Casey's Railroad - - Gone?

Posted as background to Iowa Pacific Holdings recent acquisition of the Grenada Railway.

Casey's Railroad - - - - GONE?

By Tom Parker

(Reprinted from June  2009 Memphis Buff)

“HOMEWOOD, Ill., May 13, 2009 – CN (TSX: CNR)(NYSE: CNI) today announced the completion of agreements to sell three Mississippi line segments to Grenada Railway, LLC and Natchez Railway, LLC both non-carrier affiliates of V&S Railway and A&K Railroad Materials. This deal transfers ownership of 252 miles of track and preserves rail service on the two longest of these rail lines for at least the next two years. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.“CN is pleased that this deal with Grenada Railway and Natchez Railway will allow these rail lines to remain in place serving Mississippi business,” said Jim Vena, CN's senior vice president, Southern Region. “CN will continue to offer interchange service to the new short lines, maintaining every customer's seamless access to the broader CN network.

Red: Lines Sold, Green: CN, Blue: KCS .

V&S Railway LLC operates successful short lines in Kansas and Colorado.”

This news release by the Canadian National Railroad probably signals the end of the line for the track that carried Casey Jones to his fabled end. The demise probably can be traced back to September 10^th, 1995. when Amtrak, due to the Illinois Central's reluctance to maintain passenger train standards over the district, rerouted the “City of New Orleans” over the IC's track through Greenwood, MS, leaving only local service for the line's dwindling customer base. The final blow for the Natchez line was the closing of International Paper's mill at Natchez.

Despite assurances in the news release that the new railroads “ will allow these lines to remain in place serving Mississippi business”, the parent of Grenada Railway and Natchez Railway is A&K Railway Materials, “the nation's leading supplier of new and used track materials” according to their website.

A&K's founder, president and majority shareholder, Kern W. Schumacher, began his career at the age of nineteen when he organized A&K Tie Company to salvage thousands of used railway ties being removed from the lower deck of the Oakland Bay Bridge in Oakland California. A&K purchased the redwood ties at .60 each and resold them to landscapers for $6.00 each.

In papers filed with the Surface Transportation Board, both the Grenada Railway and Natchez Railway are shown as “controlled by Mr. Schumacher”.

V&S Railway, is cited in the news release as operating “successful” short line railroads in Kansas and Colorado.

The Facts

In December of 2000 the V&S petitioned the STB to purchase a 41 mile segment of former ATSF trackage between Sun City and Attica, KS from the Central Kansas Railway. In May of 2003, the V&S petitioned to abandon 20 miles of the line between Sun City and Medicine Lodge. The remaining 22 miles of the line is still in use between a connection with the BNSF at Attica, KS, and Medicine Lodge where National Gypsum has a facility.

The V&S also operates a 5 mile switching line at Hutchinson KS, which it purchased from the Hutchinson and Northern Railway in 2006.

Another venture of the V&S is the Kern Valley Railroad. On October 31, 2001, The Kern Valley purchased the 30 mile line of the Trinidad Railway on Colorado with the express purpose of salvage, the Trinidad Railway already having filed for abandonment. Latest filings with the STB indicate that two miles of the line remain.

In 2008, V&S purchased the Gloster & Southern Railroad between Gloster, MS, and Slaughter, LA, from Georgia Pacific which owns an idled paper mill at Gloster.

In 1992, in conjunction with Michael Van Wagenen of Kyle Railways, Schumacher and Morris Kulmer, CFO of A&K, formed the Tulare Valley Railroad Company. TVR's original 158 miles has shrunk to 6.1 miles, with the rest of the line either being abandoned or sold to the San Joquin Valley Railroad. On March 12, 2009, TVR petitioned the STB to abandon the remainder of the railroad.

In 1999, the Canadian National Railroad transferred 145 miles of track to the Southern Manitoba Railway, an affiliate of the TVR. In March of 2006, the Southern Manitoba Railway applied to Manitoba's Motor Transport Board to discontinue operations over the last 78.6 miles of its line between Morris and Mariapolis, MB.

