The Arkansas and Missouri Railroad is a Class III

short-line railroad :''Short Line is also one of the four railroads in the American version of the popular board game Monopoly, named after the Shore Fast Line, an interurban streetcar line.'' A shortline railroad is a small or mid-sized railroad company that oper ...

headquartered in

Springdale, Arkansas Springdale is the fourth-largest city in Arkansas, United States. It is located in both Washington and Benton counties in Northwest Arkansas. Located on the Springfield Plateau deep in the Ozark Mountains, Springdale has long been an important i ...

. The A&M, as it is known, operates of line from

Fort Smith, Arkansas Fort Smith is the third-largest city in Arkansas and one of the two county seats of Sebastian County. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 89,142. It is the principal city of the Fort Smith, Arkansas–Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Are ...

Monett, Missouri Monett is the most-populous city in the Barry and Lawrence counties in the U.S. state of Missouri. The city is located in the Ozarks, just south of Interstate 44 between Joplin and Springfield. According to the 2020 census, the population of the ...

. The railroad interchanges freight cars with

Kansas City Southern Railway The Kansas City Southern Railway Company is an American Class I railroad. Founded in 1887, it operates in 10 midwestern and southeastern U.S. states: Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and ...

at Fort Smith, with

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

Van Buren, Arkansas Van Buren ( ) is the second-largest city in the Fort Smith, Arkansas–Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Area and the county seat of Crawford County, Arkansas, United States. The city is located directly northeast of Fort Smith at the Interst ...

, and with BNSF Railway at Monett. A branch line connects

Bentonville, Arkansas Bentonville is the tenth-largest city in Arkansas, United States and the county seat of Benton County. The city is centrally located in the county with Rogers adjacent to the east. The city is the birthplace of and world headquarters locatio ...

, with the main line in

Rogers, Arkansas Rogers is a city in Benton County, Arkansas, United States. Located in the Ozarks, it is part of the Northwest Arkansas region, one of the fastest growing metro areas in the country. Rogers was the location of the first Walmart store, whose cor ...

. A&M also leases of track (locally known as "the Bottoms") from Union Pacific at Van Buren, and provides haulage services for Union Pacific between Van Buren and the Fort Smith Railroad in Fort Smith. Freight operations are based out of the headquarters location in Springdale as well as Fort Smith. Freight customers are predominantly located in those two geographic areas. The rail line was substantially upgraded between 2002 and 2005 and features continuous welded rail across its entire main line. The line handles railcars and has vertical clearances sufficient for double-stack intermodal cars throughout. Most traffic is handled in scheduled freight trains although shuttle trains of corn make regular appearances in the Springdale area using locomotives from Union Pacific. Freight services operate seven days per week. Traffic generally consists of grain and feed supplements,

paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distrib ...

products,

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class o ...

plastic Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be moulded, extruded or pressed into solid objects of various shapes. This adaptab ...

, food products, steel, scrap,

lumber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, wi ...

aluminum Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It ha ...

, and

mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2 ...

products.

Passenger Service

Th
A & M Railroad
company also operates seasonal excursion trains between Springdale,

Winslow Winslow may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Winslow, Buckinghamshire, England, a market town and civil parish * Winslow Rural District, Buckinghamshire, a rural district from 1894 to 1974 United States and Canada * Rural Municipality of Winslo ...

and

. Trains generally operate Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from March to November. The route features a tunnel and several majo
trestles
as it passes through the Boston Mountains. Special Christmas trains operate for kids in December called Holiday Express. Additional trains operate Sundays between Springdale and

in the summer. Special trains operate in the October–November fall foliage season and at other times of the year. Coach #104 “ Biloxi Blues” was used in the

Neil Simon Marvin Neil Simon (July 4, 1927 – August 26, 2018) was an American playwright, screenwriter and author. He wrote more than 30 plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays, mostly film adaptations of his plays. He has received mo ...

movie of the same name. The filming was done at

Fort Chaffee Fort Chaffee Joint Maneuver Training Center is an Army National Guard installation in western Arkansas, adjacent to the city of Fort Smith. Established as Camp Chaffee in 1941, renamed to Fort Chaffee in 1956, Fort Chaffee has served as a United ...

, Van Buren, and on the Arkansas & Missouri Railroad. The car, built for the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western’s steam powered suburban service out of

Hoboken, New Jersey Hoboken ( ; Unami: ') is a city in Hudson County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 60,417. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 58,690 i ...

, reportedly carried commuters in New Jersey until 1982. The car was built by Pullman in 1917 as an early steel car using many of the design standards used with earlier wooden cars. It has open end platforms (one of the last large orders of open-platform coaches ever built), windows that open, and clerestory roofs. The car seats 72 passengers and has no air conditioning. It is the oldest car over 100 yrs. old. Coach #105 “Golden Age” was built by Harlan and Hollingsworth (Bethlehem Steel) in 1927 for the

New Jersey Central Railroad The Central Railroad of New Jersey, also known as the Jersey Central or Jersey Central Lines , was a Class I railroad with origins in the 1830s. It was absorbed into Conrail in April 1976 along with several other prominent bankrupt railroads of ...

