This 1875 map shows the recently abandoned railroad through Albion in the recently dissolved Iowa Township in Marshall County.
On the south side of Albion, a little more than a decade after an at-grade railroad crossing replaced a very old bridge, the crossbucks now carry the EXEMPT designation. To the left and right, the tracks have been removed.
Abandoning a railroad is a multi-step and multi-governmental process. In Iowa, the end result is often a “railbanking” of the land for “rails-to-trails” projects.
The segment being abandoned, from Steamboat Rock to Marshalltown, spent most of its life as part of the Minneapolis & St. Louis, even though the railroad never reached St. Louis and was more a connection to Peoria via Oskaloosa. It later became part of the Chicago and Northwestern. A complete history of the line is included in the documentation from the Surface Transportation Board. (Related notice in the Federal Register.)
In the end, it was property of the Iowa River Railroad. Notably, a segment south of Ackley will be retained, possibly because it serves the ethanol plant at the US 20/S56 interchange north of Steamboat Rock. Eldora is officially a county seat without rail service.
In relation to Iowa’s highway history, besides the crossing noted at the top, IA 215 between Gifford and Union was built alongside this railroad, it paralleled S75 between Liscomb and Albion, and the Lincoln Highway crossed it in Marshalltown. A photographer captured images of various parts of the segment being torn up last summer. There are also some pictures of various bridges. A Google Street View from October 2009 shows the multiple sidings that used to be at Union, whose elevator will lose rail service.
Since the concrete for IA 330 at the rail crossing is pretty new, it could be a while before the signals are ripped out and the crossing removed. I think I had to stop only once or twice since the at-grade crossing was built.
There are other rail segments still being abandoned in Iowa, as this document from the Iowa DOT indicates. The Marshall-Hardin segment may be dropped off that list soon since it has been completed.