The 122 mile Colorado, Kansas and Pacific Railway was sold to V&S by the state of Colorado in December, 2005, for 10.35 million dollars, with a down payment of one million dollars with the remainder to be paid over a six year period.

In August of 2007 grain shippers were complaining of having to use trucks due to the railroads inability to supply cars and Colorado reported that it no payments had been received after the initial down payment. In 2006 a rail fan reported finding only two locomotives on the entire line, neither running and with rusty wheels and only five rail cars on line, four flats and a “5 Pack” intermodal spine car.

There are numerous other acquisitions and attempts at acquisitions by Schumacher and friends in filings with the STB, and also numerous abandonments. While it is difficult to match acquisitions with abandonments, presumably these earlier “V&S” lines no longer exist. Unless some action is taken by communities and industries along the line, the Grenada and Natchez Railways will probably join its former corporate brothers as short lived “Fallen Flags”.

A Walk Down Whitehaven Lane

Some history on the line recently acquired by Iowa Pacific Holdings

A Walk Down Whitehaven Lane

by Tom Parker

(Reprinted from the July 2008 Memphis Buff)

Looking North from Whitehaven Lane. Vacant area 

West of track was depot location.

There are probably a number  of old railroad stations in the Memphis area that have been lost to history. One station that almost  fits that description is “White's Station” in what is now Whitehaven.

In February, 1846, a group of cotton planters in Northern Mississippi were granted a charter by the state of Mississippi to build a railroad for the transportation of cotton to the Mississippi River. The charter was renewed in 1852, but  ther was no progress made until  July 4, 1953 when a  meeting of planters occurred at the plantation of Colonel Francis M. White in Como, MS.

Colonel White took charge and by the spring of 1855 severeal miles of track had ben laid southward from Memphis and on May 5, 1855, the first engine, the “DeSoto”, arrived in Memphis. One year later, on May 1, 1856,  a celebration was held in Hernando, Mississippi, marking the completion of the rails to that city. One year later the tracks reached  Sardis, Mississippi, the halfway point between Memphis and Grenada, MS. It was not until 1861 however that the track was completed to a connection with the Mississippi Central Railroad at Grenada, Mississippi.

A station was established  just north of the Mississippi/Tennessee state line at what is now the intersection of Whithaven Lane and  Amey Road. The station was originally named “White's Station” in honor of Col. White. The community surronding the station became known as “White Haven” and eventually  “Whitehaven”.  Although the depot has been gone for for many decades, the house track survived through the 1970's.     

This 1891 plat shows location of Depot (highlighted in red)

As late as 1979 the house track still appeared on IC's Track Profiles

Memphis and Lake View Trolley

 

Memphis & Lakeview

By Tom Parker

(Reprinted from February 2008 Memphis Buff)

“The Mississippi Valley route will have another delightful excursion to Lakeview today. The trains will leave at 9 o'clock a.m. And 2 p.m., and return at 7 o'clock p.m. Lakeview is one of the prettiest places in this section of the country, and nothing will be left undone to make these excursions pleasant to all who may attend. Croce Bros. fine string band will furnish music, and dancing will be free to all. To make these excursions popular and and to give all a chance to enjoy them the fare has been placed at the low rate of forty cents for the round trip; children half price.”  

Daily Appeal 7/14/1885

“The Lake View Traction Company made a formal application to the county court yesterday for a franchise for its line to Clarksdale, and the matter was referred to the railroad committee of the county court, which is to report on it later.

The petition of the traction company was for the privilege of locating and maintaining a double track line for the period of thirty-five years, together with the poles and other equipment over the following streets, roads and avenues:

Orleans street from Axie avenue to Trigg avenue, on Miller Place from Axie avenue to Kerr avenue, on McMillan avenue to Trigg, on Axie avenue from Lauderdale to Orleans, on Trigg avenue  from Orleans to Lauderdale, on Lauderdale from Axie to Kerr, on Prospect  avenue from Union Railway to Old Prospect pavilion.

