Iowa Interstate
 |
|
| Reporting mark | IAIS |
|---|---|
| Locale | Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska |
| Dates of operation | 1984– |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
| Headquarters | Cedar Rapids, Iowa |
| Website | http://www.iaisrr.com/ |
The Iowa Interstate Railroad (reporting mark 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 Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific 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 former Rock Island signal system was already damaged beyond repair, so the trains were operated by warrant control. Trains are dispatched from the company's HQ in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where a new dispatching office was completed in 2016.
The Iowa Interstate is the only Class II railroad in the US that has connections to every Class I railroad, affording its customers a global reach not offered by other regional railroads.
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Wikipedia