Western Railroad Discussion > Moulton Jct. Iowa trackwork

I'm always late on my posts because of other things going on. With that said, a few weeks ago we were coming home from the Knoxville, Iowa 410 Sprint Nationals and took a detour to Moulton Jct, Iowa. The Appanoose County Railroad owns this short branch line that runs from Centerville to Albia. They are installing a tank car storage yard on the former Wabash portion of the railroad.

Pic 1. Standing on a new road crossing, this is looking south on the new storage track, former Wabash to Moulton. The storage tracks go less than a mile, but if they went a few miles more beyond that you would reach Moulton, Iowa. Supposedly the customer is planning on unloading tank cars here, so the former main line will be a road, thus why the tracks swing to the side.
Pic 2. Standing on the same spot, looking north 180 degrees. You can see the new track over the bridge. At one time the Rock Islands KC mainline passed underneath. What is left is part of the railroad now and connects just beyond the bridge with the portion I am standing on.
Pic 3. This is further north of pic 2. you can see the odd curvature required to get around the existing main line, that curves to the right and connects to the former Rock Island.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/31/15 15:02 by traingeek087.

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Pic 4. Shows the switch off of the main.
Pic 5. This is the old interchange yard. At one time APNC only owned up to here. The interchange tracks curved to the south and there was a 2 track yard witht the Norfolk Southern. When the NS decided to abandon, the APNC bought the tracks all the way to Albia, Iowa where it connects with the former CBQ, now BNSF. The interchanged was moved from facing south to north, so they didn't have to do a reverse movement to get from Centerville to Albia. I've been told the new curvature is less tight than before. You can see the track have not yet been rebuilt.
Pic 6. Google Maps Aerial view you can see the existing railroad, the bridge, and where the former yard is that they are working on now.

Thanks,
Traingeek087
 

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Good documentation of what's happening here.   Glad to see some possible new revenue for the Appanoose County.  
Somewhere I have photos of that interchange yard when it was still fairly new.  
Here is a photo of a northbound NS train at Moulton either the summer of '91 or '92.
 

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rantoul Wrote:
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> What is the purpose of this new track?  Where is
> the interchange with the other railroads? 
> Thanks, interesting sort of obscure place for a
> yard.

The yard already existed but had trees and overgrowth in it. The word is some sort of tank car business is going to park a unit train on the track, and have access to loading semi tank trailers with it for distribution to various places he owns. If you look up Centerville, Iowa you can see where the end of the APNC railroad is. The railroad is mad up of three former railroads, CBQ, Rock Island, and Wabash. The Centerville portion is CBQ, then interchanges with Rock Island, which in turn interchanges - in the pictures I posted - with the Wabash. Once on the Wabash the APNC railroad can interchange south of Moravia with the former Milwaukee Road, now CP, or go further north to Albia and interchange with the former CBQ, now BNSF.

Nice photo of the Norfolk Southern in Moulton, IA. It would have enjoyed seeing the line as it once was before the rails were taken out.

Thanks,
Traingeek087



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/15 19:51 by traingeek087.