The petition asks a right to cross all streets, avenues and roads between Memphis and the state line between Mississippi and Tennessee”

Commercial Appeal 7/27/1906

“The Lake View Traction Company inaugurates its first passenger schedule today when the line will be thrown open from New South Memphis to Lakeview, a distance of eleven miles.

The present terminus of the upper portion of the line is at the south end of the Suburban-South Memphis car line. Lakeview cars will leave there each hour from 8 o'clock a.m. To 9 o'clock p.m. Daily. Coming this way, the schedules run from 7 o'clock a.m to 8 o'clock p.m.

The company has four motor cars and four trailers on the line, and estimates that these will for a time accommodate the passengers. The fare will be 20 cents from New South Memphis, or 25 cents from the city proper, agains 35 cents , the old charge of the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley railroad. The schedule from one end of the line to the other call for about 35 minutes, which the company will later shorten.

The regular stations between the termini are Brooks avenue, Raines avenue, Horn Lake road and lower Horn Lake road.Officials said that the line would be extended at once to Wall, Miss., and within six months the extension of the line into Memphis proper would be begun. Until both shall have been completed, the company will probably not attempt  to do any freight business.

Commercial Appeal 11/27/1910

1916 Map

I have known for years that at one time a trolley ran from Memphis to Lake View, MS.  I had heard that Lakeview Road through Whitehaven was originally the route of the trolley line and had seen the overpass on South Third Street which was said to have carried the trolley over the highway. A cousin had told me that a gravel road under the Illinois Central tracks at Prospect Avenue beside Cane Creek was at one time the roadbed of the Lakeview Trolley.

I had all this filed away in my mind as just some more useless knowledge until I was the high bidder on E-bay of a 1916 map of Southwest Shelby County. The first thing I noticed was the:”Lakeview  Electric” running southward from where the “Memphis and State Line” crossed Cane Creek.

I decided I would try to document the path of the Lakeview Trolley from its beginning at Prospect Avenue to Lake View Mississippi. I pulled up the TDOT map of Shelby County and overlaid it with the 1916 map.

What I had always heard  was true. The trolley line began at Prospect Avenue and lined up  with Lakeview Road all the way to just beyond the  IC's Grenada

Right of Way going under IC Tracks at Prospect

District track. At Shelby Drive it lined up with Goodwill Road. It turned west at Hewlett Road then turned southwest paralleling South Third Street all the way to Lakeview, lining up with a couple of present day roads, Tully Road  and yet another Lakeview Road.

Next I pulled up the area in Google and traced the route on the aerial map and printed a hard copy. I then grabbed my camera and headed out.

Google Map

 I had already had a picture of the bridge at Prospect, so I headed to the North end of Lakeview Road in the Bellbrook Industrial Park on Brooks Road. Lakeview Road was extended north of Brooks Road when the industrial park was built in 1974.  As expected, I didn't find anything in this area. There was nothing north of the industrial park except Interstate 55 and the Nonconnah Creek bottoms.

The right of way between Nonconnah Creek and Brooks Road was deeded to the Lake View Traction Company by Napolean Hill on August 24, 1908, with the stipulation  that  “said Traction Company shall have its line on said strip, and have cars in actual operation on said line between Memphis and Lake View, MS within 2

South Haven Heights Plat

years”.  Presumably, an extension was granted as service wasn't inagurated until November of 1910.  I then headed south on Lakeview Road, retracing the route of the  Lake View Traction Company's line.

Interurban Haven Heights Subdivision Plat

Goodwill Road

Most subdivisions along Lakeview Road were laid out when the trolley was in operation. The South Haven Heights Subdivision's original plat dated 1927 shows “Lakeview Boulevard” running alongside the trolley line between Brooks Road and McCorkle (now Graves)  Road on the west side of the right of way. A corrected plat dated 1937 no longer shows the trolley line and shows the former right of way of Lakeview Blvd being added to the adjacent lots. Appropriately named Interburban Heights Subdivision lies just to the south of South Haven Heights and its plat shows the trolley line going over the Illinois Central's Grenada District line.  

