Home Page Forums Prototype and Historical Freight Operations & Equipment Bypassing Independence Hil

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    Ted Ferkenhoff
    Keymaster

    Perhaps because it is Independence Day, and I am visiting my old stomping grounds around south Kansas City, I am reminded of the proposal by MP to purchase a portion of the Rock Island to use as a bypass around Independence Hill. Independence Hill is located in the suburb of Independence, Missouri, on the Sedalia Subdivision just east of Neff Yard in Kansas City. It is a steep climb for eastbounds out of the Missouri River valley, and further east they face a less steep, but still formidable, eastbound grade near Lee’s Summit. Most eastbound trains out of Neff Yard used the River Subdivision with its easier grade profile, but one or two eastbounds traveled the Sedalia Subdivision to serve the General Motors distribution facility at Lee’s Summit. This route also hosted freights to/from the Carthage Subdivision which connected with the Sedalia Sub at Pleasant Hill.

    This proposal has been put down as a railfan rumor, but it was very real in 1979, and was resurrected (but never implemented) a few times both after the merger with UP, and after the UP-SP merger. In 1979 when the Rock was on the ropes, unit coal trains to the power plant at Newark, Arkansas, were still a few years away, so I have heard speculation that this was just an attempt to keep SP from competing with MP between KC and St Louis. The MP-UP-WP merger and subsequent granting of trackage rights to SSW between KC and St Louis made the competition worry moot. The Newark coal trains figured into the resurrection of this proposal in the post-merger era due to the constant struggle to get those trains up Independence Hill without stalling and/or breaking a knuckle.

    Here is a diagram and a couple of pages from the 1979 Supplemental Draft EIS for ICC Finance Docket 28799 (SSW purchase of the Golden State Route plus the KC-St Louis segment of the Rock Island), and Docket 29028 (MP purchase of the KC-Pleasant Hill portion of the Rock Island.) I also included the cover of the ICC publication. The MP application was treated as an “inconsistent” application, in that it competed with the original SSW proposal. This diagram shows the projected increase/decrease in train counts along various segments of the MP & Rock Island after purchase and rerouting of MP trains.

    The changes proposed are interesting. The Rock Island was running only 2 trains a day (one each way, when they made it without derailing.) MP proposed to run 7 trains daily from Leeds to Pleasant Hill, and only a local on the remainder of the Rock between Pleasant Hill and Carrie Ave Yard in St Louis. A couple of trains would move from the River Sub to a Leeds-Pleasant Hill-Jeff City route, and the section of the Sedalia Sub between Rock Creek Jct and Pleasant Hill would presumably have only westbound trains plus locals. The MP connection to the Rock near Leeds would have entailed crossing the Frisco’s Clinton Subdivision, but a connection just north of Pleasant Hill would have been easy, as the Rock paralleled the MP at this point.

    What if?……..

    [attachment=0:3pad0a2u]SSW RI Sup Draft Cover.jpg[/attachment:3pad0a2u]
    [attachment=1:3pad0a2u]SSW RI Sup Draft EIS 28799-29028 Fig3-2.jpg[/attachment:3pad0a2u]
    [attachment=2:3pad0a2u]SSW RI Sup Draft EIS Pg 3-1.jpg[/attachment:3pad0a2u]
    [attachment=3:3pad0a2u]SSW RI Sup Draft EIS-2 Pg 3-3.jpg[/attachment:3pad0a2u]

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