THE MEMPHIS BUFF
VOLUME 36, ISSUE 10
NATIONAL RAILWAY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
October 2009
MRTM News Jackson Once a Railroad Town “CN's 100M Renovation draws to a close
Memphis Chapter Officers President – David Chase
dchase@memphisredbirds.com
Vice President – Bruce Smedley National Director – Bill Strong
williambstrong@bellsouth.net
Secretary – Oliver Doughtie
doughtio@bellsouth.net
Treasurer – Thomas Doherty
TRDoherty@aol.com
Librarian – Mike Pendergrass Publication Editor – Tom Parker
tscottparker@gmail.com
This Month's Meeting Bruce Smedley promises another entertaining and informative program for this month's meeting. He has a couple lined up, but at this time is not sure which one it will be. He will have it finalized by next Tuesday, and we'll pass the information on by e-mail.
Memphis Railroad and Trolley Museum News
MRTM Website
On August 29, 2009, an organizational meeting was held to create the entity to establish and operate the MRTM. Officcers were elected, by laws adopted and paperwork was completed. The new club, names the Memphis Railroad and Trolley Museum Model Railway club held its first monthly meeting at Central Station on September 20th. There was a general discussion about the aims and objectives of the new museum. Two important requirements have been satisfied since the meeting. The NMRA application for the museum has been sent and the certificate of insurance has been received back from the NMRA and the letter of intent between the MRTM and MATA has been executed. Further information is available on the MRTM website: www.mrtm.org
Cover Photo:Operators were practicing with the production cranes at the new BNSF Ramp at Tennessee Yard on September 27, 2009, in preparation for the ramp's opening early this month. CLICK HERE for video of the cranes in action on You Tube. CLICK HERE for additional photos pictures from September 27th and CLICK HERE for some photos from last October of the ramp under construction. Tom Parker Photo
Jackson once a railroad town By Mac Thomson Reprinted with permission from the August 27, 2009, Jackson Sun. Copyright Gannett Corp.
Many Jacksonians have moved here over the past few years and may wonder how this place and its people came to be. I have discussed the pioneer days, the importance of cotton and the effect of the War Between the States on our society in previous columns. But no industry probably affected this town as much as the railroads. While it is true that the railroads touched many towns prior to the construction of the national highway system, very few were home to a 3,000mile Class 1 railroad like we were, and a whole community was built up around it. "It," of course, was the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio Railroad. Its president, wizard really, was Isaac Burton Tigrett. Tigrett was a bank officer and was delegated to oversee the $50,000 bond investment that the city of Jackson had bought in the Birmingham & Northwestern Railroad. The city had big plans, but the line only ended up running between Jackson and Dyersburg. This is the rail line that runs near Deaton's Carpet One on the U.S. 45 Bypass. The Illinois Central and the Mississippi & Ohio lines had
Jackson, Tennessee, was on the route of the "City of Miami" and many Memphians would drive to Jackson to board the prestigious train to Florida. Click on the above picture to view the entire brochure.
been here since the 1860s and controlled the freight business, so the Birmingham & Northwestern always had a hard go of it. But Tigrett finagled a connection using the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway (the track near the old city water works) that connected him to lines outside Jackson via Lexington, Bruceton and Paducah, Ky. An entire book has been written on this most interesting story of corporate construction; and it is hard to believe that a banker did all that work in less than a lifetime. Tigrett had the opportunity to buy a down-at-the-heels Alabama and Mississippi timber railroad
that stopped at Middleton, the Gulf, Mobile & Northern. He also bought the Mobile & Ohio line that ended up in Chicago eventually, and connected them at Middleton. Thereafter one could ride from Chicago to Mobile on the GM&O. The GM&O was legally bound to stop at most towns in Mississippi, but this proved unprofitable when the depression hit. Never one to miss a trick, Tigrett substituted buses for passenger trains and was back in the black by 1933. The bus line, Gulf Transport, was profitable in its own right. The official headquarters for the GM&O was in Chicago, but the real one was on the second floor of the Elks Building in downtown Jackson. There, Tigrett could just pick up the receiver and talk to Chicago or Mobile, a true wonder of telecommunications in its day. If need be, he could board his private car near "old" Union and whisk to trouble spots. His nephew, Isaac Tigrett, restored and operated the private car several years ago and has many stories to tell about it and the rich and famous people who rode it. Many local businesses served the railroad. The obvious one was housing. East Chester Street homeowners were known to largely be railroad men, staying within call distance of the dispatcher. Overnight passengers stayed in
one of several boarding houses or hotels. The ice house filled entire trainloads of refrigerated cars with fresh ice, and coal replaced wood as fuel thanks to the railroads. But the GM&O may have been most famous for supplying bananas to Chicago. The company owned docks in Mobile where the South American ships unloaded, and the train loads of bananas were soon in Chicagoland on the GM&O.