When I was a teenager in Whitehaven the bridge over  the IC's track was a wooden trestle type bridge. It has since been replaced by a concrete bridge

 For the about the next mile and a half any trace of the trolley line has been obliterated by development.

Just east of the intersection of Horn Lake and Shelby Drive the roadbed of the Lake View Traction Company re-emerges as Goodwill Road. It extends in a north eastern direction for a distance of about 2000 feet although only about the first 1000 feet of the roadway is paved.

On the other side Of Shelby Drive the right of way cuts across the corner of the intersection with Horn Lake Road and then becomes  Hewlett Road on the other side of Horn Lake. This area west of Horn Lake Road was developed in 1910 as the Acklena Subdivision. The plat of this  development shows the trolley line down what is now Hewlett Road. A later plat of the land surrounding the Acklena Subdivision shows the trolley line turning southwest about 700 feet west of its intersection with what is now South Haven Road. 

Aklena Plat

The trolley line right of way becomes Tully Road just beyond where it made the turn to the southwest. It crosses Weaver Road (Lower Horn Lake Road on the plat) and extends all the way to Holmes Road. Northeast of Weaver Road it appears to have become private property as there is a gate across the road while to the southwest it is a narrow road strewn with used tires and trash.

 Another Lakeview Road extends south of Holmes Road where Holmes intersects with Tully.  At first I thought that this other Lakeview Road was again the old roadbed. It doesn't align with Tully very well and a little investigation showed that the trolley line actually ran between Lakeview and Acklen Roads south of Holmes. A 1934 plat shows that what is now Lakeview Road was once named Old Horn Lake.  Acklen Road on the east side of the R.O.W. suggests a connection with this subdivision and the Acklena Subdivision a little northwest of here. This last piece of identifiable roadbed is now a turnip green patch.  

The Lake View Traction line continued in a southwesterly direction, crossing the Tennessee-Mississippi state line and ending at Lake View Ms.  Before Highway 61 was widened a number of

Tully Road

years ago there was a wooden trestle crossing the highway near its  present intersection with State Line Road. I had always thought that this trestle carried the trolley over the highway, but have since heard that the opposite might be true, that in fact that Old Highway 61 went over the trolley line at that point. Topographical evidence of the trolley lines route ends a little north of this location, so its possible that either is true.   

As early as 1885 Lake View Mississippi was a  destination for Memphians in search of fun and entertainment.  Lake View featured a 50 room hotel owned by a Captain A. P. Montana, an artisian well, a railroad station with a full time station agent who lived on the second floor of the station and five dance halls.

The hotel was located to the west of the Y&MV tracks facing the lake. Adjacent to the hotel and built out over the water was a large general store with a dance hall overlooking the lake. At ground level on the lake bank, row boats were offered for rent. There was a sand beach on the north end of the lake.

In June of 1886 Louis Fritz opened “Horn Lake Park” at Lake View. The amusement park featured concrete walks, a Ferris wheel, merry-go-round, ice cream parlor and a spacious theater complete with an orchestra pit and stage for vaudeville acts and theater productions.

Louis Fritz also operated Fritz Fisheries, a commercial fishing operation in both North Horn Lake and South Horn Lake.  Large  seine nets were used to catch buffalo, carp and catfish, which were shipped to Memphis and other markets.

Somewhat of a mystery exists in regards to the trolley and Lake View, Mississippi. The  announcement  in the June, 1886,  Commercial Appeal proclaiming the opening of the “Louis Fritz Horn Lake Park” states, “Memphis may reach the resort via either the inter-urban line or the Y&MV Railroad.”

