My dad has talked about trips he took by train from Washington DC to visit relatives in Storm Lake, Iowa in the late 1950s. He does not remember what train he took, as he was in elementary school at the time. Does anyone know what train might have run from Chicago to Storm Lake?
The last train to serve Storm Lake, IA was the Hawkeye, an Illinois Central train that ran from Chicago to Sioux City on an overnight trip that stopped at Storm Lake westbound at around 10:40AM and eastbound at 7:25PMin 1950s. It carried Pullman cars from Chicago to Waterloo and Chicago to Sioux City as well as coaches. It actually ran until April 30,1971 the last day of most private railroad service before Amtrak took over on May 1, 1971. It was down to a coach only operation by that time. At one time, the Hawkeye was known as Hawkeye Limited and had through cars from Chicago to Omaha and Sioux Falls, SD as well as Sioux City. It was a posh operation back in the 1920s and before.
Back in the 1950s you could travel to almost any town of any size in Iowa by train. I lived in Peoria, IL until I was in 6th grade. We used to travel from Peoria to Council Bluffs, Iowa to visit my Grandmother in the 1950s. Our main choices of railroads were the Rock Island via Bureau Jct, Il or the Burlington via Galesburg, Il and both railroads had several trains to choose from. For something different, we also went via Chicago and took the Northwestern once and the Milwaukee Road another time. My mother grew up in the small town of Neola, Iowa, 26 miles east of Council Bluffs. In the 1950s, both the Rock Island and Milwaukee had trains stopping there.