Over generations, city demonstrates importance of Wabash Station, rail line

As Columbia moves toward the rededication of the renovated Wabash Station this fall, it seems appropriate to look back at how the city wound up with the building and with the spur of the railroad whose name is chiseled above the front door.

Construction on the Wabash Station began in 1909 and cost $15,000. It opened in 1910. Built of Boone County limestone and sporting a French clay tile roof, mahogany millwork, hot-water heating and a vaulted waiting area, it was considered one of the best stations in the region.

The Norfolk and Western Railway acquired the station in 1964 after leasing the Wabash railroad. The building began a slow decline in usage after passenger service ended in 1969; then rail traffic to it ceased completely in the mid-1970s.

There were several parties interested in the building. The Columbia Art League suggested it as a possible spot for a gallery, office and classroom space. The Chamber of Commerce proposed using it for a visitors’ center and downtown meeting place. Columbia College and a local antique dealer also inquired about the building.

But the recommendation by city staff to use the station as a transportation center, an idea strongly supported by First Ward Councilman Pat Barnes, won out. The city decided to move the bus transfer point from 8th and Walnut to the station, providing a long-requested shelter for waiting bus passengers for the first time.

The city council authorized the purchase of the railroad property south of Park Avenue, including the station, freight buildings and 2.1 acres of land, on April 28, 1978, at a cost of $250,000.

It was a major decision for Mayor Les Proctor and council members Pat Barnes, Don Mosely, Diane Faish, Jim Goodrich, Fran Beach and Clyde Wilson. Terry Novak was city manager, Charles Hargrove was assistant manager, and I was public works director. We three provided most of the city staff work. I recall trying to develop a transportation center for city buses, cross-country buses, taxis, airport transit and other modes of transport. For instance, our buses or cabs could provide a lift to veterans coming to town on cross-country buses and needing transportation to the Veterans Administration hospital.

The building sat vacant for a couple of years before the city could take possession of it, along with its surrounding 2.1 acres at 10th and Walnut streets. Before the deal could be officially consummated, the NW railway had to wind its way through the Interstate Commerce Commission’s slow process of official abandonment proceedings and build itself a new freight terminal.

In 1982, the same year NW merged with the Southern Railway System to form Norfolk Southern, the Columbia Area Transit System moved into the Wabash Station, and the city’s bus service has been using it ever since. It is the bus system’s primary transfer point, and many of the city’s half-million bus riders each year pass through it at one time or another.

After years of discussion—and help from the Federal Transit Administration and the state’s Historic Preservation Commission—the building has undergone a major renovation that will soon come to fruition. The renovation will add 1,572 square feet of space, and the new configuration will allow for buses to enter and exit from both Orr and 10th streets, eliminating the current bottleneck at the single entrance on 10th Street. It also will provide shelter for transferring between buses and will bring new life to the transportation hub.

Now, cross-country bus and taxi companies are looking at using the new facility, which would make it a truly multi-modal facility. Earlier, a new fire station and fire administration facility replaced the old freight building, which improved the appearance of the area.

With the station under city ownership, we had little inkling that within just a few years the railroad would be ours too. But soon we would find ourselves in the railroad business. Without making the move, the city would have suffered a major loss of jobs and revenue, and it would have lost one of its major modes that form the core of its “total transportation” concept.

Columbia’s connection to the railroad is long and historic. After the North Missouri Railroad decided to bypass Columbia in 1858, partly because of its hilly topography and partly because Boone County’s neighbors, Howard and Callaway, failed to subscribe to railroad bonds, Columbians organized the Boone County and Jefferson City Railroad. The company constructed a branch line from Centralia to Columbia, with stops at Hallsville and Brown Station, in 1867 at a cost of $512,000. The Wabash Railroad took control of the branch line in 1879, and Norfolk and Western took over the Wabash in 1964.

In 1969, after losing $640,000 the previous year, the NW ended passenger service from St. Louis to Kansas City. In 1978 a nationwide railroad strike gripped the industry, and in 1979 a chemical spill in Sturgeon generated litigation that lasted for years. Ridership on the branch line that ran from Columbia to Centralia had dwindled to two people. Freight service slowly declined by the 1980s from daily to weekly, according to an article by Peter Davis.

According to Davis’s article, two events doomed the branch line to un-profitability: outbound traffic from the Mark Twain coal mine ended in the late 1970s and inbound traffic ended after the city and university power plants switched to truck-hauled coal in 1981. In 1985, shortly after I became acting city manager, Norfolk Southern announced they planned to abandon the 21.2 miles of track because the line was losing $200,000 a year. Since the MKT railroad had already abandoned Columbia, the move would leave the city without service.