In an account  in the Memphis Press Scimitar, Wayne Garrett  recalls visiting the park at the age of seven. “I used to go with my parents to Central Station at Main and Calhoun and board a trolley car. It ran all the way to Lake View, Mississippi at the break neck speed of of 30 to 35 mph. It only made one stop along the way and the fare was 75 cents roundtrip, kids 25 cents. I think it only ran three times a day  and the line was built by someone who visualized Lake View as a resort area for Memphians in those days.

 “I remember several hot summer Sundays, about 1 P.M., when we would board the car and would be pulled from Central Station by a steam engine to somewhere around Third and Mallory, then be switched to a trolley line that ran to Lake View. The car was was open and I would sit on the front seat behind the motorman.”

“At Lake View there was a large building called “Fritz Place”. It had everything. I remember people eating, drinking, smoking, dancing, gambling, fishing, but my best recollection is the good food, boats, swimming,and the playground.”

The above description, as well as the the mention of an “inter-urban line” in 1886, does not agree with the Lake View Traction Company line herein described. It suggests that there was a second, earlier trolley line to Lake View. That may be a story for another time.

In any case, The Lake View Traction Company ran its first trolley to Lake View in 1910.  On January 23,1912, the company went into receivership and on October 16, 1912 was purchased by the Memphis Interburban Company which later became the Memphis and Lakeview Railway, a subsidiary of the Memphis Street Railway Company. Service was finally abandoned in 1928.

The Lake View Traction Company never constructed lines north of its terminal on Prospect Avenue and never extended its lines south of Lake View and quite probably never hauled any freight.  More than likely it was killed by better roads and the automobile which allowed peolple access to other places that railroads and interburbans did not reach.     

Who was this "Harahan" Fellow Anyway?

(Reprinted from April 2012 Memphis Buff, Memphis NRHS  Chapter Newsletter)

East Portal of Harahan Bridge

Who Was This “Harahan” Fellow Anyway?

By Tom Parker

The Harahan Bridge has been in the news a lot lately and additionally there has been a lot of discussion among the MRTM bunch as the captions on the bridge mural are finalized.

Generally, little thought is given to the origin of the name. After all, it's been the Harahan Bridge for almost 100 years. Being from an Illinois Central family, I had known since childhood that it was named after a former president of the IC, but since the IC never crossed the bridge, I couldn't understand why.

James Theodore Harahan was born in Lowell, MA, on January 21, 1841. He began his railroad career with the United States military railroad system during the Civil War. In 1866 he began working for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and in 1888 was named Superintendent of the L&N's Memphis Division. He advanced to the position of General Manager of the L&N and later held the same position with the C&O Railroad.

He joined the Illinois Central in 1890 as second vice president and general manager of the Louisville, New Orleans and Texas Railroad, later to become the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley. He oversaw the construction of a large yard just outside of New Orleans, LA, in a community named Harahan by the railroad in his honor.

In 1899, Harahan married Mary N. Mallory, the daughter of Captian William Barton Mallory, a long time friend and prominent Memphian. After the wedding at the Mallory residence in Memphis, the newlyweds left on a special train to Mexico, where they planned to stay for six to eight weeks, before returning to Chicago where they were to reside.

During most of his career with the Illinois Central, Harahan worked under President Stuyvesant Fish. In 1906, Harahan aligned himself with Edward H. Harriman and in a heated election replaced Fish as the president of the railroad and served in that office until his mandatory retirement at the age of 70 on January 11, 1911.

If not for a fateful train wreck early January 22, 1912, Harahan would probably have been just a footnote in Memphis history. Harahan and officials of the Rock Island Railroad were traveling in Rock Island business car 1902 which was attached to the rear of Illinois Central train number 25, the “New Orleans Express”.

Harahan had recently been named president of the Memphis Bridge and Terminal Company, which had been incorporated to build a railroad bridge across the Mississippi River at Memphis. The Rock Island had bought a share in the company just a few week earlier on January 3^rd and the group was enroute to Memphis to discuss the project.

