The Iowa Divide: Railroads of America 1

www.pedestrians.org
Don Wetmore takes us along on a day of rail fanning in Nebraska and Iowa. We start in Omaha, where we catch Amtrak's California Zephyr stopping at the old Burlington Station and several freight trains with the Burlington Northern and Union Pacific Railroads. We also watch KLine containers being unloaded from a doublestack train at the Union Pacific piggyback yard.
Then we head over to the Missouri Valley, Iowa, railroad yard. We make our way east along the Chicago and North Western tracks up the Boyer River Valley to the Iowa Divide, photographing numerous C&NW trains along the way. We also watch a maintenance crew on the nearby tracks for the Chicago Central and Pacific Railroad.
Filmed in April, 1993.
Produced by John Z Wetmore, producer of "Perils For Pedestrians".

[@dcwarr14]

The rail environment in the Omaha area was far more interesting then than it is today. I greatly enjoyed this look back.

[@mikem7599]

Nice show. I worked West Iowa a lot in 93

[@johannesmohner8695]

This is very entertaining and exciting. Thank you. Regards John from Germany

[@gailyncookMilwRR]

Great videos! History of Trains help us remember how things used to be. This reminded of growing up in Sioux City, Ia. I have been through most of those locations in the 60s & 70s. After a short career on the Milwaukee RR running from Sioux City to Mitchell SD couple of times. Until Milwaukee went away then, I enlisted in the USAF and have been in Texas since then. Most of my videos were shot in Dallas & Ft. Worth area. New Sub👍

[@tonyjanney1654]

Thank you for the upload. I noticed this was filmed in 1993. I noticed a lot of "Fallen Flags" on the rolling stock.

[@lcar4000]

Nice to see those CNW engines again

[@MrZeldalove]

Those raked out SD40-2's with the six long axles and stretched porches, look intimidating and are the best looking freight locomotives built. Union Pacific had over 600 of them (including the straight, shorter SD40's) and Burlington Northern had over 800. It proved itself a tough and reliable locomotive.

[@stevenmetzger3385]

Thank you, John!!!

[@JohnZWetmore]

You are welcome.

[@captainmorgan757]

At 13:33, "... a bottle neck trying to figure out where the trains are to go...". Twenty-six years later and still nothing has changed!

[@johnruskin4330]

Informative and well presented...enjoyed cheers

[@djcb4190]

My uh whole hobby started with a passion of video games.

[@josephjoestar3275]

Pretty cool seeing my territory in the "old" yellow days. First trip I ever took I ran out of hours at the Boyer river crossing, lol.

[@jalilmuhammad8270]

This is now the Union Pacific line that connects to the original UP in Omaha.

[@markgilbertson4917]

Great railroading time machine. Love your video's. Great commentary.

[@JohnZWetmore]

Thank you. Glad you liked it.

[@garysprandel1817]

9:43 former CGW company service tank car

[@scoobycarr5558]

Excellent observation!

[@OmahaTom]

Great coverage! The zephyr used to be so much longer! I have a bunch of Omaha rail footage on my channel too!

[@martindoyle831]

Great video. Good commentary ☺

[@JohnZWetmore]

Thanks.

[@rickknight8950]

great.

[@stansmith4054]

Railroads were far more interesting in the '80s and 90's as compared to today.

[@johannesmohner8695]

Okay , but why is this your sight ? Regards John from Germany

[@stansmith4054]

@@johannesmohner8695 It is simply my opinion. One of my reasons is that there were many more railroad companies around then. You also had some cool companies like Chessie and then ConRail.

[@johannesmohner8695]

@@stansmith4054 ah okay now I understand. Yeah heading to the 2000's the most smaller Companies went in to mergers to a cooperation. So they are only Giants left , am I right ? I saw a documentary about. Okay I got u now... Regards John from Germany

[@stansmith4054]

@@johannesmohner8695 Ja. You are correct. In addition, almost all locomotives (and autos for that matter) look alike these days. This is quite boring! I am sorry I cannot speak German. I can only speak English, Dutch, and Afrikaans. Your English is quite good by the way. Greetings from Michigan, U.S.

