Editing Mason City, Iowa (section)

==Infrastructure==

===Transit===
[[Mason City Transit]] provides fixed-route and demand-response mass transit services to the city.

===Roadways===
The majority of Mason City is served by [[Iowa Highway 122]] and [[U.S. Route 65 in Iowa|U.S. Route 65]]. [[U.S. Route 18 in Iowa|U.S. Route 18]] now bypasses the city to the south. [[Interstate 35 in Iowa|Interstate 35]] (eight miles to the west) serves the city as well.

===Rail service===
Mason City is home to the [[Iowa Traction Railway]]. The IATR is one of the last surviving electric interurban railroads in the U. S., and the only one that still uses electric locomotives to haul freight in regular service.

Mason City also is served by the [[Canadian Pacific Railway]] and [[Union Pacific Railroad]]. The Canadian Pacific track is part of its US subsidiary the [[Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad]] (former [[I&M Rail Link]] and [[Milwaukee Road]] trackage. The Union Pacific's track was inherited from the [[Chicago and North Western|Chicago and North Western Transportation Company]] when it bought it in the 1990s. Much of the trackage is composed of the old Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad's (aka [[Rock Island Railroad]] )

While the [[Iowa Northern Railway]] does not operate in the city of Mason City, it does serve other communities in the Mason City micropolitan statistical area. The Iowa Northern has facilities in Manly, Iowa.

===Airports===
The city also hosts [[Mason City Municipal Airport]], (MCW) with commercial service by [[United Airlines]]. It is the airport from which early rock and roll stars [[Buddy Holly]], [[Ritchie Valens]] and [[The Big Bopper]] (J.P. Richardson) took off on the night of February 3, 1959, after a concert at the [[Surf Ballroom]] in nearby [[Clear Lake, Iowa]], en route to Fargo, N.D. The plane crashed a few miles west of the airport in an historic event later referred to as [[the Day the Music Died]]. Holly, Valens, Richardson and pilot Roger Peterson all died in the accident.