Here is a 2015 Map showing the railroads still working in Iowa

(Click to enlarge)

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Map showing Iowa's Abandoned Railroads and dates of Abandonment

(You may click to enlarge for easier reading.  Each railroad line is color coded to indicate date of abandonment.)

(Click to enlarge)

     Iowa railroads are known for traveling through flat, open countryside and farmland as far as the eye can see.   The state is rich in railroad history, and even today is home to several important main lines, particularly those heading east and west.   Historically, the state was rife with agricultural branches handling everything from grain and corn to beans and animal feed.   Iowa then as now defines the Heartland.   Thousands of miles of tracks were laid down to serve the state's thousands of farms.   In fact, too much trackage was laid down.   When trucks began taking this business from railroads, numerous branches became redundant and unprofitable, resulting in thousands of miles pulled up.   Today, the state contains only about 40% of its peak rail mileage and you can see abandoned rights-of-way litter farm fields from east to west.

In the early 1900's, there were close to 30 trains a day through Jewell, some on the east-west lines to and from Radcliffe and Stratford, but most on the north-south line to and from Eagle Grove and Des Moines.

In 2022 there are fewer trains, about one per day, but today's trains are heavier, longer, and carry their consist over the heaviest rail ever on what the Union Pacific calls the "Jewell Sub."

The Jewell subdivision is 97.2 miles long.  It leaves the mainline at Ames (on the west side of Grand Avenue immediately west of Wheatsfield Cooperative Grocery) and then ends at the State Line Cooperative near Burt just south of the Minnesota state line.

These several photos show that during November 2022 and the weeks ahead a large tie-gang is setting out new wooden ties, 66,000 of them, from Ames to milepost 30.0, just north of Kamrar.

Workers' cars park on railroad property alongside the mainline in Jewell along with UP trucks and rail cars loaded with the new ties.  More equipment is stored on side-tracks in Randall and on POET tracks north of Jewell.  Often times snow stops this work because the track-men cannot find the tie plates when they are covered with snow.

Though the number of trains is a shadow of the former days, the importance of this single-track line from Ames to Eagle Grove and branches north to Goldfield, Emmetsburg, Estherville, Superior, Kanawha and trackage rights to Hartley remains.