Nostalgia & History > East St. Louis Relay Station

Back in the '60's, did anyone else besides the B&O and PRR serve this station? Which RR owned/built it? Did the B&O and PRR use common or seperate tracks? Was there a PA system or any kind of food service in the station? Is the building still standing?

Thanks!

Andy
Jacksonville, FL

Suggest you go to groups.yahoo.com - stl. louis railfans for info

building is gone, only concrete footprint in the trees and weeds are left now.

Randy Allard

Although I do not have any supporting documentation available to me, my understanding as a longtime St. Louisan is that the former Relay Depot in East St. Louis, Illinois was a "union" depot, built and owned by a corporation jointly owned by several of the eastern trunk line carriers which utilized it. Likely candidates would have been PRR, B&O and L&N. These three had passenger routes which fanned out directly from Q Tower, the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis (TRRA) interlocking at Relay Depot, as well as the east approaches to the Eads Bridge and MacArthur Bridges over the Mississippi.

Given its location, one would expect that Relay Depot would be owned and operated by the TRRA, but several knowledgeable railfan friends always indicated to me that was not the case. There was also an opinion that it was owned by the city of East St. Louis, Illinois.

Facilities: a public address system, yes. I know that I have seen old photos of the building and platform areas with p.a. speakers visible; if memory serves, they were under the eaves of the roof. My recollection is that I was told that there was a small lunchroom as well, at least in earlier years -- probably gone by the 1960's.

As far as train counts in the 1960's, I'll back into that question from about 30 years earlier, which I think you will find very interesting. I have a TRRA public timetable no. 237, dated Nov. 2, 1930. It is a very large single broadsheet, 34 inches tall by 22 inches wide, printed as a reproduction in 1985 by noted St. Louis railfan and outstanding timetable collector, Don Sarno. TRRA issued these regularly, and they showed the times of all passenger trains for St. Louis Union Station for all railroads. I have heard these called "hotel sheets", because they were apparently posted in hotel lobbies around the city for ready reference by those who were to travel by train.

It's easy to figure out the traffic through Relay Depot, because if a railroad had any traffic routed that way, those trains are indicated in a subsection for that railroad labelled, "Via Eads Bridge and East St. Louis". Here's the breakdown for that date:

Baltimore & Ohio ---- 1 East, 2 West
Big 4 (NYC) ---- 1 East, 1 West
Burlington ---- 2 East/North, 2 West/South
Chicago & Alton ---- 5 East, 4 West (later GM&O)
Cotton Belt ---- 1 East/North, 1 West/South
Illinois Central ---- 2 North, 2 South on North Line to Springfield, Ill.
Illinois Central ---- 4 East/South, 4 West/North on South Line to DuQuoin, Ill. jct. with mainline
Louisville & Nashville ---- 5 East/South, 5 West/North
Missouri Pacific ---- 1 East/South, 1 West/North (local for the Chester Sub. south to Gorham, Ill)
Mobile & Ohio ---- 1 East/South, 1 West/North (later GM&O)
Nickel Plate ---- 2 East, 2 West
Pennsylvania ---- 3 East, 4 West
Southern ---- 3 East, 3 West
Wabash ---- 1 East/North, 0 West/South

The listings for L&N and Southern do not explicitly say, "Via Eads Bridge and East St. Louis", although that routing is likely, particularly for L&N, whose trackage eastward out of East St. Louis to Evansville, Ind. diverged from TRRA trackage off Eads Bridge right at Q Tower and Relay Depot. Southern may be another issue, though. I have a recollection is that Southern was one of the few users of the City of St. Louis, Missouri-owned Municipal Bridge (later renamed to the MacArthur Bridge), just to the south of the Eads Bridge. It was built by the city to compete with the TRRA and provide a route, particularly for freight, which avoided TRRA's two bridges (Eads and Merchants), and their per-car tolls, known locally as the "bridge arbitrary". That was a longtime local hot-button issue. Municipal / MacArthur historically saw very little passenger traffic, but I have a recollection that Southern was a user, and fairly early on. It would make sense, as the east approach to MacArthur made a much more direct routing to Southern's line eastward to Louisville than would the more roundabout routing via the Eads Bridge.

While the above list would have covered the majority of traffic serving Relay, there could be additional traffic due to the complexities of routings in the St. Louis terminal. These changed to a surprising degree over the years as trains were routed to and from the Eads Bridge route and Relay Depot for some period of time, and then via TRRA's Merchants Elevated northward along the St. Louis, Missouri riverfront to the Merchants Bridge on the city's north side at other times. Some railroads, however, used one routing or the other almost exclusively through the years, such as the Big Four/New York Central and C&EI, which consistently utilized the Merchants route, as did Wabash for the vast majority of its services east of the Mississippi.

