A Brief Historical Overview of the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad

What follows is a brief, company-issued history of the Rock Island Lines. It was one of the introductory sections of the "Yard Clerical Manual" issued by the RI around 1970. The manual, from the collection of Alan Kline, was apparently intended to serve as an introduction to the company, as well as to the duties of a yard clerk, and also included a review of the company's geography and route structure.

The history is presented here as it appeared in the Yard Clerical Manual.

We're delighted to see that our comments seem to have attracted some attention at FEMA. Looking through our server logs, I noticed quite a few hits yesterday from a user accessing our site from "mwpoker-1.fema.gov". Strangely enough, they looked at the home page and spent about 5 minutes looking over the pictures of our cats, but didn't go to the Hancher Auditorium comments. Hmm. This wasn't a random hit--the referrer was a Google search for us by name and city. The visitor came back about three hours later for a quick look.

Aren't you glad our Federal taxes are being used in such an effective way? You don't suppose that maybe they should actually be helping people? Naahhh... that would require some actual work.

Anyway, FEMA Person: KC, Lacey, and Callie say hi. They hope you liked their pictures...

UPDATE, 9/10/10: The mysterious FEMA person keeps coming back...I wonder why???