Jackson County hopes to buy some of the old Lexington Branch right-of-way that was built through Blue Township in the 1870s, although the tag Lexington Branch did not come along until the 1880s.
Following is a compilation of dates related to the Lexington Branch taken from “On the Right Side of the Tracks: The Wyandotte, Kansas City & Northwestern Railroad Then and Now” by Ernest N. Griffin,
Jackson County Historical Society Journal, spring 2007, and
American Narrow Gauge Railroads by George Woodman Hilton, Stanford University Press, 1990, the
Kansas City Journal, and from other information.
1864
Building since 1851 and after significant financial woes and the interruption caused by the Civil War, the Pacific Railroad makes it to Independence and builds what becomes known as the Pacific Station at Grand and Pacific streets. The troubled line will eventually give up on getting to the Pacific Ocean but will be renamed Missouri Pacific.
1871
Business leaders in Kansas City meet to consider proposals for two new 3-foot narrow gauge railroads.
During this period in American history a number of narrow gauge railroads are built nationwide as a cost saving measure but the cost of labor for freight interchange and passenger interchange with standard gauge (4 feet 8 and one-half inches) railroads would prove to be problematic. In Maine where two foot gauge ruled and in the other states where three foot gauge was the cost saving norm, all the narrow gauge roads eventually went out of business, became tourist attractions, or were converted to standard gauge.
The first of the two narrow gauge roads considered by the Kansas City business leaders is the Wyandotte, Kansas City & Northwestern that would run west to Wyandotte (became part of Kansas City, Kansas, in 1886), then go north by west into southern Nebraska.
The second narrow gauge road proposal is the Kansas City, Independence & Lexington that would run from Kansas City east through Blue Township via Independence, Pixley (a hamlet), and Adams (a plantation). The route would also go through Lake City and Buckner in Fort Osage Township headed along the Missouri River to Lexington via some lucrative coal fields at Wellington in Lafayette County. The long range goal is for this line to reach Saint Louis.
Both roads will require municipal subsidies along their routes.
1872
Spring – A Kansas City bond issue to subsidize the Kansas City, Independence & Lexington road is defeated and the vision for this line collapses.
Summer – A Kansas City bond issue of $150,000 to subsidize the Wyandotte, Kansas City & Northwestern wins approval but some of the towns on the proposed route in Kansas balk at providing additional support. The vision for this northwestern route also collapses.
1873
The Wyandotte, Kansas City & Northwestern has lost its Nebraska hopes but in a twist is able to get approval from Kansas City voters to proceed with a line to Lexington using the subsidy previously approved to establish the Nebraska route. The promoters now intend to follow the route for the Kansas City, Independence & Lexington. The proposed right-of-way starts along the Missouri River in Kansas City.
Due to a legal quirk, the promoters drop the Kansas City, Independence & Lexington name. They retain the Kansas City, Wyandotte & Northwestern name even though the road will not be going through Wyandotte, Kansas, and will not be going in the designated northwest direction to Nebraska.
The railroad promoters will receive $75,000 of the $150,000 Kansas City subsidy upon reaching Independence. They will receive the balance when the line reaches the Lafayette County coal fields.
Blue Township voters promise $100,000 to the line. The bonds are sold at seven percent with the proceeds going to the railroad. Blue Township property owners will eventually pay off the bonds with help from charging the railroad township property taxes for the right-of-way and any other land the railroad will own in the township. (The tracks also go through Lake City and Buckner in Fort Osage Township. Have found no mention of a subsidy from those areas.) Besides Blue Township taxation, each of the towns the railroad will go through will also charge property taxes to the road as will Jackson County and the state.
1874
August - The line reaches Independence.
Preston Roberts of Independence becomes the railroad president.
1875
May - Tracks reach the coal fields near Wellington, twenty-four crow miles from Independence Square. The railroad begins hauling coal westward dropping coal at most of the towns all the way back to Kansas City.
The town of
Livesay east of Buckner is mistakenly painted by the company on the railroad station letter boards as
Levasy. The mistake sticks.
Fall - The right-of-way has been obtained all the way to Lexington. The promoters obtain additional financing in Great Britain but the road still needs municipal financing along the extended route to Saint Louis. A town called Grand Pass (population 66 today) between Lexington and Booneville refuses to provide assistance.
December – A new state constitution takes effect prohibiting new approvals by local governments for railroad subsidies.
The Wyandotte, Kansas City & Northwestern abandons its plan to push its narrow gauge line to Saint Louis and stops at Lexington. (Another road will extend what would become known as the Lexington Branch as standard gauge south to Sedalia.)
