Shockingly, by 1967 Rock Island’s timetable had shrunk to a four-panel brochure, each panel about 4″x9″, thus making it about the same size as the 1964 condensed timetable. This was probably the last timetable listing the Golden State, which would make its last run in April, 1968. Despite declining ridership, Rock Island-Southern Pacific still charged an extra fare for that train, which this timetable calls a “special service charge.”
Click image to download an 1.2-MB PDF of this 4-page timetable.
Trains 5 & 6, once called the Des Moines Rocket, had been cut back to Rock Island. Yesterday’s timetable still had two trains a day between Chicago and Omaha, 7 & 8, the Corn Husker, and 9 & 10, the Corn Belt Rocket. This timetable cut that back to one unnamed train a day each way, but perhaps to share the credit the trains are numbered 7 & 10.
Trains 15 & 16, the former Kansas City Rocket, is gone, leaving 17 & 18, the Plainsman, in the Minneapolis-Kansas City corridor. The train still has a through chair car (but not a sleeper) to Los Angeles. The only other trains on the timetable are the twice-a-day Peoria Rocket.
Most of the trains offered food services: the Golden State, Chicago-Rock Island trains, Plainsman, and one of the two Peoria trains carried a club diner, whatever that was, while the Chicago-Omaha trains had a snack beverage car.
Click image to download an 530-KB PDF of this 2-page timetable.
As if the 1967 timetable wasn’t small enough, by 1970 Rock Island’s timetable had been cut in half again so it only consisted of a 4″x9″ card. Only two trains were left: one called the Peorian between Chicago and Peoria and one unnamed train between Chicago and Rock Island. They were later renamed the Peoria Rocket and Quad Cities Rocket.
The Rock Island train had two numbers: 5 & 6 between Chicago and Bureau and 9 & 10 between Bureau and Rock Island. But the timetable indicates that only one set of equipment was used. That equipment included chair cars, a club diner, and a parlor car. The Peorian was similarly equipped. Both trains travelled at dinner time westbound and breakfast time east bound. In addition, Rock Island still had Chicago commuter trains, but they had their own timetables.
Rock Island discontinued its trains to Omaha and other cities just before this timetable. When Congress passed the legislation creating Amtrak, it gave railroads a choice of joining Amtrak by paying an amount equal to their 1970’s passenger train losses or continuing to run their trains for two more years. Since Rock Island had been running a lot more trains before this timetable, it decided that joining Amtrak would be more expensive than running these two trains for two more years. It may have regretted this as the state of Illinois cajoled the railroad into running the trains until the end of 1978.