| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | St. Louis, Missouri |
| Reporting mark | MRS |
| Locale | Missouri |
| Dates of operation | 1887–2011 |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
The Manufacturers Railway Company( reporting mark MRS) is a defunct railway company in St. Louis, Missouri. It was owned by Anheuser-Busch.
The railway company was founded in 1887 by Adolphus Busch, the President of Anheuser-Busch. [1] By 1906, Busch was still President while William D. Orthwein was Vice President. [2]
The company's line connected with the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis and the Alton and Southern Railroad in East St. Louis, Illinois. The MRS accessed the Alton and Southern Railroad using trackage rights over the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis via the MacArthur Bridge. [3] MRS owned railroad cars used to transport Anheuser-Busch's products. It also provided locomotive maintenance and painting services to other companies. [4]
On March 25, 2011, it was announced that Anheuser-Busch had applied to shut down the MRS, after the brewery began shipping outbound products via truck instead of rail. [5] However, on April 8, Foster Townsend Rail Logistics (reporting marks: FTRL) announced that it planned to take over operations of the line once Manufacturers Railway ceased operations. [6] On October 2, 2011, FTRL Railway began providing rail switching services at Anheuser Busch's St. Louis brewery. [7]
Anheuser-Busch Companies, LLC is an American brewing company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Since 2008, it has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch InBev which also has its North American regional management headquarters in St. Louis.
Adolphus Busch was the German-born co-founder of Anheuser-Busch with his father-in-law, Eberhard Anheuser. He introduced numerous innovations, building the success of the company in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He became a philanthropist, using some of his wealth for education and humanitarian needs. His great-great-grandson, August Busch IV, is a former CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev.
The Missouri Pacific Railroad, commonly abbreviated as MoPac, was one of the first railroads in the United States west of the Mississippi River. MoPac was a Class I railroad growing from dozens of predecessors and mergers. In 1967, the railroad operated 9,041 miles of road and 13,318 miles of track, not including DK&S, NO&LC, T&P, and its subsidiaries C&EI and Missouri-Illinois.
The Illinois Central Railroad, sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, was a railroad in the central United States, with its primary routes connecting Chicago, Illinois, with New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama. A line also connected Chicago with Sioux City, Iowa (1870). There was a significant branch to Omaha, Nebraska (1899), west of Fort Dodge, Iowa, and another branch reaching Sioux Falls, South Dakota (1877), starting from Cherokee, Iowa. The Sioux Falls branch has been abandoned in its entirety.
The St. Louis Southwestern Railway Company, known by its nickname of "The Cotton Belt Route" or simply "Cotton Belt", is a former Class I railroad that operated between St. Louis, Missouri, and various points in the U.S. states of Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Texas from 1891 to 1980, when the system added the Rock Island's Golden State Route and operations in Kansas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. The Cotton Belt operated as a Southern Pacific subsidiary from 1932 until 1992, when its operation was assumed by Southern Pacific Transportation Company.
The Illinois Terminal Railroad Company, known as the Illinois Traction System until 1937, was a heavy duty interurban electric railroad with extensive passenger and freight business in central and southern Illinois from 1896 to 1956. When Depression era Illinois Traction was in financial distress and had to reorganize, the Illinois Terminal name was adopted to reflect the line's primary money making role as a freight interchange link to major steam railroads at its terminal ends, Peoria, Danville, and St. Louis. Interurban passenger service slowly was reduced, ending in 1956. Freight operation continued but was hobbled by tight street running in some towns requiring very sharp radius turns. In 1956, ITC was absorbed by a consortium of connecting railroads.
The Chicago and Western Indiana Railroad was the owner of Dearborn Station in Chicago and the trackage leading to it. It was owned equally by five of the railroads using it to reach the terminal, and kept those companies from needing their own lines into the city. With the closure of Dearborn Station in 1971 and the Calumet steel mills in 1985, the railroad was gradually downgraded until 1994 when it became a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Corporation.
The Alton Railroad was the final name of a railroad linking Chicago to Alton, Illinois; St. Louis, Missouri; and Kansas City, Missouri. Its predecessor, the Chicago and Alton Railroad, was purchased by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1931 and was controlled until 1942 when the Alton was released to the courts. On May 31, 1947, the Alton Railroad was merged into the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad. Jacob Bunn had been one of the founding reorganizers of the Chicago & Alton Railroad Company during the 1860s.
The St. Louis Refrigerator Car Company (SLRX) was a private refrigerator car line established on February 3, 1878, by Anheuser-Busch, the brewer's first subsidiary. SLRX was formed to facilitate large-scale distribution of the A-B's products via the U.S. rail network. The SLRX not only built its own bunkerless reefers, but maintained and operated them as well.
The Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis is a switching and terminal railroad that handles traffic in the St. Louis, Missouri, metropolitan area. It is co-owned by several Class I railroads that reach the city.
Transportation in St. Louis, Missouri includes road, rail, ship, and air transportation modes connecting the city of St. Louis with surrounding communities in Greater St. Louis, national transportation networks, and international locations. The city of St. Louis also supports a public transportation network that includes bus and light rail service.
The Gateway Eastern Railway is a railroad subsidiary of the Kansas City Southern Railway (KCS), owning a 17-mile (27 km) main line between East Alton and East St. Louis, Illinois, United States. Originally created in 1994 as a subsidiary of the Gateway Western Railway, which acquired the East St. Louis-Kansas City line of the Chicago, Missouri and Western Railway in 1990, it was acquired by KCS along with its parent in 1997.
The Chicago, Peoria and St. Louis Railroad (CP&StL) was a railroad in the U.S. state of Illinois that operated a main line between Pekin and Madison via Springfield. Its property was sold at foreclosure to several new companies in the 1920s; the portion north of Springfield has since become the Illinois and Midland Railroad, while the remainder has been abandoned, except for a portion near St. Louis that is now owned by the Norfolk Southern Railway.
The following is a brief history of the North American rail system, mainly through major changes to Class I railroads, the largest class by operating revenue.
The Wabash Railroad was a Class I railroad that operated in the mid-central United States. It served a large area, including track in the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, and Missouri and the province of Ontario. Its primary connections included Chicago, Illinois; Kansas City, Missouri; Detroit, Michigan; Buffalo, New York; St. Louis, Missouri; and Toledo, Ohio.
Marvin Hughitt was an American railroad tycoon from New York. Interested in telegraphy at a young age, Hughitt quickly mastered the trade and moved to Chicago, Illinois to work. He came to the attention of the St. Louis, Alton and Chicago Railroad, who hired him to coordinate trains. This began a long career in rail, culminating in the presidency of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad (1887–1910). He also served as president of two of its subsidiary lines, the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley and the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha.
William David Orthwein (1841–1925) was a German-born American Civil War veteran and grain merchant in St. Louis, Missouri.
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