Iowa, Chicago & Eastern Railroad HO Scale Models

The Iowa, Chicago and Eastern Railroad was a Class II regional carrier whose origins traced back through several layers of corporate history to the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, commonly known as the Milwaukee Road. After the Milwaukee Road's bankruptcy and collapse, the Soo Line Railroad, itself a Canadian Pacific subsidiary, acquired the Illinois and Iowa portions of the system in 1986 and operated them as part of its network. Canadian Pacific eventually absorbed the Soo Line entirely, bringing those midwestern lines under direct CP control. Facing persistent operating losses on the northern Illinois and Iowa segments, Canadian Pacific elected to divest the property in 1997, and a new operator called I&M Rail Link purchased the lines and took over service. I&M Rail Link, backed by the Washington Corporation, struggled to generate the returns its owners had anticipated, and by 2002 the decision was made to sell the operation. The Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad acquired the assets and reconstituted the property as the Iowa, Chicago and Eastern Railroad, which commenced operations on July 30, 2002, with its headquarters established in Davenport, Iowa. The railroad operated approximately 1,400 route miles across Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin, hauling a diverse mix of commodities including chemicals, coal, steel, automobiles, and agricultural products. Train dispatching for both the IC&E and its corporate sibling, the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern, was handled from a shared facility in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and together the two railroads constituted the largest Class II railroad system in the United States under their joint parent, Cedar American Rail Holdings. Where its two immediate predecessors had struggled financially, the IC&E managed to operate profitably, and the railroad achieved steady growth over the roughly six years it existed as an independent entity. This success drew the attention of Canadian Pacific, which announced in September 2007 its intention to acquire both the IC&E and the DM&E along with Cedar American Rail Holdings. The purchase represented a notable strategic reversal, as Canadian Pacific was effectively reacquiring lines it had sold off less than a decade earlier. The United States Surface Transportation Board approved the transaction in September 2008, and Canadian Pacific assumed operational control on October 30, 2008. On December 26, 2008, the IC&E was formally merged into Cedar American Rail Holdings, which was then immediately merged into the DM&E, bringing the Iowa, Chicago and Eastern's brief independent existence to a close. The IC&E's legacy is largely one of demonstrating that a regional operator with focused management could wring profitability from a corridor that larger Class I ownership had found unworkable. The lines it operated were subsequently folded into Canadian Pacific's broader network, and when Canadian Pacific completed its acquisition of Kansas City Southern in December 2021 and the two systems merged in April 2023 to form Canadian Pacific Kansas City, the former IC&E trackage became part of one of the continent's major transcontinental railroad systems. The locomotives the railroad operated, many of them rebuilt EMD SD40-2s in a distinctive blue and yellow paint scheme carrying the names of towns along the route, became a fondly remembered element of the railroad's identity among enthusiasts and residents of the communities it served.