Under the auspices of a new city Railroad Advisory Board appointed in 1986, the city hired consultant J.L. Industries to conduct two railroad traffic studies to gauge the potential if the city were to take over the branch line. The board members included four local shippers and three city residents: Chairman David Rogers, an attorney; Jack Blaylock, an appraiser; Peter Davis, a law professor; Howard Eiffert of Boone County Lumber; Lowell Morse of MFA Inc.; Dennis Jones of the Boone County Fire Protection District; and Harry Wulff of Wulff Brothers Masonry Corp.

Although city ownership would make the line eligible for $500,000 in rehabilitation funds from the state to refurbish the tracks and another $35,000 state grant, the city council explored the idea of private ownership first. However, no proposals were submitted.

After much debate, and after a unanimous vote of the city council, the City of Columbia bought the branch in 1987 for slightly less than the budgeted $325,000 and named it the Columbia Terminal railroad, or COLT. The railroad advisory board recommended the city purchase the railroad; however, the water and light advisory board had reservations about taking on a deficit-generating operation. City general revenue funds were extremely tight at the time. Because it was important that our city follow a strategy that assured our city would be served by all means of transportation and because of the economic development aspects of the railroad, I supported the purchase along with Bob Black, assistant city manager and economic development director, and Richard Malon, water and light director. Mayor Rodney Smith and councilpersons Al Tacker, Mary Ann McCollum, Ed Kaiser, Pat Barnes, Chester Edwards and Sharon Lynch should be commended for their courage in making the decision to move forward.

The studies found that several local companies depended on rail service and would close if it shut down. One company alone, Extrusion Technologies, had a payroll of $778,000, paid city utility rates of $382,000 and purchased $100,000 in local supplies. The major reason the maker of plastic water and sewer pipes on Paris Road stayed in Columbia and later expanded their operations was the city’s railroad takeover. The company wound up expanding production by 30 percent and adding 20 workers to their 220 workforce at the time. The economic loss of several such companies would be devastating to Columbia’s economy and to the city itself in lost utility revenues and taxes, not to mention the decreased ability to attract other industry in the future. With an estimated 625 carloads the first year, the studies estimated revenues of $149,000 versus expenses of $191,000, requiring a first-year subsidy of $42,000.

In addition, because the EPA was encouraging communities to use low-sulfur coal, usually obtained in Wyoming and shipped by train, to cut emissions from power plants, it was becoming clear that the usage of high-sulfur Missouri coal would end in the near future. The cost of trucking coal from Centralia to Columbia would add an estimated $240,000 per year in costs, six times the cost of the city subsidy to the COLT.

Columbia purchased the railroad, and then bought a Missouri Pacific SW1200 switcher from Chrome Locomotive Works of Silvis, Ill., for $95,000 to operate the line. We had budgeted $100,000 for the locomotive. We saved the $5,000 because there was a nationwide “locomotive glut” that year, according to Peter Davis. The advisory board had the locomotive painted blue with horizontal yellow stripes.

Once we decided to purchase the railroad, the question for city management was under whose department it should fall. Logically, the choice was either Public Works or Water and Light. We knew Water and Light Director Dick Malon was a model railroad fanatic, so he got the job. Seriously, though, his department had the most to gain and the financial support to make it a success.

Hank Waters, in his Columbia Daily Tribune column, later anointed Malon as Columbia’s “railroad czar,” which gave us all a good laugh. At first, Waters had questioned the decision to purchase the railroad, but after following the results of further studies, he too supported the purchase. Likewise, although many Chamber of Commerce members were against purchasing the railroad, former Executive Director June Dodd supported the decision.

Still operated by the city’s Water and Light department, the COLT carries coal directly to the city power plant, runs regular freight trains, and even hosts a charter passenger train from time to time, although some of the early discussions about dining cars and regular passenger cars never panned out.

Unfortunately, since there are no tracks directly serving its facility, the university power plant still carries its coal by truck.

The number of train carloads of freight has risen from 950 in 1994 to more than 2,400 each of the past few years. The record 2,606 carloads came in 2005 because of high energy costs and the opening of the COLT’s new transload facility the previous year. The shipment of coal alone has been good for the Water and Light Department, and the increased payment in lieu of taxes from the operation has been good for city revenues in general. And it provides a competitive alternative to trucking products to our city.

The transload facility, run by Columbia Transload Inc., or CTI, allows customers to house their cargo in its warehouse space. In the long-term, it even may help Columbia take advantage of NAFTA traffic coming through St. Louis and Kansas City. The arrangement is especially practical for storing and shipping heavy commodities such as steel and lumber, for which trains are more economical. Some customers who have used the transload facility include such companies as ABB, Dana Corp., Fuqua Homes, Metal Culverts, Missouri Fabricators, NuWay Concrete, Mitek, Trees Unlimited and Waterloo Industries.

To me, historic decisions to purchase and develop successful total transportation infrastructure, such as the railroad and the Wabash Station, display the foresight and determination of Columbia’s leaders. Their ability to make decisions for the betterment of the community is perhaps our city’s most important asset.