Long ago on independence square (Kansas City, St. Louis: snake, dry, worth)

[SilverDoc]

Originally Posted by Mad Anthonie

In a park!


A.


South side of ____________ just east of M___________.


Near the old airport along RD Mize.

1) Nope!
2) Yes!
3) Yes!
4) Yes!

[SilverDoc]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

I will take a guess on this one as being on Blue Mills Road.

Think further south and back west

[MRG Dallas]

Originally Posted by SilverDoc

You can either make a gesture like you're pulling down on a ceiling fan cord, (some old steam engines would have a lanyard they would pull down to blast the whistle) or make like a fist pump up and down with a closed fist horizontal, to simulate the pulling of the air horn cord of a locomotive. (We used to do the same thing to get a trucker to blast his horn.) I'm sure the locomotives have a button or lever of some kind today, but years ago......

Yeah that was it! And boy was it a charge when the engineered complied, which many of them did. Sometimes I think they did it just to get us to stop hollering at him ! It would make our day. Probably happened more times around Fairmount/Sugar Creek Baseball Diamond since it was easy access to slow moving trains and not down a ravine somewhere. Fun simple times.

[MRG Dallas]

Have we talked about the Alton RR yet?

It ran eastward from Crysler, the OverPass @ Turner Ave, past the Socony Mobile Oil Co Bulk Plant
Country Sheriff Patrol

onto 23rd St. behind the left field of Crysler Stadium
SE to cross Noland @ 31st, then behind Truman HS is today
S. of Drumm Farm
Crossing LS Rd, then 291

SE to cross I-70, S/SE to Lake Tapawingo
S. of Blue Springs HS
SE crossing Hiway 7, then E. to US 40

Then out to Grain Valley, Oak Grove, Bates City, Odessa, Mayview, Higginsville and Marshall, where it splits N. & S.

Westbound, it ran in NW direction, running adjacent to the football field at VH HS and onto Kentucky where it becomes part of the mass of lines into Northeast, impossible to track by map

As a kid I did not realize what RR lines ran where. There would be one here, one there, a crossing here, a crossing there, OP here and there. Not until looking at a map could I tell where these things go by and often surprising that one line is the same on opposite sites of town. WE had one line east of our house that I traced into St. Louis. Too bad the RR aren't as important as once was, even though we all are grateful to seldom have to wait for one to pass anymore!

[WCHS'59]

Originally Posted by SilverDoc

Think further south and back west

MRG, help me out here.

[SilverDoc]

Originally Posted by MRG Dallas

Have we talked about the Alton RR yet?

It ran at least in part, from Crysler, the OverPass @ Turner Ave, past the Socony Mobile Oil Co Bulk Plant
Country Sheriff Patrol

onto 23rd St. past Crysler Stadium
SE to cross Noland @ 31st, then behind Truman HS is today
S. of Drumm Farm
Crossing LS Rd, then 291

SE to cross I-70, S/SE to Lake Tapawingo
S. of Blue Springs HS
SE crossing Hiway 7, then E. to US 40

Then out to Grain Valley, Oak Grove, Bates City, Odessa, Mayview, Higginsville and Marshall, where it splits N. & S.

As a kid I did not realize what RR lines ran where. There would be one here, one there, a crossing here, a crossing there, OP here and there. Not until looking at a map could I tell where these things go by and often surprising that one line is the same on opposite sites of town. WE had one line east of our house that I traced into St. Louis. Too bad the RR aren't as important as once was, even though we all are grateful to seldom have to wait for one to pass anymore!

As far as I know we haven't. Some years ago, I drove all around town tracking the routes of several branch lines snaking all around the Indep. area. For example, two parallel rail lines crossed 24 hiway in Fairmount, one looped around and passed back under 24 going north to run along the west edge of Sterling, straight north to the Sugar Creek refinery. The other continued on to the s.e., turned to the east and ran just north of, and parallel to, Truman Road, passed over Sterling on a steel trestle, and terminated behind the old Ultich's lumber yard. And, I've seen on a map the route that the old Airline took into Indep., but finding the remains from street level, can be quite the challenge.

[WCHS'59]

Originally Posted by MRG Dallas

Have we talked about the Alton RR yet?

