Missouri and Illinois Railroad

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Ed’s post about the Mopac/C&EI has me thinking about another railroad that was dramatically affected by the merger.

The Missouri and Illinois Railroad (I think I don’t have the name transposed) has always been somewhat of a ghost to me, everytime I hear of a faint piece of history about the line, I always say, you mean it was around that late?

I assume Mopac’s purchase of the C&EI doomed its former Missouri and Illinois line? I imagine the whole purpose of the Missouri and Illinois for Mopac was for bridge traffic off the IC at Centralia, Illinois?

Does anyone know any information about this line? When did it get folded into Mopac? What was the traffic line on the Illinois side of the line? Are any parts still in use? What is the traffic line for those parts? When was the line to Centralia abandoned?

Any pictures?

Thanks,

Gabe

P.S. It is times like these that I really miss Dale.

2

Only thing I know about the M&I was that it had an interchange with the B&O at Salem, IL. About 20/30 cars a day in each direction if I recall.

3

One interesting facet about M-I was its operation after the carferry was discontinued. Trains ran on the MP on the west bank to cross at the Thebes bridge and then on the SSW on the east bank to get to its own trackage.

4

The Missouri-Illinois was actually merged into the Missouri Pacific System at about the same time as the Texas & Pacific and the C&EI. I think that was the late 1970s. There isn’t much freight equipment around in MI reporting marks any more, but a careful examination might reveal M.I. lettering under the MP reporting marks on certain box and covered hopper cars.

5

I had two photos of the old M&I, both taken at Centralia. One is strangely missing, the other is a line of four MP geep 18’s or 20’s on a siding parked. The missing photo is an actual train shot with crewmen working…hopefully it will be found.

The archives also held some long forgotten photos of C&EI trackage in Mt. Vernon taken with a Brownie camera. It sure is fun to find those “lost” photos, even if the quality is not so good.

edit…just found the “lost photo” it is even in color. Amazing. Not a bad shot, taken with my 110 instatmatic, circa 1974

ed

6

The SPV Atlas for Great Lakes West (1996) indicates that the MI abandoned the line between a point just east of Selmaville (m.p. 3.1) and Hoyleton (m.p. 23.2), and the rest of it is operated by the UP.

Johnny

7

Ed,

If you ever get a chance, I sure would like to see those photos and hear more about them. The M&I has a mythical ghost-like status to me.

Gabe

8

Thanks Gabe!
Its good to see you still drop by as well.

As far as the Missouri Illinois goes, I think Matt (Nordique) could answer your questions better than I could. It looks like at least half of the Illinois trackage is still in use, and the same goes for the Missouri trackage as well. I believe there is a coal mine alongside the line, but it could be closed.

Regarding the Centralia abandonment, I think the line to the east was abandoned in the mid 1980s, and on the west side of town in the early 1990s. Does anybody know how to say Centralia? Is it just Central-eye-ah?

http://www.mopac.org/history_m-i.asp

9

Sentrailyah

10

Gabe:

Not too much to get excited about on the two M&I photos. One is b/w of power parked, the other is a crew working at Centralia. Both are MoPac blue geeps…which isnt so bad these days.

If I ever could figure out how to scan and post photos I would do it. Working for a graphics company, one would think that could be done.

Dale…glad to see you. I have a reference question that will be posted soon regarding the creation of Conrail.

ed

11

Here’s what I remember about the Missouri-Illinois Railroad circa the early-to-mid 1970s.

Ownership: MoPac in this time period controlled all but six shares of the Missouri-Illinois capital stock. Those six shares were owned supposedly by a family in Granite City, Ill. It wasn’t until the MoPac became serious about merging with Union Pacific that those six shares were acquired and the line was folded into Missouri Pacific.

Power: Just about all of the units assigned to this railroad were 4-axle, high-hood, Alco road switchers re-engined with EMD prime movers. They were re-classified as GP18 or GP20 units.

Cabooses: All trains and industry jobs ran with cupola cabooses. The afternoon yard job based in Ste. Genevieve didn’t have one.

Open Stations, Ill.: Salem (joint agency with C.& E.I.), Centralia, Nashville, and Sparta.

Open Stations, MO: Herculaneum, Festus-Crystal City, Sainte Genevieve, Bonne Terre, Rivermines, and Bismarck (joint agency with MoPac). As I recall, Curtis Barton, the agent at Rivermines, had a 1926 seniority date. Amusingly he referred to one of his customers as “Ralston Pew-RHINE-ah.”

Connections (north-to-south): B.& O. and C.& E.I. at Salem, Ill.; B.N., I.C., and Southern at Centralia, Ill.; L.& N. at Nashville, Ill; I.C. at Coulterville, Ill.; G.M.& O. at Sparta, Ill.; MoPac at Flinton, I

12

Bob:

That is quite a report. It is hard to believe they ran that much business as late as the early 70’s. My two photos were taken in the mid 70’s and both lashups were 4 GP type units.

