Route of the
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Table of Contents:
Chapter One: The Pacific Railroad: First Railroad West of the Mississippi
Chapter Two: The Jay Gould Era
Chapter Three: Expansion
Chapter Four: Hard Times
Chapter Five: Out of Receivership
Chapter Six: Return to Sparta
Chapter Seven: Battle on the Plains
Chapter Eight: Merger with the Union Pacific
Chapter One: The Pacific Railroad: First Railroad West of the Mississippi
Spurred by the gold rush of the mid-1800s and spurned by Congress, the Pacific Railroad, chartered in 1849 as a link between St. Louis and the Pacific ocean, began in earnest in 1851 under the engineering guidance of James Kirkwood. The first locomotive arrived in 1852 from England. Named 'Pacific,' the locomotive hauled the first train west of the Mississippi in December of that year. At the time, the Pacific Railroad extended a full five miles and the initial journey from end to end took only 10 minutes!
Within the next year, the railroad extended nearly 40 miles from St. Louis to Pacific, Missouri. However, the railroad was already experiencing financial troubles and didn't reach Jefferson City, Missouri, until 1855. At this point, it had taken nearly three years to build 130 miles. By 1858, only another 30 miles had been completed to a transfer connection with the Overland Mail in Tipton, Missouri.
In 1864, the Pacific Railroad began building eastward from Kansas City. Later that year, a raid destroyed the railroad between Franklin and Kansas City. However, in September 1865, the first trans-Missouri train ran from Kansas City to St. Louis in 14 hours.
In 1868, the Pacific Railroad connected to eastern roads via the newly constructed Eads Bridge over the Mississippi and a year later narrowed the distance between its rails to the "standard guage" of 4' 8 1/2" to facilitate interchange with the eastern roads.
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Chapter Two: The Jay Gould Era
1872 saw the reorganization of the troubled Pacific Railroad and the emergence of the "Missouri Pacific Railway Company." In 1873, "financier" (robber baron) Jay Gould got his hands into western railroading, later purchasing the Missouri Pacific in 1879 to control its "threat" to his other western roads which at the time included the Union Pacific, Kansas Pacific, Denver Pacific, and Central Pacific.
Gould then began assembling railroads into his Southwest System. He brought several smaller railroads into the Missouri Pacific and gained control of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern (begun in 1852), Texas & Pacific (chartered in 1852 as the Texas Western Railroad), and International-Great Northern (a Texas line). The Missouri Pacific leased the Missouri, Kansas & Texas at this time as well.
Gould's control of the MP didn't last long. Although he treated the MoPac as a crown jewel, his practice of buying railroads and bleeding them dry, as evidenced by his ownership of the UP, would have eventually leeched itself upon the MP as well. According to American Heritage History of Railroads in America, his touch was death. In 1885, the T&P broke free and by 1888 the previous additions to the MP line, with the exception of the SLIM&S, were again independent of the MoPac.
Gould, like many capitalists of the time, had a ruthless manner of acquiring railroads and using their profits to line his own pockets. He even went so far as to directly state, "I don't build railroads, I buy them." A bold mantra outlining a general policy among railroad financiers and capitalists of the late 1800s: "Let others do the work; I'll reap the rewards." Gould began his exploits into railroading with the Erie in 1868. As part of the "Erie Ring," Gould helped bring about the 1869 panic through an attempt to corner the gold market. In 1872, the board of the then bankrupt Erie removed him as president and he turned his attentions westward. His influence in western railroads continued until his death in the early 1890s. Up until his demise, Gould was consistent, bringing the Union Pacific to bankruptcy by 1892.
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Chapter Three: Expansion
From 1885 until the recession of 1892, the Missouri Pacific stretced its line across Kansas to its western terminus of Pueblo, Colorado, and southward to Alexandria, Louisiana. Slowed by the recession of 1892, the MP continued to spread its fingers through Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, and Louisiana with branchlines. This progress continued into the early 1900s.
This period of expansion culminated in the 1909 merger of several small subsidiary companies and the 1917 formal merger with the Iron Mountain that created the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company. Lewis Baldwin's appointment as Missouri Pacific president in 1923 brought about even more expansion for the growing MP. In 1925, the MP merged with the I-GN, Gulf Coast Lines (built as part of the SL&SF from 1903-1909), and San Antonio, Uvalde & Gulf.
With the 1894 St. Louis Union Station and 1914 Kansas City Union Station completed, the MoPac served two of the nations three largest rail centers and had extensive routes through the gulf region to serve a burgeoning chemical industry when it moved into its St. Louis offices in 1928.
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Chapter Four: Hard Times
In the midst of the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Missouri Pacific railroad fell into trusteeship in 1933. The Federal Court suggested diversification and improvement of the physical plant and the MP cooperated. 1938 saw the MP begin a complementary trucking service to augment the delivery capability of the railroad. Diesel locomotives also began to appear on MoPac rails about this time, with the first switchers delivered in 1937. Diesel fuel at the time was cheaper than coal and much cleaner burning. Not surprisingly, then, the first locomotives were yard switchers intended for use in congested urban areas. Streamlined passenger locomotives soon followed, the first being assigned to the "Missouri River Eagle" in 1940.