There were even some "asynchronous" routings for the Nov. 1930 date of my timetable. For example, B&O's important "Diplomat" went via Relay and Eads Bridge eastbound after a 9:10 am departure from St. Louis Union Station, but used the much more roundabout Merchants route westbound for its 5:30 pm arrival in St. Louis. Mobile & Ohio did the same for its "Gulf Coast Special", departing southbound for Mobile, Ala. at 10:40 pm from St. Louis via the roundabout Merchants route, and arriving northbound at St. Louis at 7:00 am via the more direct Relay and Eads route. But even so, these trains could have served Relay in both directions, coming south off the Merchants Bridge around TRRA's Madison Yard and through CP Jct at the yard's south end, then southward on TRRA to Q Tower where there was, if memory serves, a tight wye connection to swing east for the B&O, or a direct route south on the TRRA to M&O Jct. for the Mobile trains.

There were other surprises. For example, PRR in 1930 routed its name trains out of St. Louis such as the "Spirit of St. Louis", "The American", the "Gotham Limited" and "The Juniata" via the very roundabout (for Pennsy) Merchants route. Only lowly locals used the Eads Bridge and went via Relay. Rather surprising given PRR's direct connection to its eastward mainline at Q Tower and Relay Depot, right off the east end of the Eads Bridge. One longtime railfan friend with good knowledge of Pennsy's services told me that it was due to PRR's frequent use of double-headers in steam days, and a desire to avoid the tunnel under downtown St. Louis (today used by the MetroLink light rail system) that led directly onto the Eads Bridge's west approach. Indeed, photos from the period often show double-slotted K4s Pacifics on many Pennsy trains, so this makes some sense as a hypothesis. And in the late steam period T1 duplexes were fairly frequent visitors, engines which almost certainly could not negotiate the tight radius curve midway in the downtown tunnel where it turns from its north-south alignment under 8th Street to an east-west alignment under Washington Avenue.

What was left from all of this in the mid-1960's? Not much. A November, 1964 "Official Guide" shows the following:

Baltimore & Ohio ---- 2 East, 2 West
NYC ---- 0 East, 0 West stopping at Relay, although timetable shows routing via East St. Louis
Burlington ---- Zero
GM&O ---- Zero. All Chicago trains via Merchants route (ex-C&A), no Mobile-bound trains (ex-M&O)
Cotton Belt ---- Zero
Illinois Central ---- Zero -- North Line to Springfield, Ill.-- operating via Merchants route
Illinois Central ---- 3 East/South, 3 West/North - South Line to DuQuoin, Ill. mainline jct
Illinois Central ---- Timetable does not show an East St. Louis station or stop for South Line, but routing may have have taken trains past Relay.
Louisville & Nashville ---- 1 East/South, 1 West/North
Missouri Pacific ---- Zero
Nickel Plate ---- Zero
Pennsylvania ---- 3 East, 3 West (only 2 westbounds stopping at Relay)
Southern ---- Zero
Norfolk & Western ---- Zero (ex-Wabash)

Here's a link to some photos here on TO from this time period:

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,2311154,2312112#msg-2312112

Other resources: The Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis Historical & Technical Society (TRRA H&TS) publishes an excellent monograph-style newsletter. Although I do not have a copy of the issue, I am reasonably sure that they have done an issue or issues on Relay Depot and Q Tower. Their articles are very focused and detailed, with excellent photos, and almost certainly would answer your questions. The issue(s) for Q Tower and Relay may be available as back issues, or on interlibrary loan. I believe several St. Louis-area libraries hold runs of these newsletters.

Excellent timetable resources are in the Don Sarno Railroad Timetable Collection at the John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library, part of the St. Louis Mercantile Library at the University of Missouri - St. Louis. Sarno was an outstanding timetable collector, and focused especially on St. Louis-related resources, including much TRRA material. John Barriger's own papers in his namesake library also include some superb TRRA resources, including some very rare documents and files concerning TRRA history and reorganization of its many corporate subsidiaries. These might include resources on Relay Depot, particularly ownership. His extensive files on other railroads, particularly PRR, could also have useful material. The GM&O Historical Society Collection at the Barriger Library may also have some Relay-related material, since GM&O's constituents C&A and M&O both served Relay through the years. The Barriger Library probably also has an extensive run, if not complete, of the TRRA H&TS newsletter.

MC
Columbia, Missouri



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 12/07/12 19:55 by ironmtn.

After completing the previous post, I did some additional work to further satisfy my own curiosity about how all of the totals for St. Louis Union Station stacked up on the aforementioned TRRA "hotel sheet" public timetable from November 2, 1930. Here's a summary, with counts which are technically by total schedules rather than trains counted as services, since I did not try to correlate non-daily movements (such as Monday-Friday schedules with their Saturday-Sunday, or Saturday-only or Sunday-only counterparts). There aren't that many of them in any case, and they mainly apply to regional locals and suburban trains. The vast majority of the schedules, probably about 90% or more, were seven-day, daily schedules.

