Nostalgia & History > MoPac Matched Set Monday Meets - Labadie Loads and Empties Pass

As mentioned two weeks ago on MoPac Monday, unit coal trains powered by three or four big GE U30C locomotives were staples for Missouri Pacific in my hometown of St. Louis during the 1970s and '80s. Coal from surface mines located just southeast of St. Louis moved in these unit trains to the big Labadie generating plant of the local utility, Union Electric Co. (today Ameren), located at Labadie, Mo., on Missouri Pacific's St. Louis - Kansas City mainline just west of St. Louis.

Here are two meets between westbound loads headed to Labadie, and eastbound empties rolling back to the southwestern Illinois mine loadouts in August 1975.  Because of the relatively short trip mileage between mines and the power plant (about 125 miles), seeing meets between loads and empties like this was not uncommon, as trains kept cycling back and forth on a shorter cycle loop than those serving many other power plants around the nation.

Enjoy...and stay tuned for more to come.

MC
Muskegon, Michigan



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/20 15:09 by ironmtn.

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ABOVE:

1) A westbound loaded train, headed by the MP 3333 we saw two weeks ago, and running compass north here on the west track, meets eastbound empties as they both pass MoPac's yard at Dupo, Illinois. Illinois Highway 3 is just to the right. The power for both trains are sets of GE U30C's. I suggested two weeks ago that the westbound loaded train headed by the 3333 had been crossed over by the dispatcher to the west (left) track to possibly allow a hot Cotton Belt freight for East St. Louis (on trackage rights) to overtake it on the east (right) main: https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,5049333  But then I located this slide, and the more likely reason became evident: it was to set up this meet between loaded and empty Labadie coal trains, even if the DS had perhaps allowed a hot Cotton Belt train to pass first, which did occur.

Seeing meets like this between loaded and empty coal trains at Dupo was fairly common. As for the guy looking out the window of the trailing 3330, I'm not sure why he's there. You might also note a small "TP" at the lower left of the buzzsaw logo under the cab window. This probably indicated  technical ownership by Missouri Pacific's Texas & Pacific subsidiary. The 3329 through 3334 were originally rostered as T&P units under those numbers (built in 1974), later becoming MP 2994 through 2999. MoPac was like Southern in that regard, indicating original and /or legal ownership of locomotives by subsidiaries such as T&P and C&EI.

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2 and 3) Another meet between eastbound empties and westbound loads for Labadie, this time at 18th Street on the south edge of the Mill Creek valley. This low-gradient track corridor through central St. Louis was used by MP and other railroads to pass east-west through the moderately hilly terrain of the city. This view to the east-northeast is a few months later in October 1975. And the 3333 leads once again, this time on the eastbound empties -- we've seen the 3333 on the point in three images now in this series.  Interestingly, these trains supplying Union Electric's largest generating facility also passed the company's headquarters complex every day on this route. Those offices were located behind and to the left of me on the other side of 18th Street, on the southern edge of the Mill Creek valley, and right next to the MP tracks.

The Unit Train Cars - An Intertesting History
The bright yellow-orange of the Union Electric-owned Ortner Rapid Discharge hoppers (reporting mark GUEX) always made for a distinctive view. At the Labadie plant, these trains unloaded on the roll at low speed on a continuous loop that passed over an elevated coal-dumping track section. The air-operated bottom-dump doors or gates opened automatically as the train passed over the unloading trestle, with the door opening triggered by contact with a shoe plate on one end of the car. There was a separate air line between cars for the air cylinders which opened and closed the doors. More on these cars: https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,1437457
And an obituary for Robert Ortner, developer of the Rapid Discharge technology: https://www.progressiverailroading.com/rail_industry_trends/news/In-memoriam-Rapid-discharge-door-developer-Robert-Ortner--17115

Union Electric liked the Rapid Discharge cars, and used  them for coal supply to three big generating stations near St. Louis. One was Labadie (pronounced "LAB - ah - dee", it's largest facility, today 2,372 Megawatts nameplate capacity), was located west of the city on the Missouri River. The cars were also used for the Sioux plant (today 972 MW), located at Portage des Sioux, Mo. on the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, and just upstream from Alton, Ill.,  served at the time by BN (ex-CB&Q);  and for  the Rush Island plant (today 1,178 MW), located on the Mississippi just south of Festus, Mo., served at the time by Frisco, soon to become part of BN.

