I’m used to life imitating art, but this could be a case of art imitating life.
Eight years after I was forced to abandon my version of the IAIS Grimes Line, the Iowa Interstate and Norfolk Southern have formally filed to abandon the real thing.
The writing has been on the wall, as traffic levels have dropped year over year to the point that revenue from the line was less than half the cost to operate it. As the saying goes… that math ain’t mathing.
But still, it’s upsetting to see the line that introduced me to the Iowa Interstate in the first place hit the scrapper’s torch. I’ve mentioned numerous times that my decision to model the line stemmed from starting a new job where I crossed over the line on a daily basis. My success and notoriety in this hobby are a direct result of that choice.
The Iowa Interstate clearly isn’t going anywhere, and trains will still traverse the main through Des Moines. But the days of chasing a single GP38-2 through the streets are unfortunately over.
Thank you, Grimes Line. You were a mighty fine line.
The Hills Line 
That is how I felt when IAIS removed the tracks in my hometown of Pella. My ancestors lived by the tracks and my dad was born by them. I did get to ride the last mixed train on the Rock Island and got to name the locomotive (4376 P. H. Kuyper).
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