Excuse my refusal to look it up, but what was the Rock Island railroad?

from 1845 to 1980,It was a railroad that had trackage extending from Minneapolis to Galveston and from Denver to Chicago.

They had a lot of trackage in Iowa, and served quite a few grain elevators along their lines. Some of this track is still operated by shortlines like Iowa Interstate, other sections are simply gone.

Map http://www.american-rails-forums.co.....ilroad-map.jpg

They started the railroad in Rock Island Illinois, and had large shops in Silvis, IL, and El Reno, OK.

Their locomotives and cars went through a wide variety of paint schemes, with the biggest change coming in 1975 with the creation of THE ROCK blue and white, also known as bankruptcy blue. -my favorite is bankruptcy blue.

Paint schemes: http://www.rockisl.com/PaintSchemes.....intSchemes.htm

Their passenger trains were called Rockets, so you can kind of see where my name came from :)