Raymond Loewy, an industrial engineer, made a name for himself by turning utilitarian equipment into artistic works. It was he who designed the blue and cream Eagle passenger scheme that brought color to the MoPac's rails. The Eagle incorproated portholes in its passenger cars, and Loewy's designs carried this through to the diesels as well. While all other railroads' E7 passenger engines had square windows in their flanks, Missouri Pacific units were unique in having round windows instead. These portholes became the standard on E8 and E9 units. Loewy's work was not confined to the Missouri Pacific, or even to railroading for that matter. He is also the designer of the famous GG1 electric locomotive operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad and countless other aesthetic railroad designs. Air Force One, the presidential airplane, is also painted in a Loewy scheme. Is it any wonder to a Missouri Pacific fan, then, that the aircraft should be painted blue and cream?
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Chapter Five: Out of Receivership
In April 1955, the MoPac had removed steam from its rails and replaced the venerable engines with the likes of SW9, FA2, F3, GP7, PA2 and E7 units. This relatively quick dieselization along with streamlined system management and other forward thinking projects helped bring the MP out of 23 years of receivership in 1956. Paul Neff became president of the road at this time after serving as the road's director for the trustee for several years. However, he passed away shortly thereafter. In 1961, Downing Jenks became president of the road.
Jenks was a no-frills, no-nonsense president. Two of his early edicts had dramatic effect on the appearance of the Missouri Pacific fleet. Jenks dictated that the fleet should be as uniform as possible and selected EMD units, powered by the reliable 567 diesel engine. The MoPac set about to quickly eliminate all non-EMD units through trade-in, the scrapper's torch, or repowering with 567 power plants. Jenks also brought about a simpler, more cost-effective paint scheme, a dark blue "dip-job" broken only with two white stripes on the nose, a white stripe on the sidesill, an MP buzzsaw under the cab window and small numbers in white centered at the top of the long hood. The scheme came to be known as "Jenks blue."
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Chapter Six: Return to Sparta
This standardization and reliance on the reliable kept the MP from purchasing turbocharged diesel units until the development of the GP35. After all, turbochargers require extra parts on hand in the repair facilities and time and money devoted to training the mechanics. Yet the GP35 proved more reliable than its older cousins, the GP20 and GP30. To designate turbocharging, these units sported a large, white "screaming eagle" on the long hood.
The MP either traded, scrapped, or modified all of its non-EMD 567-powered locomotives. The 150 ALCO FAs and FBs the railroad rostered were traded in for 100 EMD GP18s. The railroad repowered the newer ALCO RS3 and RS11 units with 567 power plants, creating "GP12" and "GP16" locomotives respectively. By the mid-1960s, the graceful ALCO PA passenger locomotives were scrapped, and the MP began closing down its unprofitable passenger operations to concentrate on streamlining its freight delivery procedures. By 1970, the MP was using EMD locomotives exclusively and none of its equipment directly became part of Amtrak when the government took over rail passenger operations in 1971 (the remaining EMD E units being either scrapped or sold by the late 1960s).
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Chapter Seven: Battle on the Plains
In 1976, the MoPac formally merged long-time associate Texas & Pacific and the western leg of the Chicago and Eastern Illinois acquired in the 1960s (the eastern portion going to the Louisville & Nashville). At this point, the MP operated in all three of the major rail capitals of America: Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City. The railroad, via the T&P and Gulf Coast Lines subsidiaries, stretched south to Louisianna and across Texas to El Paso.
This system competed with the Union Pacific on the east/west stretch, and the Kansas City Southern and Missouri, Kansas, Texas on the north/south portions. The MP also competed for revenue with the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, Chicago & North Western, and the Southern Pacific.
GP35s raced across the plains with the "Ford Fast Freight," a joint Missouri Pacific/Norfolk & Western venture, delivering automobiles and parts to cities west of Detroit. SD40-2s hauled coal from the western edges of the system to industries on the eastern and southern edges. The southern edge of the system provided petroleum products for the northern customers. The MP began dabbling with GE locomotives in the 1970s to handle the freight traffic, purchasing U23B and U30C engines and returning later to acquire newer cousins, the B23-7 and C30-7 models.
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Chapter Eight: Merger with the Union Pacific
By the late-1970s, the MoPac had worked itself into a major railroad system. However, shareholders wanted a return on their investments and the MP went looking for a mate in a new era of mergers. The Union Pacific, agreed to absorb the MP into its operations along with the Western Pacific. While the MP was larger than the UP at the time of the merger, the UP became the parent, and while some reports indicated a new name for the large system (the Pacific Railroad Company), nothing came of that and the UP swallowed the other lines under its canary paint. Herein, the MP finally reached its original goal: the Pacific coast. In 1988 the MKT joined the MP and WP in the belly of the fattened UP, and more recently the CNW has slipped down the throat of the insatiable UP.
As part of the agreement, the Denver & Rio Grande gained access to Kansas City over the MP's former rails. By the mid-1980s, the mainline that had at times been dominated by 30+ MoPac trains daily saw nothing but D&RGW and, after its merger with the Rio Grande, former rival SP traffic.
In the 1990s, in spite of clogging on east/west routes, the UP sold the former MP east/west corridor to the Central Kansas Railway. Today the MP survives as a "paper railroad" evident only through reporting marks on the sides of rolling stock. Much former MP rolling stock remains in MP paint with MP lettering and herald, but some of the newer equipment (and repainted older equipment) carries the UP shield with MP reporting marks...a weak tribute to a once great carrier that, unlike many other roads, overcame its hard times to achieve great expectations.