. Harlan & Hollingsworth was a Wilmington, Delaware, firm that constructed ships and railroad cars. It was acquired by Bethlehem Steel during December 1904. The shipyard closed in 1926. However, railcars were built on the site until 1940, and parts for railroad cars until 1944. The car served in commuter service for many years, and has closed vestibules. The car has 72 passenger seats as well as a Conductor cabin. The car has heat and air conditioned. Coach #106 “Mountain View” is a sister to coach #105 with a similar history. It also seats 72 passengers plus two more seats next to the restroom. It too has heat and air conditioned. Parlor Car #107 “Explorer” was built by Pullman Standard in 1955-1956 as Long Island Railroad class P72 coach 2927. The car was rebuilt in 1989 by the LIRR as class PP72B parlor car 2002. This car was one of only two “dual mode” parlor cars, capable of drawing power from either its installed diesel generator system or from a trainline. When the car was retired, it was acquired by Ken Bitten and used as a table car on the Northern Central Railway in Pennsylvania. After the Northern Central shut down, the car moved to the Arkansas & Missouri Railroad in December 2004. This car also has an open platform. Coach #108 “Silver Feather Premium” started life as Western Pacific dome coach #812 “Silver Feather,” built by Budd in 1948 for the famous California Zephyr. Today, the car has table seating in the dome and vestibule end because of its later use in a dinner train. When retired, the car went to the auto-train where it was painted and renumbered as #461. By the mid-1980s, the car was restored to its California Zephyr look and name and served on the Texas Southern operation. The car then became Washington Central (WCRC) #151 in 1993 before moving to

BC Rail BC Rail is a railway in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Chartered as a private company in 1912 as the Pacific Great Eastern Railway (PGE), it was acquired by the provincial government in 1918. In 1972 it was renamed to the British ...

and their Pacific Starlight Dinner Train in 1997. There, the car retained the 151 number, but acquired the name “Moonglow.” With changes on the railroad, the operation was shut down and the car listed for sale by late 2002. In February 2004, the car was sold to the Ontario Northland and renumbered 901. The car was again sold in December, 2010, and arrived on the Arkansas & Missouri by late 2011, where it was numbered 108 and renamed “Silver Feather.” #109 “Spirit of Arkansas” Diner-Lounge #8322 entered service on August 20, 1950, as a Southern Pacific Sunset Limited “Pride of Texas” coffee shop-lounge car. Numbered SP 10409, the car was decorated with Texas cattle brands and featured inexpensive meals for coach passengers. Known by some as a hamburger grill car, the car was built by Budd with 32 dining table seats, 14 lounge-table seats, a bar and a kitchen. The car became Amtrak 8322 in 1971. After being retired, the car became owned by Hank Peterson (RPCX 8322) and used on trips on the Ohio Central, including during the 2006 NRHS convention. The A&M acquired the car in early 2014.

History

The line was built between 1880 and 1882 by the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway ("Frisco"), a predecessor of Burlington Northern Railroad, and was leased by the latter to the Arkansas and Missouri in 1986. The company completed purchase of the property in early 2001. The lease of Union Pacific trackage in an area known as "the Bottoms" occurred in 2000. In 2010,/ A&M purchased "the Bottoms" from UP. The railroad serves numerous warehouse and

transload Transloading, also known as cross-docking, is the process of transferring a shipment from one mode of transportation to another. It is most commonly employed when one mode cannot be used for the entire trip, such as when goods must be shipped in ...

facilities, as well as port facilities on the

Arkansas River The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in the western United Stat ...

in Fort Smith and Van Buren. The company was an all-

Alco The American Locomotive Company (often shortened to ALCO, ALCo or Alco) was an American manufacturer of locomotives, diesel generators, steel, and tanks that operated from 1901 to 1969. The company was formed by the merger of seven smaller locomo ...

/ MLW locomotive fleet for switching and excursion operations. The fleet consisted of C-420s, T-6s, C-424s, M-420s, and one each RS-32, HR-412, and RS-1 until 2013 when the railroad acquired three EMD SD70ACe's. On October 16, 2014, an A&M locomotive and excursion train collided head-on near Brentwood, Arkansas.

References

http://www.amtrainrides.com Arkansas & Missouri Railroad Scenic Excursion Website

External links

Arkansas & Missouri Railroad Website

BNSF Railway Website with A&M Details

Union Pacific Website with A&M Details
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arkansas Missouri Railroad Arkansas railroads Missouri railroads Spin-offs of the Burlington Northern Railroad Companies operating former St. Louis–San Francisco Railway lines Transportation in Crawford County, Arkansas Transportation in Washington County, Arkansas Railway companies established in 1986