[@johannesmohner8695]

@@stansmith4054 Thank you stan. It doesnt matter. Have you immigrated from South Africa when you speak Africaans abd dutch ? Or did your Ancestors did so ? I have Familiy in London and Melbourne, so its necessary to own fluent language skills. I live in Mainz, Metropolitan of Rhineland Palatine :)

[@cementer7665]

Between Logan and Woodbine, the former Illinois Central (CCP) passes under the CNW (UP), and at Arion, IA, the little town, where I believe the trackwork was being done, was where the Milwaukee once crossed both the CNW and the IC, at one time there was a tower there. If you had went further east to Carrol, the Chicago Great Western once crossed the CNW there in town.

[@thairatcatcher]

A very well paced, informative video with a narration for a change from watching 110 coal cars rumble by. An obviously older video since most of the freight cars are graffiti free. job well done

[@JohnZWetmore]

Thanks. It was filmed in April, 1993.

[@kingdoughnut7244]

Many of those CNW GEs are owned by Canadian National today, in CN paint. At 14:48.

[@EdmontonRails]

Great production :)

[@JohnZWetmore]

Thanks.

[@admydragon]

Bless that little GP9, loudest unit in that coal train.

[@moparguy1000]

Great video. It was nice to see cars without graffiti

[@JohnZWetmore]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@blueticecho5690]

It was nice to see that old BN hog head.. Good job here..

[@stevechurch2222]

please dhow us some more videos I really enjoyed this one

[@JohnZWetmore]

Glad you liked it. We plan to do some more in the future. Perhaps late next year if Covid-19 is under control by then.

[@stansmith4054]

Do they still load piggy back cars like that today?

[@scoobycarr5558]

I wonder if this stacking of reefer boxes from Omaha to Japan still happens on UP

[@canyontiger4022]

It does. Most of this is handled by TSL, UP and IAIS in Council Bluffs, IA.

[@rooseveltmccarter3894]

What happened to the Caboose's? We're they retired or scrapped as well as transfer trains?

[@canyontiger4022]

BN still uses cabeese on many of their locals and transfer trains out of Gibson Yard. The shove showed in the video is still a nightly occurrence.

[@kitiowa]

I get a kick out of the auto scribe writing yeah for the train horn.

[@scoobycarr5558]

Does the loading of Nebraska beef in shipping containers to Japan on Union Pacific in Omaha still happen today?

[@JohnZWetmore]

Yes, the Iowa Interstate loads them in Council Bluffs and delivers them to the UP.

[@scoobycarr5558]

+John Z Wetmore OK thanks for the info

[@JohnZWetmore]

You're welcome.

[@nickygaming1911]

11:18 what type of railroad crossing is that?

[@garysprandel1817]

Griswold. Same outfit famous for the rotating stop sign signals

[@nickygaming1911]

@@garysprandel1817 you mean it's kind of similar towards to the wig wag?

[@garysprandel1817]

@@nickygaming1911 similar rarity but it was kind of the next step in crossing protection. Easier to show you but if you search Griswold railroad crossing there's several other videos including the original form of the gate you asked about. kzbin.info/www/bejne/o3bbmqChgb9qjMU

[@BNSF2184]

Too many clips of him rambling and not enough clips of trains!

[@lydmik]

this must be before ditch lights were req'd

[@JohnZWetmore]

This was filmed in 1993. The FRA issued their rules requiring ditch lights in 1996.

[@lydmik]

thx...enjoyed the video!

[@larryrwendelljr4465]

Nice video, but you need to correct your spelling, LOL :o)

[@tonderen1615]

Poor subtitles!

[@JohnZWetmore]

Those were the Automatic subtitles from KZbin, which can be quite unreliable when you have a noisy environment like next to a passing train. I have gone in and made manual corrections. Although I kind of hated to take out lines like: "KY in containers for Nebraska be for the west coast"

[@stansmith4054]

I'm guessing that you are not allowed to film train yards today due to terrorism laws.