MP/SSW Joint Track CTC

[SSW9389]

Missouri Pacific and Cotton Belt shared some trackage in Illinois and Missouri. This was due to control of both roads by the Gould Family at one time.

The two sections of joint track were the East St. Louis to Illmo section of the Missouri Pacific and the Illmo to Dexter portion of the Cotton Belt.

I have a May 1953 extract from Cotton Belt News (A publication of the Cotton Belt's Public Relations) that gives some history of the Illmo to Dexter line. Just prior to World War Two rail traffic started to get real busy on this shared stretch of track. A study was made and an automatic block signal system (ABS) was installed between the two points. This work was done between October 1940 and May 1941.

This ABS system helped, but trains were still experiencing delay. A 1942 study showed that 69 trains a day were using this trackage. A Centralized Traffic Control system was added to the existing ABS and the work was completed by June 1943. This was the first installation of CTC on the Cotton Belt.

Does anyone know when similar ABS and CTC work was done on the East St. Louis to Illmo portion of the Missouri Pacific?

[SSW9389]

And the answer was supplied to me by Ted Ferkenhoff of Houston, TEXAS. Ted supplied the MP yahoo list with an November 7, 1942 article in Railway Age that detailed a 27.5 mile application of CTC work on this line in 1938. This was in response to a total of 55 trains a day using this line the previous year during peak use. This dovetails with my research into Cotton Belt traffic gains during the later 1930s due to increased traffic bridged from the Southern Pacific. Though bankrupt Cotton Belt earned 99% of its fixed charges in 1937, but did not start returning funds to the company coffers until 1941.