INDIANAPOLIS — The Iowa Traction Railway has received the inaugural “Outstanding Railroad Historic Preservation Award,” presented Monday at the opening day of Railway Interchange by the National Railway Historical Society in conjunction with the magazines Railway Age and Railway Track & Structures. The award honors a North American common-carrier railroad for a historically significant preservation project.
The first day of the event at the Indiana Convention Center also saw two significant engineering awards handed out as part of the 2023 American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association Annual Conference, being held in conjunction with Railway Interchange.
Iowa Traction, purchased in 2012 by Progressive Rail from prior owner Dave Johnson, operates weekdays on about 10 miles of track in Mason City, Iowa, with a group of vintage electric locomotives, the newest of which is 100 years old. Johnson and current Iowa Traction Roadmaster Mike Rumeliote accepted the award.
“People in Mason City wondered if I was a fool or a visionary,” said Johnson, who purchased the railroad in 1987. “I told them neither; we’ll just have to see. A little of both, I guess. I had it for 25 years. It was more than a job to me. I retired when I was 70 because my wife thought I should … If I had it do to over again, I wouldn’t have retired. I’d still be doing it.”
Also nominated for the preservation award were the Arkansas & Missouri Railroad, for its excursion trains using vintage passenger cars and historic Alco locomotives; the Everett Railroad, which offers excursion trains using restored vintage passenger cars and two steam locomotives; Reading & Northern, for the restoration of Reading Co. 4-8-4 No. 2102 as part of its extensive passenger operation; and Union Pacific for its restoration and operation of Big Boy 4-8-8-4 No. 4014.
Engineering awards
During the opening general session of the AREMA meeting, AREMA awarded the 2023 Dr. William W. Hay Award for Excellence — for outstanding achievement in railway engineering — to the Merchants Bridge Replacement project completed last year by the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis and its contractors [see “St. Louis celebrates reopening of Merchants Bridge,” Trains News Wire, Sept. 16, 2022], a four-year, $222 million project to replace a Mississippi River crossing dating to 1889.
The Merchants Bridge project was selected from a group of nine nominees, based on three criteria: safety, innovation, and service performance and reliability.
The Engineer of the Year award, presented by Railway Track & Structures, went to Brent Lang, vice president of engineering at Canadian National.
