urbanSTL

That is a wonderful find. If only that had been built.

chriss752 wrote: ↑

May 14, 2021

^That's the first time I've seen that in detail. To think that we could've had our own "L" would've been cool. Although I wonder if it would've been dismantled.

In some sense we almost did. The IT was generally classed as an "interurban" but portions of it behaved more like urban mass transit, and small portions of that were elevated. (Though I don't think there were any elevated stations.) Inside of the St. Louis area they had trains operating on about forty minute headways almost around the clock on weekdays. That's a lot more than your usual interurban if somewhat less than your usual transit system. At the height of operations in about the 40s It was something like 30 trains a day each way out to Granite City and back. (And I don't believe that figured includes the intercity service to points like Decatur and Springfield.) The Terminal technically had an elevated station, though it was just used for steam powered commuter operations so far as I'm aware. We came very very close.

Elevated transit lines are cool in film noir, but in real life they're loud, ugly, and intrusive.

^ no more so than stroads and highways. of the three i'd rather have elevated trains cutting through my neighborhood.

urban_dilettante wrote:^ no more so than stroads and highways. of the three i'd rather have elevated trains cutting through my neighborhood.

Agreed. Modern elevated aren’t that bad sound or footprint wise either.

urban_dilettante wrote: ↑

May 15, 2021

^ no more so than stroads and highways. of the three i'd rather have elevated trains cutting through my neighborhood.

You've clearly never lived or worked next to any of the elevated tracks in Chicago or NYC.

^ not saying it's ideal to be arm's length from any of them, just that i'd rather be arm's length from a track than a highway.

sc4mayor wrote: ↑

May 15, 2021

^ There was an elevated passenger station at North Market and North Broadway.  Not sure if this is the one you're referring to at the end of your comment.  Here it is in 1954:


It was gone by 1968.

That'd be the IT. Wasn't certain they'd had an elevated station, but I was looking at some Jim Ozment/Western Rail Images pictures yesterday that made me think they had one there. (There was a view of what looked to be the yellow "stand behind this line" marker at the edge of a platform. And indeed, it was right at Broadway and N. Market.) Their timetables do show a N. Broadway station. that otter be it. I'd basically call that a legit elevated stop, though you could also make the argument it's a commuter station. The IT was such an odd little line.

The TRRA's elevated station was right by the Eads Bridge:



It's a little hard to make out, but that fancy red brick building is a five-ish story station with rail access at maybe three of them. You can see the awning for the platform at the level of the viaduct. I believe it also had platforms on the Eads Bridge's rail deck. And you could presumably transfer to a streetcar on the road deck. I can't imagine any reason why you'd have had passenger service on the street trackage, but . . . I have to assume there was at least an entrance off Lenore Sullivan/Wharf. I really wish I'd gotten a chance to see that one. (I suppose I technically did, but I was never inside the building and it's function was no longer obvious by the time I got down there.)

^Besides being repainted, seeing the front door removed, and side windows shrunk, it's nice to see it still there.

^If the planned St. Charles Metrolink expansion had happened it should have landed just about there too. That would probably have been quite a busy stop back in the American Car Foundry days. (I'm glad most of the car works is still there.)

Broadway and Lucas, 1909. From STL Memories, Vintage Photos Facebook page:

 

sc4mayor wrote: ↑

Jul 24, 2021

Photo of the old temporary train line on Wharf during Arch construction:

I don't think it was temporary. It was set into the stones. It was just a relic of an earlier time. You can see it in Compton and Dry and if you look closely enough more or less any shot of the area before about 1980. MoPac's predecessors had always used it to access industries north of downtown along the river, and they eventually used it to access the Terminal and the Merchant's Bridge. At one time there were a bunch of tracks there, from MoP, the Terminal, and even the Wabash. Tracks were used to transload cargo between trains and the boats that docked there. There were numerous freight houses and tracks in most of the nearby streets too. The tracks in the foreground look to be part of the piggyback operation MoP had going out of Lesperance for a while in the fifties and sixties I think it was. It's messy, but they were probably tearing it up at the time, getting ready to close it down. That's pretty late days for all of that. But the last levee track lasted until after 1976 at least. (I saw the Bicentennial Freedom Train SP 4449 there as a child.) It wasn't closed until the east leg of the Poplar Street Wye opened. (The concrete trestle connecting the Lesperance Yards to the tunnels under the arch.) The TRRA's "High Line" trestle (now the tunnels) was built at about the same time as the Merchant's Bridge by a briefly lived competitor of the Terminal, and as such they weren't premitted to connect to much of any of the Terminal's tracks until after the Terminal acquired them. (Which necessitated another oddball trestle up and over a bunch of yards and freight houses called the UD Bridge. Which lasted until the mid 90s, I think. But that's another story. With crazy ownership disputes and rate wars and robber baron piracy.) From the days when if you didn't like the old guys bridge tolls you just built yourself a new one . . . at least until the loans came due and you went bankrupt. (Enabling the TRRA and I believe Jay Gould to buy you out.) Crazy stuff. But that "temporary" line is easily one of the oldest west of the Mississippi. Just about the oldest. When the first MP predecessor Pacific Railroad unloaded their locomotive Pacific, I suspect that's where they put it.

Here's some neat early history, drawings, paintings, and even some photographs from the very early days in a Post Dispatch article on the subject.

The first stoplight in St. Louis; October 27th, 1922 (it shorted out the next day). 

From STL Memories Vintage Photos on Facebook


 

^Great shots. I'm assuming the second is your own? Where did you find the first?

^The Library of Congress does indeed have an impressive collection of photos. Great find!

Loading Moon cars onto a barge.