Number 25 was stopped at Kinmundy. Illinois for water when it was struck in the rear by train #3, the “Panama Limited” The locomotive hit the wooden Rock Island business car and ended splintering two thirds of the length of the car before coming to a stop.

Killed were Harahan, Frank O. Melcher, second vice president of the Rock Island, Judge Edward B. Pierce, general solicitor of the Rock Island and Major Eldridge E. Wright, vice president of the Memphis Bridge and Terminal Company.

Coincidentally, Train # 25 was being pulled by locomotive 1212 which was previously numbered 382, the engine in which Casey Jones met his fate over ten years earlier.

As a result James T. Harahan's death in the wreck, the bridge was posthumously named in his honor.

Bridge Mural on North Wall of Museum

Illinois Central's "Hot Cut"

Illinois Central's “Hot Cut”

- By Tom Parker

North Yard transfer job with IC GP-7 8963 and SW-7 403 passes through Central Station in July 1968 . Note southbound “City of New Orleans on adjacent track.

Photo by Phil Gosney and used with permission

I happened across the above photograph on Mike Condren's website and and it immediately took me back to the early days of my railroad career over forty years ago.

I first became acquainted with IC 8963 working a data processing (keypunch) job at Johnston Yard. Aside from telegraph operators at Central Station and Johnston Yard, the “IBM Room” in the “Big Office” was the only interface between the Memphis Terminal and the IC's telegraphy based information system. Interchange cuts and and the “Woodstock Switcher” had to be punched into IBM cards each night and transmitted via telegraph to the IC's computer in Chicago. (Records of transfers between the yards and industrial moves were 100% pencil and paper and were not transmitted to Chicago.) IC 8963 was the engine assigned to the “Woodstock Switcher” and after a few days typing “IC 8963” four times a night the number began to stick in your head, even after forty years.

8963 was usually tied up on the North Yard
Engine Track behind the yard office

Phil Gosney's picture is what was the afternoon transfer to North Yard. There were three of these transfer jobs, one for each shift and operated seven days a week, The jobs went to work at South Yard and would take track 9, where the North Yard cars were classified to North Yard. 8963 was probably on its way back to North Yard after being serviced at the Johnston Roundhouse. Its usual home was the engine track behind the North Yard office.

After the transfer job yarded its cut, it would double together tracks containing blocks of cars destined to South Yard and “A” and “C” Yards at Johnston Yard.

Map showing yard locations

This Southbound transfer was known as the “Hot Cut”. A number of Memphis' largest industries such as Humko, Firestone, International Harvester and Kimberly Clark were located in the North Yard territory. Additionally, the aforementioned “Woodstock Switcher” operated out of North Yard and cars from Dupont, W.R. Grace and other Woodstock industries were added to the mix.

Companion to the “Hot Cut” was the “Hot Sheet”. Issued by the Superintendent's Office each day and updated frequently, the “Hot Sheet” was telegraphed to all the yard offices on the terminal, listing cars requiring expedited handling, many of the on the “Hot Cuts”.

At South Yard, "City" loading was set out and the "Hot Cut" proceeded south to Johnston Yard taking the “North” and “South” cars to Johnston's “A” and “C” Yards respectively. At all three yards, the cars would be switched immediately upon arrival and the loading would move on the very next train, interchange or industrial cut, many times within just a few hours after the leaving North Yard.

My dad was an engineer for the Illinois Central. In the years that he worked for the IC, he probably sat at the throttle of a majority of the IC's engines, but 8963 is the only engine that I can definitively say he operated. More than once, he got stuck with working the night switcher at Woodstock.

IC GP-7 8963 was built in 1953. It spent most of the 1960's assigned to the “Woodstock Switcher” operating out of Memphis North Yard. It was rebuilt in 1978 by VMV at Paducah, KY into a GP-8 and renumbered IC 7973. It was sold to Steel Processing on May 26, 1993, and presumably scrapped. 

 Reprinted from the June, 2009 Memphis Buff

Note: The above photo of IC 8963 is available as a post card in the Museum's gift shop.