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Bremen, KS | The Cotton Belt was actually the St. Louis Southwestern RR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Southwestern_Railway
The Rock Island did not fall into bankruptcy until the 1970s. In the '60s the UP and RI proposed a merger. There was so much opposition and the ICC was so slow to act that by the time it was approved the RI management had sucked as much money out of the road that it was in such poor shape that UP declined to complete the merger. That began the tumultuous end for the RI that culminated in its final operations ending in 1980. The bankruptcy court sold off various lines and rolling stock with the rest of the rolling stock going for scrap and the unwanted lines abandoned.
In a final ironic twist, with the completion of the UP/SP merger of the late '90s, UP ended up with almost all of the RI trackage it had sought in the '60s. The one line that eluded it was the line from Omaha to Chicago which was the real friction point of the original merger. That line is operated by Iowa Interstate RR. UP did acquire a slightly less desirable route from Omaha to Chicago with its purchase of the Chicago Northwestern RR (CNW) in the early '90s.
Once in a while a RI grain car will be seen with Kyle reporting marks.
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