The use of this car type at the Sioux Plant in the mid-1960s was one of the earliest in the nation, and created a splash in local and trade media for its innovative service design when it was initiated with the Burlington, using a mostly CB&Q routing from Southern Illinois mines. It initially used specially-equipped CB&Q SD units (SD7's and SD9's, I think), and Burlington-owned Ortner Rapid Discharge hoppers.  A very interesting report, with images, on the Sioux plant operation, which originated at the Freeman Orient No. 5 Mine, near Benton, Ill.  at this site -- see pages 65-77:  https://preview.tinyurl.com/y9pkfbqm

The successful early unit-train operation by Burlington and Union Electric at the Sioux plant set the stage for the Union Electric's  continuing use of unit coal trains, and the Ortner Rapid Discharge cars. That usage that would continue all the way through the Labadie unit trains we've seen in these images. And it continues today, now entirely using  western low-sulfur coal delivered by Union Pacific.

The Yard, Other Trains and Interesting Details
There's a lot of other interesting detail in these images. Trackage of MP's 23rd Street Yard, filled with various interesting (and graffiti-free!!) cars of the era, is to the left of the coal trains. The yard sat in the middle of the Mill Creek valley between MP mains on the south edge of the valley, and TRRA mains on the valley's north side. MoPac used this yard for transfers to and from other roads and its other area yards (Lesperance St. on the south riverfront in St. Louis, and A&S Gateway Yard in East St. Louis). It was also used for receiving and making up blocks for road trains, as well as for making up local jobs to switch area customers.

In the distance, high-cube 86-foot auto parts boxcars are visible, They are on east-west TRRA track on the north side of the Mill Creek valley, and just east of Union Station, which is just out of the frame to the left beyond those cars. They are probably on a transfer run to or from Frisco's Lindenwood yard in southwest St. Louis. From there, Frisco handled them to the two big side-by-side Chrysler assembly plants, located southwest of St. Louis on Frisco at Fenton, Missouri. Both assembly plants are gone today, and the "Chrysler Jobs" on TRRA and SLSF, and later BN / BNSF, have long since ended. The small tower visible in the distance (whose name escapes me) was an auxiliary TRRA tower to assist Tower One  at Union Station (out of the frame to the left) with the traffic at the east throat of Union Station, and in the past, for TRRA's engine terminal tracks just to the east near 14th Street. At this date, the tower was probably vacant and unused, though it stood for some years after its usage ended.

Beyond the auto parts block on TRRA is the double-deck US 40 expressway (today also I-64). The large brick building, today looking far different and painted with dramatic and artistic murals, was at the time the central warehouse of St. Louis-based Edison Brothers Stores, a large footwear retail store chain. In years past it had been the J.C. Penney Co. warehouse. Today it is a combined high-end condo building, shared with the Red Lion St. Louis Hotel (formerly the Sheraton St. Louis) on the lower floors.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/20 08:41 by ironmtn.

A story told to me was that those big GE engines were known as "traffic Dept engines".  It seems that a GE rep. mentioned that the MP got a lot of freight traffic from GE and it would be "nice" if MP bought some of their engines.  Apparently the message reached the right folks.

Great photos and follow-up thread. Thanks for sharing.

Great photos--really neat meet shot.
Brian Stevens

ironmtn Wrote:
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> I'm not sure why he's there. You might also note a
> small "TP" at the lower left of the buzzsaw logo
> under the cab window. This probably indicated 
> technical ownership by Missouri Pacific's Texas &
> Pacific subsidiary. The 3329 through 3334 were
> originally rostered as T&P units under those
> numbers (built in 1974), later becoming MP 2994
> through 2999.

Wasn’t there a handful of SD40-2s that were ordered in the same fashion as well? I could’ve sworn I read about some with the small “TP” initials. Not many, either, and delivered sometime around 1974. Maybe I dreamed it, who knows...

Posted from iPhone

There were about 50  GP-35's that came from EMD with buzz saws and little TP sublettering and here they are leaving Lancaster Yd Ft Worth west bound.  I have a better shot ot the but can not find it right now.  I will keep looking..

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Very informative thread. Good stuff.