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Iowa, Chicago and Eastern Railroad

former railway company

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 13, 2025
Entity authorityQ11864993 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Iowa, Chicago and Eastern Railroad (IC&E) (reporting mark ICE) was a Class II railroad operating in the north central United States. It has been controlled by the Canadian Pacific Railway and operated as a part of its system since October 30, 2008. Formerly, the IC&E was jointly owned with the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad by Cedar American Rail Holdings (CARH), making the combined system the largest class II railroad in the United States. Created by the purchase of I&M Rail Link, IC&E commenced operations on July 30, 2002. The 1,400-mile (2,300 km) line, based in Davenport, Iowa, serves the states of Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Principal commodities include chemicals, coal, steel, automobiles, and agricultural products. Train dispatching is performed at a joint DM&E/IC&E facility in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. On December 26, 2008, the IC&E was merged into parent CARH, which immediately merged into the DM&E.

History

The IC&E was formed in 2002 to take over the operations of the I&M Rail Link (IMRL). The Illinois and the majority of the Iowa portions of the ICE were originally part of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (Milwaukee Road).

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Iowa, Chicago and Eastern Railroad” is former railway company. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Iowa, Chicago and Eastern, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful synthesis for locating the documentary relationships between formal authority, participants and affected communities. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2008, 2002—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Iowa, Chicago and Eastern is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “former railway company” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q11864993. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2008 and 2002.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Iowa, Chicago and Eastern Railroad”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Iowa, Chicago and Eastern Railroad primary sources, Iowa, Chicago and Eastern Railroad archive and Iowa research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Iowa, Chicago and Eastern Railroad”?
  2. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Iowa, Chicago and Eastern Railroad” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.