The Rock Island used to have two different routes by this town. The route that ran parallel to the IC on the east side is now abandoned. The other RI route is now owned by UP. IC sold this western mainline, but then bought it back. It is now owned by CN.
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| Steven J. Brown posted Union Pacific 3985 is northbound on the former Rock Island Spine Line crossing the Illinois Central at Mills Tower in Iowa Falls, Iowa - June 19, 2002. https://www.iowafallshistoricalsociety.com/mills-tower |
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| Derek Buel commented on Steven's post Same spot in 2019 |
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| Mills Tower event Bill Molony shared |
The oldest high-resolution topo map is 1979, and the tower is already gone.
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| 1979 Iowa Falls West and East Quadrangles @ 1:24,000 |
I checked out a Sanborn Map, but the tower is east of the area it covers. Fortunately, "Mills Tower is the only interlocking tower left in Iowa, out of nearly 70 previously in operation at various times and places." [nps] In fact, it still has the train order signal. And it appears that neither CN nor UP insisted that the tower be moved. It is easy to see where the abandoned RI route used to run south of the tower.
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| Satellite plus Paint |
And we can still see the foundation of the RI roundhouse. As we can see on the topo map, the green land north of the roundhouse remnants used to be a RI railyard.
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| Satellite |
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| Street View |
A caboose is also being preserved.
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| Street View |
The town has also preserved the IC depot and freight house.
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