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FCIN · 10-24-2011, 06:56 PM

A few photos from my rail fan trip this past weekend. First we have one of the former MRS MP15dc's now operated by FTRL at the Anheuser-Busch plant in St. Louis. Former MRS 257 still wearing her MRS colors, but you can see how FTRL painted the sides with a matching green in order to re-letter it.

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Interesting experience there when a female security guard tried to tell me that it was illegal to take photographs from a public street; but that's a story in itself. Was actually hoping to catch FTRL units in their own paint scheme, but no such luck. FTRL looks to be operating 3 of the former MRS MP15dc's; the other MRS units have been sold to various industrial operations in the St. Louis area.

Next stop was Mexico, MO, to spend the night and where I was able to photograph the complete roster of the Ozark Valley Railroad (former ATSF GP9U's with their Topeka cabs) - 1306, 1321 (still in primer) and 1362

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OVRR operates the former Mexico - Fulton, MO branch of the GM&O, ICG, Missouri Western, Gateway Western and now KCS. OVRR appears to have only two active customers in Mexico (Mexico Plastics and Cerro Copper) and is only operating on an as needed basis. They want to restore service to Fulton, which hasn't seen a train operate over it in years, but for now only a part of that line is being used for car storage. Hopefully, they'll be able to get a few customers in Fulton to resume rail service and keep this branch from getting removed completely. Time will tell.

OVRR has a rather interesting situation in Mexico, as they must first enter the NS main line then cross over to the KCS line to access the small KCS yard. The NS and KCS lines run parallel to each other about 100 feet apart from Mexico to Centralia, MO. KCS only operates about 4 trains a day on this line which gives them access to the St. Louis area by running from Kansas City through Louisiana, MO, to Roodhouse, IL, and then southward to East St. Louis. Any one that's ever seen the Kalmbach book Classic Railroads You Can Model will remember the article "GM&O Doodle Bug Line" that talks about this railroad line in its GM&O days. That book also contains the article "Wabash (N&W) Mixed Train Branch Line" that covers what is now the Columbia Terminal Railroad.

FCIN · 10-24-2011, 06:58 PM

Next day, headed over to Columbia, MO to the Columbia Terminal Railroad to catch the Columbia Star Dinner train operation. Took another photo of COLT 2001, a former ATSF GP9U at their transload terminal (a nice little potential model railroad facility itself)

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Pretty good crowd waiting to board the dinner train for the 11:30AM Sunday run

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Then the prize of the day, the two F units (greatly modified) used on the Dinner train:

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They operate the dinner train with a unit on each end as there is no runaround track in Centralia, MO and the ones in Columbia are usually full of cars. Here's a video I shot of the train as it headed north to Centralia at a blazing 20mph: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MEakMBex_w The odd sound you hear from the F unit is due to the caterpillar diesel generators installed in the end of the engine to supply power to the train. Actually spoils that EMD sound.

Couple of local rail fans said that the train has been doing a good business since they started operating it a couple of months ago, but we'll have to see how successful it ends up being when the "new" wears off. With a ticket price of $69.95 a person, that's a rather expensive meal for a roughly 40 mile round trip on a train moving 20mph. Not quite the same as eating in a dining car on a train running 70mph!

The Columbia Terminal Railroad itself is doing great; delivering about 40 cars of coal a week to the municipal power plant and with quite a few customers on the line in Columbia. Great to see this former Wabash branch line continuing to thrive.

bdw9535 · 10-24-2011, 09:16 PM

Ed,

Great looking shots

Bruce

**Brakie** · 10-25-2011, 11:41 AM

Ed wrote: The Columbia Terminal Railroad itself is doing great; delivering about 40 cars of coal a week to the municipal power plant and with quite a few customers on the line in Columbia. Great to see this former Wabash branch line continuing to thrive.
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Excellent news!

After reading about that branch in MR back in the 60s I fell in love with it..Now I like it even better under COLT with the Wabash inspired paint scheme on the 2001 and after following the track on Bing Maps I would love to visit it..