenger train routes in a
hub-and-spoke formation with Chicago as the hub that allow for speeds up
to and above 110 mph (177 km/h). However, estimates made in 2003 to
upgrade the IAIS mainline to allow passenger train speeds of 79 mph (127
km/h) between Wyanet and Iowa City have ranged as high as $61.7 million,
nearly double the right of way's initial purchase price from 1984.
The IAIS and the railroad infrastructure were purchased from Heartland by
Railroad Development Corporation in 2003.
IAIS subsidiary Rail Traffic Control provides consulting services for
dispatching and operating small- to medium-sized railroads worldwide.