Tigrett passed on and his great work was merged into the Illinois Central some years later, moving the mainline to Memphis. Then the Canadian National bought the Illinois Central, and the old GM&O became part of Southern Railway, on lease to West Tennessee Railroad. It is said that the city's Birmingham & Northwestern never made a profit, but it led to a genuine American saga.
CN’s $100M Renovation Draws to a Close By Eric Smith Reprinted from the September 17, 2009 Memphis Daily News and used with permission.
Milestone: Canadian National Railway Co. has completed a three-year, $100 million renovation to its Johnston Yard freight car switching facility in South Memphis. The railroad, which has beefed up its Memphis presence, will commemorate the overhaul with a celebration next week. Photo courtesy Canadian National
Canadian National Railway Co . next week will unveil the threeyear, $100 million renovation to its Johnston Yard freight car switching facility in South Memphis. The railroad will commemorate its massive investCanadian National Railway Coment of time and money on Sept. 24 at 11 a.m. at the yard, 297 Rivergate Road, off Horn Lake Road. Montreal-based CN has spent the past three years overhauling the facility, which will help increase efficiency for CN trains moving into and out of Memphis, one of the most important cities within the railroad’s North American network.
Schedule of the Mobile & Ohio Railway, a GM&O predecessor, from the June, 1868, Traveler's Official Railway Guide
The Johnston Yard project was designed to “reconfigure the freight car switching facility,
An early blueprint of the reconstruction of Johnston Yard. Tracks and facilities in light blue were removed during the project.
creating a more efficient layout that will include a small hump over which freight cars will be directed by gravity into sorting tracks for train makeup,” according to a company release.
volumes since CN’s acquisition of Illinois Central in 1999 and the recent implementation of CN’s routing protocols with the other major railroads in Memphis.”
The revitalized yard also brought new car and locomotive repair shops, and it added 88 acres to the old footprint, enabling CN to “handle existing and future traffic growth in the region, quickly and efficiently,” the release said.
Harrison, set to retire at the end of the year, will speak at the ceremony.
CN president and CEO E. Hunter Harrison, who is from Memphis, was unavailable for comment by press time, but in 2006 at the beginning of construction he said: “Our $100 million Johnston Yard project is a solid investment in the Memphis economy and CN’s future in the U.S. South. “The yard has experienced steadily increasing traffic
There to here The multimillion-dollar upgrades to Johnston Yard followed a $41 million investment by CN to develop the Intermodal Gateway-Memphis terminal at Frank C. Pidgeon Industrial Park, the 3,000-acre complex near the Mississippi River south of Downtown Memphis that CN operates with CSX Intermodal. It opened in 2005. And the railroad in October 2008 donated $1 million to launch the CN-E. Hunter Harrison Center for Intermodal Safety and Emergency Pre-
paredness at the University of Memphis’ Intermodal Freight Transportation Institute. CN’s commitment to Memphis – one of just three cities in the nation with five Class I railroads – is welcome news to people like Dexter Muller, senior vice president for community development at the Greater Memphis Chamber and head of the Regional Logistics Council. “When Memphis looks at where some of our future opportunities are, there are two areas that are particularly strong – one is the airport and the other is rail,” he said. “On the rail side, the CN really was the one that led the way for investing, and it certainly was the one that led the way for investing in Frank C. Pidgeon Industrial Park, which is a publicly owned park unlike any in the country.” The announcement comes as
BNSF Railway Co. places the finishing touches on its $200 million expanded intermodal terminal at Lamar Avenue and Shelby Drive in Southeast Memphis. And Norfolk Southern recently announced it will build a $129 million intermodal terminal in nearby Rossville, beefing up that eastern railroad’s presence. Smaller world The news is a boon for the logistics industry. Many of CN’s trains into the city originate from ports in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, and Halifax, Nova Scotia, as well as other, inland markets, making Memphis a key destination for continental and global cargo headed for the southern U.S. “It gives us a connection to Asia through Prince Rupert and to Europe – as well as Asia – through Halifax,” Muller said. “Our message is that if you come to Memphis, you have more options and more flexibility on the ports of entry and modes of transportation. Every time we add something that’s as significant as the CN, it makes that message a lot stronger.”