1876
August – Passenger trains begin running round trip on 44 miles of track from the Missouri River in Kansas City to Lexington taking about two and one half hours each way. The line locates its Independence depot at Liberty and Short Streets, which becomes known as the Liberty Station. The Liberty Station is built in the Liberty and Short streets right-of-way and the city agrees to this temporary location for six months. However the arrangement lasts almost sixty years.
The Liberty Station sitting in the middle of Short Street and edging on to Liberty Street. Someone previously posted a photo of the Liberty Station--maybe SilverDoc--but I could not find it.
The narrow gauge Wyandotte, Kansas City & Northwestern is operating between Kansas City and Lexington with five locomotives, five passenger cars, two baggage cars, and 114 freight cars. Coal from Lafayette County is the principal revenue producer.
Telegraph lines are installed along the right-of-way.
Promoters attempt to extend the narrow gauge line west from the Missouri River starting point to the then Union Station in Kansas City to accommodate through passengers needing to catch another train to their destination. Kansas City council members turn down their proposal.
In view of the Kansas City council disapproval, railroad management announces a transfer interchange agreement with the standard gauge Missouri Pacific at the Pacific Station in Independence to get passengers into Union Station.
The narrow gauge tracks appear to have a grade level crossing with the standard gauge track at or near the Pacific Station and then parallels just west of the standard gauge at a sort distance all the way into Kansas City.
This agreement could conceivably have had trains coming from the east drop Independence bound passengers at Liberty Station, then continue the train the extra mile to the Pacific Station. The through passengers would disembark and wait at the Pacific Station and board a standard gauge Missouri Pacific train and continue on to Union Station.
The narrow gauge track paralleling close to the standard gauge into Kansas City continues to haul freight.
Not all is well though. The line suffers from sharp curves in Independence and has steep grades coming into Independence from the east beginning at what is now M-291 and Truman Road. These limitations are serious enough to prove costly to the railroad’s performance and bottom line.
1877
The Wyandotte, Kansas City & Northwestern fails.
1878
January – The failed narrow gauge is sold to a company in New York and the new owners rename the line to the Kansas City & Eastern. The line is to be extended further east to Booneville but nothing happens.
1879
December – The New York outfit sells the Kansas City & Eastern to Jay Gould, the ninth richest citizen in the United States. He controls the Union Pacific as well as the Missouri Pacific plus others.
December – Gould leases the Kansas City & Eastern to his Missouri Pacific for a period of five years.
1880
September – Way before the five-year lease expires, Gould merges the Kansas City & Eastern into the Missouri Pacific.
The narrow gauge line through Independence is now known as the Lexington Branch of the Missouri Pacific Railroad.
1881
November – Gould rips out the narrow gauge tracks from the Pacific Station crossing in Independence west to the starting point in Kansas City.
Jackson County files suit against Missouri Pacific for removing this portion of the narrow gauge.
1882
January – A passenger train and a freight train collide head on at Adams in what is now eastern Independence. Several cars are destroyed and a fireman and one passenger are killed.
August – Over a three-day period, Gould changes the entire narrow gauge line to standard gauge from the Pacific Station to Lexington.
Even though Independence now has two standard gauge passenger stations of the same railroad within one rail mile of each other, Independence businessmen pressure the Missouri Pacific to keep the Liberty Station operating.
1883
The Missouri Supreme Court orders the ripped out narrow gauge tracks west of the Pacific Station into Kansas City restored.
The Missouri Pacific complies by rebuilding the track as standard gauge incorporating it into its main line.
1887
In another twist, the Kansas City, Wyandotte & Northwestern name is resurrected and begins operating on its originally proposed route into Nebraska but is taken over by the Kansas City Northwestern Railroad in 1894.
The "new" Kansas City, Wyandotte & Northwestern:
1902
The Missouri Pacific finally tires of the Lexington Branch grade and curve problems in Independence. It works out an agreement with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe to get around those problems. About two rail miles west of Lake City, the Missouri Pacific builds a rail switch, which will allow traffic to go in two directions. The road calls it the Lake City By-Pass. The switch allows a new six-mile long through track to be built north to Eaton Junction near Atherton and interchange with Santa Fe track. Santa Fe allows the Missouri Pacific to use its tracks to enter Kansas City. The switched track follows the old rail east into Independence. Although the junction is called the Lake City By-Pass, it is Independence that is by-passed, allowing faster more efficient through freight traffic. Passenger service and local freight continue following the westbound switch direction to Independence.
