I’m always reading about St. Louis being a big railroad town, mostly as being an articulaion point between eastern and western railroads. As I recall, traffic keeps expanding. I assume all this traffic is from somewhere other than St. Louis.
I was playing a game on Sporcle. The category was something like “shrinking cities”. From that I learned that the population of St. Louis has gone from a high of 856,796 people to a 2009 level of 356,587 people. St. Louis isn’t the first name that comes to mind when I think of the rust belt.
What happened to St. Louis? Has there been a corresponding decline in originating and terminating carloads into the St. Louis area as well?
Check the population trend for the region = Standard Metropolitan Statisical Area, or “SMSA”. Likely the suburban growth > the loss within the actual city limts, which is what that figure seems like.
Decline of the Mississippi River boat, barge, and ship traffic that needed to stop there, or originated/ terminated there ? Grain from east and west and coal from Illinois shipments in particular ?
Loss of nearby industry, such as the steel mill in East St. Louis ?
[:-,] - Loss of rail passenger traffic - from that huge trainshed to an “Amshack” ! [swg]
SImilar loss in the number of major serving railroads, and competition among them.
As a part of the downward movement of railroad interests in the St.Louis (and East St.Louis,Il) area. It was in March of 2011 that the public notice of its intent to shut down Manufacturer’s Railway Co.(MRS) was given by Anheuser- Busch Corp… Manufacturers preformed switching chores not only for the Brewery, but for a number of other businesses in the District (both for originations, and destinations.
Manufacturers Railway was a big presence in the S.Louis area, it owned and manufactured its own refrigerator car fleet ( SLRC ), part of the Alton& Southern RR. The MacArthur Bridge over the Mississippi R. and a railroad car, and locomotive repair repair operation in East St.Louis,Il. ( DOME). And part of the TRRA operations.
For historical reasons that I know nothing of, St. Louis city was quickly surrounded by suburban communities with their own governments. When the flight from the central city occurred, a very common thing post WW II (think automobiles and suburbia) those people moved out of St. Louis city but not out of the metropolitan area. Other cities were better able to expand their footprint so when folks moved out of the old part of town they remained in the city.
For what it’s worth, your comments made me go and do some research. I find it does my brain good, to go and learn about something because I want to, not because I have to.
It appears that suburban flight, a decline of industries that peaked during WWII, and some race related issues were hard on ol’ St. Louis proper. Census info shows that transportaion jobs are still the 2nd biggest category for the metro area. I presume that must include a lot of railroad jobs, and United Airlines’ hub.
Not sure what the current employment status of the McDonnell-Douglas [Corp division of Boeing Aircraft ] is at present, bt they are located at Lambert/S L. Int’l Airport at St.Louis. They were at one time a very major provider of ‘Transportation jobs’ in the area.
Looking at the mp of the St. Louis County and City you can determine that the City was cut off by a number of incorporated towns and villages which effected the ability of the City to annex more land and gain those taxing areas. Stifled annexation, means stifled growth of a Community. That coupled with the ‘white filight’ of 1960/70’s caused the City many issues.[2c]
Also, the City of St. Louis is not in or part of St. Louis County. Saint Louis is one of only two (IIRC) cities in the U.S. that isn’t in a county in their respective state.
Sorry Butler but the state of Virginia has quite a few cities not part of surronding county. One I know of is Bristol, VA. To expand city limits had to sue Washington county to expand. Others not positive ---- someone??