The Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad, also known as the Rock Island line or simply the Rock, was a major midwestern carrier. From an eastern terminus in Chicago its heavily trafficked main stem stretched west across Iowa to the important gateway and interchange city of Omaha, Nebraska. It continued west across northern Kansas to reach Denver and Colorado Springs. Minneapolis, Kansas City, Memphis, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Houston, Little Rock, and St. Louis were all connected by the rails of the Rock Island line. In 1948, when the Rock emerged from its Depression-era bankruptcy, those rails were shining due to the ample freight traffic and luxurious, streamlined Rocket passenger trains that rolled over them. Yet less than thirty years later, far too many of those same rails were rusty and in disrepair as the railroad faced bankruptcy yet again, and this time there was no reprieve.

The Rock Island is hardly the only American railroad to have faced difficulty in the 1960s and 1970s. Burdened with onerous regulation, declining passenger revenues, and closing mills and factories, many once-prosperous railroads—such as the Pennsylvania, New York Central, and Milwaukee Road—all faced bankruptcy. But the decline and fall of the Rock Island is perhaps the most compelling story of them all. Gregory L. Schneider writes an eminently readable and exhaustively researched tale of the shattering of the Rock.

Like all great tragedies, the book is organized into three acts. The first act, titled “Merger,” explores the ill-fated proposed merger of the Rock Island with the Union Pacific Railroad. In five chapters, Schneider takes us on a journey from 1948 and the initial postwar prosperity of the Rock Island through the tumultuous 1950s and the early 1960s decision to pursue a merger with the powerful and (relatively) prosperous Union Pacific. While the merger made business and operating sense to both parties, other midwestern and western railroads opposed it, worried they would lose out in any consolidation. The Union Pacific agreed to split the Rock Island with the Southern Pacific, each getting lines that would expand its range eastward to important midwestern gateway cities like Kansas City and Chicago. Other regional railroads would not jump on board. The Chicago and North Western (C&NW) was especially vocal in its opposition because it foresaw being surrounded by hostile connections. The merger went off to the Interstate Commerce Commission for regulatory approval, and there it stayed for ten years. When it was finally approved in 1974, with major concessions, the Union Pacific no longer wanted the rapidly declining Rock Island, which had been operating in the red for almost a decade. With no white knight coming to save the Rock Island, it entered bankruptcy.

The second act, titled “Bankruptcy,” explores the period from 1975 when the railroad declared bankruptcy to 1980 when the end finally came and the trains stopped running. Again in five chapters, Schneider takes us from 1975 to 1980, from the initial bankruptcy filing through valiant but futile reorganization efforts to the eventual (perhaps inevitable) time the trains stopped. With no other railroads coming to rescue the Rock Island, federal help—perhaps similar to what was happening with the ruins of the Penn Central in the East—may have been an option. But Schneider explains how the Ford administration and others were cool to any sort of federal bailout. The Rock Island was not “too big to fail.” Despite a valiant effort from the bankruptcy trustee, William Gibbons, and Rock Island management, fail is exactly what the railroad did, but not until five years later. Ironically, the seeds of the late-twentieth-century railroad renaissance were being sown while the Rock Island was slowly expiring. The Staggers Act that deregulated the railroads was signed in October 1980—just a little too late to possibly save the Rock Island.

The third and final act is titled “Liquidation.” As may be surmised, the disposition of property and the resolution of debts are its main topics. But while the first two parts of the book chronicle the downward spiral of the Rock Island, this one describes what the author calls “one of the more successful corporate liquidations in history” (p. 254). After arguments that reached the Supreme Court were decided in the creditors’ favor, liquidation of the Rock Island's many assets proceeded relatively quickly. Chicago-area commuter operations were transferred to the governmental Regional Transportation Authority. Many still-valuable line segments were sold off to other interested railroads. Today, the Union Pacific operates more former Rock Island lines than it would have received by merger fifty years ago.

Schneider is a historian of modern American conservatism, and this informs much of his work. Themes such as deregulation and the proper role of government in bailing out firms or industries that may or may not be “too big to fail” are suffused throughout the book, both implicitly and explicitly. Schneider does an excellent job of tying the death of the Rock Island line to broader political and economic history, while putting a more human face on bankruptcy trustees, major investors, and railroad officials. Organized labor is neither hero nor villain but a complex actor on par with creditors, officials, courts, and others. Snippets of cultural history such as the history of the Rock Island line song enliven the book. Schneider is not just an excellent historian and accomplished writer. He is a railfan, a fact he freely admits in the acknowledgments. His passion for railroads and railroading can be felt throughout and helps elevate an already good book to greatness. Extensive endnotes, along with a separate bibliography and substantial index, complement the work. An engaging and enlightening read, this work is a wonderful addition to a small but growing scholarly literature on twentieth-century railroading.