This town has also preserved part of the Wabash depot as a museum.
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| www.wabash.org Wabash Fans Worldwide shared: "An open call for membership to this Facebook group. As Executive Secretary of the Wabash Railroad Historical Society and also Nominations chair, i have the duty to encourage any Wabash enthusiasts to seriously consider joining our membership. Dues are 30 dollars annually for Regular membership. We ended 2017 with members in 32 states and 3 countries. See our website at www.wabashrhs.org or contact me by private message or via email (it is on the website) FOLLOW THE FLAG!!!" Dennis DeBruler Who now owns these Moberly tracks? Google Map is not labeling the yard. Does Norfolk Southern own the Wabash all the way to Kansas City? What about the north/south route through Moberly? James Holzmeier Dennis DeBruler The former Wabash is now owned by Norfolk Southern. By north/south route, do you mean the line from Moberly to Des Moines? That was abandoned back in the 1990's and you can hardly tell where the R-O-W was any longer. James Holzmeier It is the Wabash yard at Moberly. There were similar Roberts & Schafer coal tower, but of less capacity, at Brooklyn (IL) and Montpelier (OH). It is a really neat image, taken from the yard tower that was built into the south wall of the machine shop building in 1950-1951. Another item of interest in the photo is the westbound City of Kansas City at right. It is equipped with the Blue Bird dome car No. 200, so we know for certain this photo was taken after July 20, 1952. 
I believe this is Montpelier Ohio I worked out of there.
I checked topo maps for both towns. The "urban" area in the background is compatible with Moberly, but not Montpelier. And then I checked historic aerials. I was able to find the industry and smokestack in a 1949 aerial of Moberly. Dennis DeBruler ok Dennis the wabash had a lot of look alike places and equipmentWallace Harpp I've noticed that most railroads used a variety of coal tower designs. I always thought it would be smarter to use a standardized design. I'm learning that the Wabash did use a common design for coaling towers. Montpelier's sure does look similar.[James Holzmeier uploaded photos of the towers that were in Decatur, Brooklyn and Montpelier for comparison.] |
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| Satellite |
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| 1953 Moberly Quadrangle @ 1:24,000 |
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| RanCo Historical Tours posted North Missouri Railroad Shops In 1873, the St. Louis, Kansas City & Northern Railroad Shops were built in Moberly. The construction of the machine shops came after nearly five years of work to trying to have them located in Moberly. In 1870, Moberly’s population was only 1,514 people, but by the late 1870s however, the machine shops would employ nearly that many people alone. Without the machine shops Moberly could have been relegated to being the second largest town in the county. But the machine shops spurred on Moberly’s growth and in 1880 its population was 6,070 people. This explosive growth earned Moberly the nickname, "The Magic City." It all began in 1868 when the North Missouri Railroad was looking for a site for more machine shops. It had machine shops in Saint Charles County as well as part of its car works, but these were insufficient to meet the growing railroad’s needs. The North Missouri needed a site where it could have a roundhouse, railyard, machine shops, and car works. At that point, Moberly people kicked around the idea of trying to locate the machine shops there. On June 14, 1868 the first Moberly Board of Trustees voted to offer the North Missouri Railroad three tracts of land that totaled 187 acres. J. D. Werden was appointed the city’s agent to negotiate with the railroad. On September 4, 1868, A. F. Bunker was appointed to close the contract with the North Missouri Railroad for the machine shops. The railroad was not ready to commit to locating the shops in Moberly in 1869, but they did build a 16 stall roundhouse in Moberly that year. On August 2, 1870, the matter of bringing the North Missouri Railroad Machine Shops to Moberly was voted on by the citizens of the town. The ballot passed and on August 4th the city Board of Trustees voted to issue twenty bonds in the denomination of $1,000 each to purchase the necessary land to give to the railroad. On March 25, 1871, an election was held to approve whether the city should obtain and donate 200 acres to the railroad to be used for the machine shops, as well as an additional six hundred and eighteen acres for the railroad’s use. Shortly thereafter the North Missouri Railroad ceased to exist, so the city voted on March 26, 1872 whether the offer should be made to the St. Louis, Kansas City and Northern Railroad who had taken over the North Missouri Railroad’s lines. The ballot passed, and