Rock Island Rooster DVD

Click to enlargeNote: Cover image may differ from actual product

QJs have come to America! Only nine months following their retirement from the world's last steam operated mainline in northern China, doubleheaded 2-10-2s pulled several excursions and a freight train along former Rock Island rails near the quad cities.

Here you will see #6988 and #7081, which hauled the last freight and passenger runs on the Jitong Railway, being overhauled and loaded onto the ship in Dalian. Then, watch as the locomotives and tenders are hoisted out of the dark hold in Houston. The scene then shifts to the activities of September 14-18, 2006. Go trackside and on board for trips to Iowa City, then Bureau with the addition of Milwaukee 4-8-4 #261, and finally Muscatine, along the upper Mississippi. Watch from atop the 1896 government bridge! Railroad development corporation, and Iowa Interstate, chairman Henry Posner III talks about how the project came to be, and some of the challenges involved. These trips formed the centerpiece of "Riverway 2006", celebrating 150 years of the first bridge across the Mississippi. Historical vignettes of Rock Island Lines and Milwaukee Road help fill out the story of this landmark event.