Central Midland Railway
The Central Midland Railway (reporting mark CMR) is a railroad in the U.S. state of Missouri, operating under lease the line of the Missouri Central Railroad (reporting mark MOC), the former St. Louis Subdivision of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. The CMR only uses a small part of the 245-mile (394 km) line which used to stretch from St. Louis through Union to Pleasant Hill. Today, the line only operates from St. Louis to western Union, Missouri. The route is owned by Ameren Corporation. CMR is owned by Progressive Rail, Inc.[1]
History
The Missouri Central Railroad is made up of trackage from the former 18th and 19th subdivisions of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad (CRIP). The line was opened in 1905, and cut across the northern Ozark Mountains from St. Louis to Kansas City, Missouri. The entire route was 298 miles long, and featured several large bridges, as well as four tunnels. On March 31, 1980, the Rock Island ceased all operations as a condition of terminal bankruptcy, and the line was passed into the hands of the Kansas City Terminal Railroad. Soon after, it was sold along with the Kansas City to Tucumcari, New Mexico route (the entire line being known as the Golden State Route) to the St. Louis Southwestern Railway (SSW), AKA the Cotton Belt. The SSW was already part of the Southern Pacific group and did not need access to St. Louis, it needed the Tucumcari line, but the entire route came as a package deal. The SSW had plans of refurbishing the line to be part of the new Golden State line, however due to the high cost of this, they instead acquired trackage rights over the parallel Union Pacific mainline. After the 1993 flood, reopening the line was a possibility briefly looked into, but the tracks were in deplorable condition, and many shippers had been lost. As more shippers closed, local train service was cut back from Owensville, to Union in December 1995, and the SSW soon after filed to abandon the route between Union and Pleasant Hill, MO. However, a lawsuit filed by "The Save The Rock Island Committee" (or STRICT) reversed the application, and the rails went untouched. In 1996, the Southern Pacific and its subsidiary, the Saint Louis Southwestern, were merged into the Union Pacific Railroad. The entire line, from Union to St. Louis, and Pleasant Hill to Kansas City, was now entirely owned and retained by the Union Pacific. After a lengthy court battle, the UP sold the line to the Ameren power Company, which owns the right of way from Vigus, MO, near Maryland Heights, to Pleasant Hill, MO, with the trackage into Kansas city and St. Louis being retained by The Union Pacific to regulate the railroad's competitive impact on their parallel route.[2] The active portion of the route between Lackland Yard in St. Louis, and Union, MO is currently leased and operated by the Central Midland Railway, a division of Progressive Rail Incorporated of Lakeville, Minnesota. Union is serviced daily Monday through Friday, as needed. The out-of-service portion of the CMR west of Union, Missouri, is in fairly poor condition, and a 50-mile section between Pleasant Hill and Windsor, MO, is in the process of being officially abandoned.[3]
References
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