H. M. Porter and S. P, McCormick were appointed to negotiate with the railroad. The city’s agent and attorney was no less than former Congressman William Augustus Hall of Randolph County who was the attorney for the city. Had it not been for Hall, there is a question of whether the railroad would have accepted the city’s offer. The men travelled to Saint Louis and put the city’s terms to the railroad. The city would give the railroad two hundred acres between the north and west branches of the railroad, as well as six hundred and eighteen acres adjoining. In addition property taxes would be abated for twenty years. Should the railroad decide to move the shops, it would have to reimburse the city for the land with interest. An agreement was reached between the railroad and the city on April 2, 1872. This was not the end of it however, for on May 10, 1872 another election was held. This time the issue at hand was whether to purchase and donate purchase 818 acres of land to donate to the railroad for the car shops. The cost to build the machine shops was estimated to be half a million dollars. Overall, the railyards were huge. The roundhouse was 380 feet in diameter and could hold 60 locomotives. The machine shops themselves were 120 by 126 feet. The blacksmith shop was just as impressive being 101 by 152 feet. The iron foundry was 60 by 200 feet, and the tin shop was 30 by 70 feet. The brass foundry was 30 by 50 feet. The paint shop was 81 by 211 feet. The planing mill was 75 by 200 feet. Finally, the car shop was 81 by 271 feet. There was a two story office building as well as various smaller shops. Within a few years the shops employed nearly 1,200 people, almost as much as Moberly’s population in 1870 In September of 1873, the Moberly shops built their first railcar. At one point, the car works could produce six railcars per day. The National Historical Company's History of Randolph and Macon Counties published in 1884 said this of the Moberly Wabash machine shops and car works: "Everything connected with a railroad, except the rails and wheels, are here manufactured. Engines, coaches, passenger, freight and stock cars, velocipedes, cabooses and everything that moves on the track are made. . . .From 650 to 900 men are constantly employed in building engines and constructing coaches and cars. They form a part of the permanent citizenship of the place. Many of them have acquired property since they came here, and own their homes.” And Sept. 9, 1880 Moberly Weekly Monitor had this to say of the machine shops in Moberly: "At an average salary of $50 per month, the total amount of money paid to railroad employees here will reach the nice sum of $25,000 per month." To give you some idea how much money the machine shops were bringing into the City of Moberly in the 1880s that $25,000 per month would translate to over $630,700 per month in 2016. And at that point, according to the Moberly Weekly Monitor the shops were not yet completed. At one point, the Moberly railroad machine shops and car works were the largest the Wabash Railroad had west of the Mississippi River. Moberly’s spectacular growth throughout the 1870s and 1880s can without a doubt be attributed to the machine shops and car works of the railroad. Without them, Moberly may have been no more than many small railroad towns in Missouri. As it was the shop gave Moberly economic stability even in bad times for many, many decades. Beginning in the 1940s as diesel began to replace coal as the Wabash Railroad’s primary fuel for its locomotives the machine shops began to shut down. It was a very gradual process, but by 1970 the shops were nearly gone. . James Holzmeier: The only old building left down there is the car shop, and it’s used for storage now I think Jeff Durham: James Holzmeier the MOW people use it. |
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| Jon Martin commented on Jeff's share Frisco 1522 at the Moberly coaling tower in the early 90’s. |
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| Jon Martin commented on Jeff's share 1522 on the turntable. Excuse the pics, I was probably 15 years old. |
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| James Holzmeir posted Here is a refurbished photo of Moberly Yard, probably taken in the 1950s by an unknown photographer. The quality of the photo isn't good enough to publish in The Banner so here you go. The photographer is facing to the SE. WRHS collection. |
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| Dennis DeBruler commented on James' post Facebook retained a resolution of 3529 x 1188 so I digitally zoomed in on the coal tower. |
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| Dennis DeBruler commented on James' post And the water tower. |
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| James Holzmeier commented on a share Rare photo of the Moberly ice dock. RCHS collection |
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