Thanks

ed

13

Bob:

Your memory is pretty accurate, based on Moody’s 1972 Transporatation Manual. There were a total of 21,091 share outstanding. Missouri Pacific owned 21075 of the shares and Marie Celeste Wilhelmy owned the other 16 shares. There were a total of 1409 shares held in treasury. The company paid a total of $2,500,548 in dividends in 1971 or $118.56 per share. Ms. Wilhelmy received $1896.96 in dividends in 1971…not bad for the few shares.

Further, the M-I was a cash cow…pretty much as you described by generating per diem income.

In 1971 their operating revenue was $7.2 million with operating expenses of $6.0 (OR of 83.02%). That year they paid out nearly $1.3 million in federal taxes for an actual railway operating deficit of $833,475. But, they had "net equipment and joint facility rents of $3.7million, which resulted in net income of $2.372 million.

When you figure they had to pay rent for trackage rights to Frisco and MoPac…that was some serious car rental income. The company had 3610 cars including 1046 box cars and 2463 hopper cars and 100 gondola cars. There were 14 locomotives and 1 caboose.

The balance sheet was clean, with no debt and only $14million in equipment obligations. They netted out $3.7 million in equipment rents on $14million in equipment (lease obligations). Not bad.

Lets assume their average revenue per car was $150 in 1971 (I have no idea if this is high or low). On $7.2 million that resulted in 48,000 cars per year or 155 loads per day (based on 6 day workweek).

This was a fantasy shortline.

What does it do today? The IDOT map shows the line in place from Hoyleton, Il southwest to the UP mainline by the river. The line also extends in Missouri from St.Genevieve to the mainline from St. Loui

14

Hi guys-

I don’t have a whole lot to add about the M-I besides what has already been reported. I know the segment that still exists today. The line runs out of a point called Collins, which is just north of Chester. The UP used to run a turn up to Coulterville based out of Chester- I have a shot of the units tied up at Chester (an SD40-2 and a GP38-2 with an MP caboose). The train was run mainly to serve a plant on the line that made automobile seats and a few other smaller industries. The seat plant has since closed- there is a large plant on the north side of Nashville that I think was the plant. There are a couple coal mines on the line, one south of Couleterville and another near Sparta.

The line north of Hoyleton through Centralia was abandoned in the late 80s- I can remember when the rail crews were ripping up the tracks through town they came in on the southwest side of town- crossed the BN and NS and paralled the IC to the northeast side of town before crossing them and heading to Salem. When I was a kid- the UP still kept a long segment of old M-I on the southwest side of Salem for car storage. The track ran out underneath I-57 to just outside of Selmaville where it deadended at a county road- I can recall driving out to Salem with my dad to do car inventories on the hoppers stored out there on the track.

15

This explains something that puzzled me in the April, 1955 Guide–the MoP map shows the MI track as being a part of the MoP–and the MI entry shows its track as being its own. The MI entry also lists some of the MoP officers, such as P. J. Neff, as holding office on the MI.

Johnny

16

Thanks for the financial information. I suppose I heard that the little old lady owed 16-shares of M-I stock, but somehow my mind registered the number six. Still, she earned some pretty hefty dividends for just a limited number of shares.

In the mid-1970s time frame, Ste. Genevieve alone was generating something close to 100-cars/day, six-days per week. Counting the St. Joe lead business at Herculaneum, the scrap metals business at Crystal City, and the unit coal train that shuttled between an “Old Ben” mine and Kellogg Dock, your estimate of 155 loads per day sounds pretty accurate.

One little piece of business I forgot to mention was the powdered lime shuttle that moved approximately 7-miles between Mississippi Lime and their Mississippi River barge transfer facility at Thomure. Those moves were protected by MLCX, 100-ton capacity covered hoppers and constituted maybe a dozen to two dozen cars per week. Either the morning or the evening Mosher Switchers handled this business.

Some of the southern Illinois coal that Mississippi Lime purchased moved in MLHX open top hoppers. They were numbered in the same series as MoPac’s coal service hoppers. By leasing those cars, I should think that Mississippi Lime would have saved a lot of money in demurrage payments.

The last time I saw any M-I equipment moving along The Overland Route was maybe 30-years ago. The car I saw in a westbound Union Pacific fr

17

Bob:

I hope you didnt mind me “nit-picking” your info. Your description of the M-I actually motivated me to pull a Moody’s off the shelf and sure enough…it was listed with full financial data. That is only because the lady owned 16 shares and it wasnt folded into MoPac.

Does anyone know if all of that traffic still moves? or has it gone away? In another thread we discussed ideal shortlines…the MI was it.

Bob, I cannot thank you enough for your information on the MI. Looking back, that is one thing that would be nice to have a “mulligan” or “re-do” on. Of course, there are about 10, perhaps 20 such items from the 70’s that would be nice to revisit.

ed