Iowa, Chicago and Eastern Railroad

Slambo put the image in the Public Domain

IC is not the only railroad that sold a route and then later bought it back (Chicago, Central and Pacific), the Canadian Pacific sold some of the routes it got when it bought the Milwaukee Road in 1986 and then later bought those routes back. Specifically, CP sold it to I&M Rail Link (IMRL) in 1997. But IMRL could not make a profit with the line so they sold it to Iowa, Chicago and Eastern (ICE) in 2002. IC&E not only made a profit, it grew the business. It was part of a purchase made by Canadian Pacific in 2008. (Wikipedia1, Wikipedia2)

I learned of this railroad from a Flickr photo. More locomotive pictures and info is available on American-Rails.