1903
The Independence Fire Department saves the Liberty Station from burning down after a night time thief uses a huge amount of dynamite to blow a safe in the next door May Coal and Grain Company creating a huge threating fire.
1904
July - The Missouri Pacific shuts down the Lexington Branch from the Pacific Depot to the Lake City By-Pass during a huge Missouri River flood in Kansas City. The line moves all of its rolling stock away from the flood and parks the cars in long lines on the branch blocking normal traffic for several weeks. This action infuriates the businessmen of Independence. It seems that Independence for years has been a popular rail destination for shoppers coming from the east who get off at the Liberty Station and walk three blocks to the square and shop. They then return to the depot and catch the next train going back east.
The closeness of the Liberty Station to the square and the resulting town business generated from rail patrons keeps the pressure on the Missouri Pacific from closing the station in favor of the Pacific Station. Additionally, the Pacific Station is a one and a half mile walk to the square.
1905
Missouri Pacific attempts to terminate traffic on the Lexington Branch through Independence. Blue Township still has $15,000 in outstanding bonds issued in 1873 to bring the tracks through the township. The township wants the service plus needs the property tax income to help retire the remaining bonds. Independence businessmen want the service to continue. Blue Township sues.
The Missouri Supreme Court rules in favor of Blue Township.
1907
April - An eastbound passenger train strikes a horse at the Colyer trestle in what is now eastern Independence pushing the lifeless animal across the bridge where the locomotive jumps the track. There are no injuries.
1915
January – Blue Township pays off the last of the $100,000 bonds issued to bring the narrow gauge through the township.
1926
January – The Missouri Pacific tests the use of a sixty-passenger Doodle Bug for passenger service on the Lexington Branch from Sedalia to Lexington to Kansas City and back following the line through Independence. (A Doodle Bug is a self-propelled gasoline or diesel powered car. The Lexington Branch between Sedalia and Lexington will be abandoned in phases in the 1960s and 1970s.)
1935
March - The Missouri Pacific faces little or no opposition and abandons six miles in the middle of the Lexington Branch between the Lake City By-Pass and the Pacific Station. Telegraph service is not interrupted on the abandoned portion but there is no longer any use for Liberty Station, which is torn out. The abandonment leaves a spur on both the west and east. On the west, the Pixley Spur is a four-mile operation from Pacific Station, to what is now M-291 and Truman Road. On the east, the three-mile Independence Power and Light Spur will eventually serve the power plant built during the 1950s at Truman Road and M-78.
1950s
On the Pixley Spur, two rock quarries, the Gleaner Combine Company, Waggoner Gates Milling, May Coal and Grain, Freiderchson Floor and Tile, Home Comfort Products, and the Dodgion Street Independence Power and Light plant are freight customers with six-day a week service. At other locations, cars drop off beer, lumber, plastics, and sail boats.
Increased coal train activity to the Dodgion Street power station occurs after the plant significantly increases its capacity.
The new Independence Power and Light Blue Valley multi-fueled power plant uses the power and light spur to bring heavy turbines, construction equipment and materials, and fuel into the plant.
1960s
Coal shipments into the Blue Valley power plant greatly increase as plant capacity doubles.
Telegraph service is discontinued along the Lexington Branch including along the abandoned rail right-of-way in Independence.
1978
Independence Power & Light converts their twenty-year old Truman Road power plant entirely to coal and continues using the eastern spur to bring coal to the plant. (The plant will reconvert to natural gas by 2016)
At some point in the future, the Truman Road power plant discontinues rail service and the Union Pacific tears up a small part of the plant spur.
1982 - 1997
December 1982 - Union Pacific Railroad agrees to buy the Missouri Pacific Lines. But the official merger is held up for an extended period. In January 1997, the Missouri Pacific officially becomes part of the Union Pacific.
2007
On the Pixley Spur, twice a week, usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 9:00 am and 11:00 am, a total of forty or so freight cars of newspaper, sugar, and frozen meat enter the spur at the Amtrak Station (the former Pacific Station), go under Main Street and cross Noland and Lee’s Summit roads to be delivered by the Union Pacific at the Pixley yard. There a switcher from another company picks them up and drops them at destinations in the man-made underground caves, which have underground service. Empty cars are delivered back to the Pixley yard. Other than extraction of the freight from the caves, this is the only service performed.
2014
February - Jackson County announces an understanding with the Union Pacific to buy both the Pixley Spur and power and light spur for future incorporation into a Jackson County commuter rail system.
2015
Union Pacific continues with limited operations on the Pixley Spur.
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