Meramec Valley History

model railroad and railfan site

Geology and Brief History of the Meramec Valley

"The Meramec River winds along the northern border of the Ozarks, draining 3980 square miles in its 220 mile northeastern journey from its origin. Year round navigability begins at the confluence of Dry Fork and the Maramec Spring branch just south of St. James, and continues until the river enters the Mississippi at Arnold, Missouri. The river goes through Dent, Phelps, Crawford, Franklin, Jefferson, and St. Louis Counties. Tributaries extend to include Maries, Gasconade, Iron, Washington, St. Francois, Ste. Gen-evieve and Texas Counties, and the river drops 313 feet in eleva-tion in its journey. Important tributaries are Brazil, Crooked, Indian, Huzzah and Courtois Creeks, the Blue Spring Branch near Bourbon, the Little Meramec, Bourbeuse and Big Rivers and numerous smaller creeks and branches.

The Meramec valley was originally a mix of oak-hickory forest, upland and river-valley wood-land, savanna, with occasional breaks leading to tall-grass prairie and tallgrass glades. Being neither deep forest nor extensive grassland, animal life was originally plentiful, hence its destination as a hunt-ing ground. The Meramec is also home to a very diverse fish population, and is world famous for its variety of fresh-water mussels. The river is incised, resulting in sometimes spectacular bluffs.

Because of spring flooding followed by low water levels during late summer and early fall, rail and wagon roads were established early on. The Pacific Railroad ran a south-west branch along the valley from Pacific towards Rolla, reaching Rolla before 1860. The Springfield Wire Road roughly paralleled this line. This corridor followed the Meramec valley for most of its length; a path later followed by the SLSF Railway (Frisco) and U.S. 66."

Above text copyrighted - reprinted with permission of Jo Schaper. For more information visit
www.missouriworld.net

Time Travel

On the freelanced Meramec Valley and Pacific, actual history has been altered slightly - in my version, the Frisco never obtained its own right-of-way from Pacific to St. Louis, and continues to lease rights to operate over Missouri Pacific Lines between Pacific and St. Louis.

It's the era of the nineteen-sixties and seventies on the layout - two decades in which railroading itself witnessed a lot of changes. Just a couple of short blocks from my childhood home, high-hooded MoPac GP7s and GP9s went about their daily chores.

A few blocks away, in the opposite direction, Frisco's busy Lindenwood Yard was always a beehive of activity. Many nights I went to sleep to the music of squealing brakes, banging couplers, and the low rumbling of diesel loco-motives. There was just no better place to be for a young boy who liked trains!

Rather than try to replicate specific locations along the Missouri Pacific and the Frisco Railroads, I have tried instead to capture the essence of railroading in Missouri, during the nineteen-sixties and sev-enties.