We just returned from a road trip to Louisville Ky, and Cincinnati Oh. We took I-80 through Iowa. Both coming and going we stayed at the Holiday Inn Express in Le Claire Ia. Exit 306 gives you easy access. The place if far enough from the highway to avoid the noise. A balcony room lets you view the river from about 150 feet. The river was up and there was a lot of barge traffic. On the back side you are about 100 feet from well used RR tracks. They have ribbon rail though so fairly quiet but for the crossing 1/4 mile down. I saw CP rail use this and BNSF as well. A frontage road goes along the river which is great for that early morning walk, run or bike. Older homes here and a few newer ones creeping in too. The river flows surprisingly fast here even though there is a lock not far downstream. I did not take my camera but did see some short flat cars on the BNSF, about 40 foot max. possibly shorter. Loaded were three rolls of steel on each car about 5 foot wide. A bit unusual I thought. CP had a ton of loaded auto racks. These were heading north at this point. On the balcony side where we stayed, you can barely hear the trains if that bothers you. Food and drinks are walkable.
There was an interesting read in the Dubuque paper about the RR activity there. The CP, CN, and BNSF and a regional Wisconsin Southern all have trains through there. This is about 75 miles upriver from the Quad Cities. They did a study of hazardous preparedness. Quite a bit of Crude and Ethanol pass through here on a daily basis. Training was being offered at special schools for the regular and the volunteer responders. The article claimed that BNSF was reducing the distance between the wheel monitors in some areas to be as frequently as 25 miles apart. The Galesburg derailment was thought to be a broken wheel.