“And our connection to the Canadian ports should hopefully bring some more logistics business to Memphis.” Mallory echoed Muller’s comment that CN has been a trendsetter in local rail investment, and both noted the commitment to Memphis isn’t limited to the metropolitan area. Even the railroad’s acquisition of the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway Co., a rail line that bypasses Chicago, strengthens the company’s focus on Memphis because it shortens travel time from port cities to Memphis. “Everything they’re doing is focused on trying to increase the efficiency of containers and intermodal freight moving across the country and through the country to customers in the United States,” Mallory said. “Canada is a great partner and a great gateway to the world for the American consumer.”
CN completes $100 million Memphis yard reconstruction Facility renamed after retiring CEO E. Hunter Harrison
B. Lee Mallory, honorary consul for Canada and an executive vice president at Mallory Alexander International Logistics, lauded the “large investment” CN has made here as an undeniable asset for the local economy.
MEMPHIS, Tenn., Sept. 24, 2009 – CN (TSX: CNR) (NYSE: CNI) today announced the completion of the $100 million multi-year construction project to reconfigure and modernize its Memphis rail classification yard.
“It reconfirms that we’re an important part of their east-west, north-south network,” he said.
“This project transformed an aged, inefficient rail yard into a state-of-the-art, effectively
designed major terminal capable of handling existing and future traffic quickly and efficiently,” said CN executive vice-president Claude Mongeau, who will succeed retiring president and chief executive officer E. Hunter Harrison on Jan. 1, 2010. “Today's yard can handle nearly double the traffic the old facility could in a 24 hour period.” Memphis, a major freight distribution hub, is a key operating center on CN's North American network. It is an important destination for freight traffic on the CN system, and the gateway to CN's rail operations in the Gulf region. The city is also the largest U.S. location outside of Chicago where CN interchanges traffic with four of the major U.S. Class 1 railroads. The new Memphis yard is CN's second largest classification yard in the United States. It has a capacity of more than 3,100 freight cars with 45 tracks in the classification yard. It also has 12 receiving and departure tracks ranging in length from 5,000 to 10,000 feet. The revised operation can handle 35 or more freight trains per day. It took more than two years to construct, effectively building a new rail yard on top of an existing one while never ceasing railroad operations. The configuration of the old Johnston Yard created operational challenges that at times affected CN's ability to efficiently meet customer
needs. The new yard removes those challenges, creating a terminal that optimizes our ability to move traffic in and through the yard. “The old yard was removed section by section and rebuilt piece by piece,” said Keith Creel, CN's executive vice-president, operations. “The yard now features the latest technological enhancements in railroad operations, including the newest switching technology to maintain safety and efficiency at all times.” The yard reconstruction also included rebuilding of the terminal's aged locomotive repair and car shops and upgrading of the locomotive fueling station. At a ceremony Thursday at the yard in Memphis, CN also announced the renaming of the facility as Harrison Yard. E. Hunter Harrison has served as president and chief executive officer of CN since January 1, 2003. He will retire at the end of 2009 after a railroad career spanning five decades. Mr. Harrison's railroad career began in 1963 when he joined the Frisco (St. Louis-San Francisco) Railroad as a carman-oiler in Memphis while still attending school. The original Memphis yard was constructed in the early 1900s on roughly 345 acres of land and named for former Illinois Central president Wayne A. Johnston (president 1945-1966). CN acquired an additional 88 acres of adjacent property for the yard upgrade project which broke ground in early 2006.
Two fatalities in the renovation of Johnston, Harrison Yard were the roundhouse and shop, the last vestiges of the Nonconnah hump yard. Tom Parker Photos
The completion of Harrison Yard comes nearly four years after the opening of Intermodal Gateway Memphis, a $35 million intermodal terminal operated jointly by CN and CSX inside the Frank C. Pidgeon Industrial Park.
Together, Harrison Yard and Intermodal Gateway Memphis represent a $135 million investment in CN operations in and around Memphis over the past five years.
CABOOSE
Mac Thomson, author of “Jackson once a railroad town” is the owner of ICG 199424. Former “Buff” editor M.J. Scanlon snapped this picture of Thomson's caboose on Ashport Road in Carroll, TN, just north of Jackson. Meeting Schedule October 12, 2009 November 9, 2009 December 14, 2009 Meetings are the 2nd Monday of each month in the White Station Branch Library from 7-9 pm. 5094 Poplar Avenue Memphis, TN (in front of Clark Tower)
Contact the Editor Tom Parker 3012 Wood Thrush Drive Memphis, TN 38134 tscottparker@gmail.com
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