I did correlate some evident jointly operated services which might appear for more than one railroad, such as the "Bluebonnet" and "Texas Special" of the Frisco and Katy, and the "Night Hawk" of the Burlington and Chicago & Alton to Kansas City. There may be others which were not evident, or which I did not recall.

Since schedules were counted, eastbound/westbound, or northbound/southbound schedules, for a given service were both counted.

Total non-suburban schedules for services operating east of the Mississippi

Baltimore & Ohio -- 10
Big Four (NYC) -- 16
Burlington -- 4
Chicago & Alton -- 21
Chicago & Eastern Illinois -- 6
Cotton Belt -- 2
Illinois Central -- 24
Louisville & Nashville -- 10
Mobile & Ohio -- 4
Nickel Plate -- 4
Pennsylvania -- 17
Southern -- 6
Wabash -- 13

Total -- 133

Via Eads Bridge and Relay Depot, East St. Louis -- 58
Possibly via Municipal (MacArthur) Bridge -- 6 [Southern]
Via Merchants Elevated and Merchants Bridge -- 69

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Total non-suburban train schedules for services operating west of the Mississippi

Burlington -- 10
Burlington - Chicago & Alton jointly operated -- 2
Frisco -- 16
Katy -- 6
Frisco-Katy jointly operated -- 4
Missouri-Illinois -- 2
Missouri Pacific -- 31
Rock Island -- 4
Wabash -- 14

Total -- 89

Total suburban train schedules for services operating west of the Mississippi

Frisco -- 18
Missouri Pacific -- 37
[Wabash] -- [2]

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Total non-suburban schedules for St. Louis Union Station -- 222
Total suburban schedules for St. Louis Union Station -- 55 (excludes Wabash)
Total passenger schedules for St. Louis Union Station -- 277


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Frisco and MoPac suburban services are shown on the TRRA timetable for St. Louis Union Station, and are therefore counted as such here. Total schedules are shown here, with no attempt to correlate weekday services with reduced weekend services.

Wabash operated a small suburban service, which ended in 1933, to the northwestern suburb of Ferguson and on to St. Charles. It is not shown on the TRRA timetable, probably because by its 1930 date Wabash was terminating the train at its own small station on the St. Louis riverfront near downtown, and was not operating the service into Union Station. By the 1930 date, this service was probably down to one inbound morning train, and one outbound evening train.

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Images below of this November 2, 1930 TRRA "hotel sheet" public timetable for St. Louis Union Station

1) The entire timetable sheet.
2) Close-up of the Illinois Central section, showing the division between North and South Lines, and routings via Eads Bridge and East St. Louis, or the Merchants Elevated and Merchants Bridge. The Wabash section is similarly divided between East Lines and West Lines, and with the East Line section further divided for the Eads and Merchants routes.

MC
Columbia, Missouri



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/07/12 19:32 by ironmtn.

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MC, fascinating and greatly appreciated.

Posted from Android

MC - I really appreciate your insight and research.
One more question - apparently the B&O, PRR and L&N all split up at Q Tower - just west of the depot. This means that there would be at least three sets of tracks serving Relay Station. Was there an overpass or "subway" that a passenger could use when moving between tracks? Also, were the4 tracks elevated, or depressed beneath street level?

Thanks Again!

Andy

twropr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> MC - I really appreciate your insight and
> research.
> One more question - apparently the B&O, PRR and
> L&N all split up at Q Tower - just west of the
> depot. This means that there would be at least
> three sets of tracks serving Relay Station. Was
> there an overpass or "subway" that a passenger
> could use when moving between tracks? Also, were
> the4 tracks elevated, or depressed beneath street
> level?
>
> Thanks Again!
>

Andy -- Sorry for the delay in response. I haven't looked back at this post for some time.

My recollection is that there was neither a subway nor an overpass over the tracks at Relay, and that everything was at ground level. Again, if you are able to do further research using some of the resources I suggested previously, especially the TRRA H&TS bulletins, I think you'll find useful answers on many points.

MC
Columbia, Missouri

With regards to the subway part of your question, there was one subway that passed from the depot proper and connected to:

1. The north platforms along the TRRA/GM&O/NYC
2. The east platforms along the PRR
and
3. Missouri Avenue.

Here is a photo by Mike Haper dated 1962 looking west along the PRR tracks. Behind the gentleman is the subway entrance from the Pennsy Platform and to the left is the entrance from Missouri Avenue.

Best regards,

John P. Kohlberg

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