A Mighty Fine Road: A History of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Company

This is a good solid history of the Rock. The road died basically because too much of its traffic was agricultural, its lines between cities were frequently the longest, its use of trackage rights (instead of construction) to get into major cities deprived it of access to shippers, it paid too much in dividends instead of investments in the road, most of the line's routes had little traffic, and it suffered from several very poor managements (the notorious Reid-Moore Syndicate for one). The only previous history was William Hayes "Iron Road to Empire" in 1953. Hayes worked as a writer and finished as a publicist and his book is a popular history. i haven't looked at my copy for years but surprisingly Grant used it frequently as a source. There's no bibliography but Grant has an extensive list of notes and references. Grant was able to carry the road's history through its bankruptcy and liquidation. The book is well edited with few mistakes. I'm surprised Grant didn't mention the Dust Bowl's effects on the road as its lines in Kansas and Oklahoma must have been heavily affected, and his history of the road's shutdown is different than I remember (I believe LBJ embargoed the road at the request of the labor unions). There are lots of photos although surprisingly (maybe it's too common) there is no picture of the Samson of the Cimarron bridge. The book gets four stars because of its maps. They are almost all printed on only 1/3rd of a page and so are illegible and almost useless. This is particularly unfortunate with the 1932 traffic density map on p. 163. The two timetable maps are printed so badly that they remind me of Lucius Beebe's comment in a book review that the photos in that book looked like an Indian blanket had been used for a filter. Why the publisher did not just rotate the maps 90 degrees and print them on a full page is beyond me.

Histories of some of the CRI&P's competitors e.g., UP, Santa Fe and the CB&Q) offer more extensive accounts, but this book provides a relatively compact review of the story of a line that started out with considerable promise but later became one of the major victims of the decline of railroads in the mid-twentieth century. Pieces of the Rock Island have survived in the form of regional carriers that still provide important access to the national rail network now dominated by a half dozen major systems.

I worked for the Rick Island Railroad until it closed. Love this book.

A very interesting and easy read filled with solid information as well as colorful anecdotes. Interesting photos and maps. Good book

I am really enjoying this book; it is well written and thorough.John the train buff

A mighty fine read about my favorite railroad. TONS of history and background of the business decisions that built (and eventually doomed) "The Rock".

Great addition to my collection

As Chairman of the railroad that claims the title “The Rock Island Line” (Iowa Interstate, which inherited the bulk of the original Rock Island main line from Chicago to Omaha), I am way overdue in submitting my review of this book. My excuse is that I wanted to write a proper review after noting the best parts, which I do by putting post- it notes on the most important pages. My copy now bristles with post- it notes, so rather than “double the hill” on other reviews I will make the following highly-selective comments.1. It is comprehensive, detailed and with extensive notes2. The notes themselves introduce additional resources, such as the existence of a two volume privately published history of Henry Crown, the railroad’s most high profile and controversial investor in its final years3. The author’s scholarly style did not prohibit him from making his own colorful comments that put the Rock Island in its final years in context, such as “a transportation slum”; “a corner of the basement by itself”, etc.4. Evidence of the author’s detailed research include referencing the cockroaches which were a feature of LaSalle street station in its final years. As they were albino cockroaches, having evolved per folklore in the darkness of the abandoned boiler house, this caused a flashback the biggest regret of my own brief employment there during the summer of 1976, which is that I did not save one for posterity.I will close by agreeing with other reviewers that a shortcoming is a lack of maps, which forces the reader to flip between text and whatever map resources might be at hand: this is a suggestion for the next version of this excellent and comprehensive workHenry Posner IIIChairmanIowa Interstate Railroad

As is usual, Prof. Grant writes a clear and what appears to be a well-balanced short history of the railroad. My only advice, though, is to have a GOOD atlas handy when reading it, as the maps are non-existent in the book yet there are a LOT of place names mentioned. There are reproductions of a few system maps in the illustrations but the print on them is so small that I literally had to get a magnifying glass to read it. But with a good atlas at hand, the book was a pleasure to read.

When publication of this book was announced, I was sufficiently excited to rush to pre-order and undoubtedly paid more than was wise, especially for a hard back that isn't properly bound and therefore will probably lose its pages like a cheap paper-back.That aside, I enjoyed the book greatly. Mr Grant's style is a bit clunky and academic; but who cares, he churns out solidly researched, interesting histories and I, for one, am very grateful for that.Apart from general railway history, my knowledge of the Rock Island was limited to Bill Marvel's disappointing "The Rock Island Line" and Gregory Schneider's excellent "Rock Island Requiem", of which only the first-named pretended to be a cradle to grave history, but did so in rather skimpy style. Grant's book therefore fills a significant void and does it well.The book is a fairly substantial read, but comfortable within 280-odd pages of text and masses of references. It covers all line openings and the reasons for them, with brief potted histories of the Rock Island's predecessors and interesting portraits of historical events, taking the tale right up to the final bankruptcy and its legacy.The history is quite 'corporate' in style with short biographies of the leading personalities (so typical of Grant) which help fashion an image of the qualities and experience each individual brought to the railroad. Being corporate, it also focuses on the complex issues of finance and regulation, and covers well the disastrous Moore interregnum which so damaged the capital base of the railroad that it never quite recovered from the over-capitalization they foisted on the company. The attention given to the contributions of various top dogs in the company is helpful, though I feel there is a little too much eulogizing over J D Farrington's contribution, given that he failed, as the author points out, to actually deal with the on-line industrial weaknesses that ultimately brought the line to ruin. I also think a little more attention might have been given to the work of Downing Jenks, who went from the presidency of the Rock Island to the unfancied Missouri Pacific and arguably turned it into the nation's finest road - one which, unlike the Rock Island, the Union Pacific really did want to buy. The book would also have benefited from a few tables of operational and financial performance over the longer period.Other reviewers have raised the issue of poor maps, and I must agree with them, something the experienced railway-history publisher, Indiana University Press, should have spotted and remedied. Another minor textual complaint is the reference to states by colloquial names, which this UK-based reader found a little tedious.Those readers with a fascination for the line's passenger services will probably like the attention given to them, as well as the illustrations (all black and white unfortunately), but the railroad was always going to live or die through its freight services and these are not half so well covered. However, I did appreciate Grant's avoidance the common obsession for endless discussion about locomotives - how refreshing, its absence gives the book a better balance than some other writers achieve.But this is a general history of the line, it cannot satisfy all demands, and overall it is a fine work: I would not want my minor criticisms to detract too much from what will undoubtedly be seen as the standard work on the line. The Rock Island has many friends still and I expect the book to sell well and satisfy all but the most demanding of readers.

I recently rode on the IAIS which is the former Rock Island and bought this book to understand more about the Rock Island. It is dull as ditchwater and very poorly reproduced - all images are black and white and grainy - how sad that the author made such an effort and the publisher let him down so badly.