ANOTHER FALLEN FLAG

while many of us lament the closing of one hobby shop or another, the St Louis area is losing a whole railroad.

those not familiar with the area may know little about it but the MRS or Manufacturers Railway is shutting down operations. it was a wholly owned subsidiary of Anheuser Busch but you can read more about it if you google it. (not be be confused with Manufacturers’ Junction)

it will be missed for sure. that outfit had the cleanest little fleet of ALCO’s you ever saw. they looked like they had been waxed every day. they made regular trips across the river on the old McArthur bridge to Valley Junction to interchange with the A&S

beer shipments by rail had ended and most of the MRS’s other customers have folded up so all they had to switch was inbound grain and such at the brewery.

i don’t know how much the Ambev buyout of A/B played a part in this decision but they could have gotten rid of all those clydesdales for my part, instead.

grizlump

Is it being taken over by another railroad?

Seems foolish to switch to trucks just when fuel prices are spiking, being “green” is a selling point, etc. Maybe this is part of a plan to kill of the Budweiser brand.

I know MillerCoors still ships product by rail. Whole lot of trucks buzzing around the Milwaukee brewery when we are in there switching.

in response to the two questions; inbound grain switching at the brewery complex will be performed by another carrier. i would guess it will be the trra but the newspaper article was not specific as to which one would be doing the work.

as for trucks vs rail- when i first went to work on the big four in 1967 we got a lot of beer going east from the MRS. this was before they had many satellite breweries in the east like they have today. the St Louis plant produced most if not all of some of the A/B brands.

the little railroad used to switch serveral other industries just south of downtown St Louis but they are all gone now. notable among them was Nooter Corp., the boilermakers. without the revenue from that activity the continuing operation was struggling to break even.

another less likely but more sinister twist is the recent scandal of one of the Busch family heirs who somehow found himself with a dead “showgirl” in his West County mansion. wonder if he needed the railroad money to pay all his legal fees?

grizlump

They are also closing their malting operation in Manitowoc Wisconsin.

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20110224/GPG03/302250028/Anheuser-Busch-closing-Manitowoc-malt-plant-by-year-s-end

An earlier story about layoffs two years ago has some shots of the structure:

http://www.fox11online.com/dpp/news/Layoffs-at-Manty-Anheuser-Busch-plant

Dave Nelson