It ran at least in part, from Crysler, the OverPass @ Turner Ave, past the Socony Mobile Oil Co Bulk Plant
Country Sheriff Patrol

onto 23rd St. past Crysler Stadium
SE to cross Noland @ 31st, then behind Truman HS is today
S. of Drumm Farm
Crossing LS Rd, then 291

SE to cross I-70, S/SE to Lake Tapawingo
S. of Blue Springs HS
SE crossing Hiway 7, then E. to US 40

Then out to Grain Valley, Oak Grove, Bates City, Odessa, Mayview, Higginsville and Marshall, where it splits N. & S.

As a kid I did not realize what RR lines ran where. There would be one here, one there, a crossing here, a crossing there, OP here and there. Not until looking at a map could I tell where these things go by and often surprising that one line is the same on opposite sites of town. WE had one line east of our house that I traced into St. Louis. Too bad the RR aren't as important as once was, even though we all are grateful to seldom have to wait for one to pass anymore!

That line ran behind some houses on the north side of 35th Street. Sometime in the 70s, I think, there was a major derailment just west of Kiger where that street goes under the tracks. I walked across 35th from my folks house and into a neighbor's back yard to take a look and cars were lying everywhere. But I don't recall that any of them had damaged anyone's back yard space.

On that same line but further east and then south almost to 39th Street at the Selsa Station, where the town of Glendale once existed, was where Jesse James and gang robbed the "Glendale Train"--supposedly more than once. I attended a Jesse James reenactment at the Selsa Station in 1961 when the last "Chicago & Alton" passenger train came through Independence. Masked gunmen on horseback boarded the train, etc. The Selsa Station burned down a short time later, probably as a result of vandalism.
"
By the way, I use to pull a trick on a lot of kids and a few adults. We would come up to a crossing and I would tell them that I could tell that a train had just very recently crossed here. Most kids did not really believe what I was saying but would then ask how I could tell. My answer was: "You can see its tracks."

[SilverDoc]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

That line ran behind some houses on the north side of 35th Street. Sometime in the 70s, I think, there was a major derailment just west of Kiger where that street goes under the tracks. I walked across 35th from my folks house and into a neighbor's back yard to take a look and cars were lying everywhere. But I don't recall that any of them had damaged anyone's back yard space.

On that same line but further east and then south almost to 39th Street at the Selsa Station, where the town of Glendale once existed, was where Jesse James and gang robbed the "Glendale Train"--supposedly more than once. I attended a Jesse James reenactment at the Selsa Station in 1961 when the last "Chicago & Alton" passenger train came through Independence. Masked gunmen on horseback boarded the train, etc. The Selsa Station burned down a short time later, probably as a result of vandalism.
"
By the way, I use to pull a trick on a lot of kids and a few adults. We would come up to a crossing and I would tell them that I could tell that a train had just very recently crossed here. Most kids did not really believe what I was saying but would then ask how I could tell. My answer was: "You can see its tracks."

I'll have to remember that joke! By the way, would you happen to have a photo of the Selsa station? It was just south of where I live. Is this the one you're talking about? I'd like other shots of this, if I could get them.

[WCHS'59]

Originally Posted by SilverDoc

As far as I know we haven't. Some years ago, I drove all around town tracking the routes of several branch lines snaking all around the Indep. area. For example, two parallel rail lines crossed 24 hiway in Fairmount, one looped around and passed back under 24 going north to run along the west edge of Sterling, straight north to the Sugar Creek refinery. The other continued on to the s.e., turned to the east and ran just north of, and parallel to, Truman Road, passed over Sterling on a steel trestle, and terminated behind the old Ultich's lumber yard. And, I've seen on a map the route that the old Airline took into Indep., but finding the remains from street level, can be quite the challenge.

I worked in Fairmount around 61-62 and remember those tracks in the business area. A line crossed Highway 24 at street level at about where the old Chevy dealer use to be.

[WCHS'59]

Originally Posted by SilverDoc

I'll have to remember that joke! By the way, would you happen to have a photo of the Selsa station? It was just south of where I live. Is this the one you're talking about? I'd like other shots of this, if I could get them.

That is the one.

I think I posted a photo sometime ago on this thread but it was from the web.

I never even thought to bring a camera when that event happened.

At the time, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, out there along 39th, etc.