Alphabet File page 301
Ragan, A. S. Mrs., 307 Railroad (Ph 48 thru 50)
RAILROADS
General
1860 - There is now completed and in operation upwards of 800 miles of railroad within Mississippi. Fully 800 miles are in contemplation. (N.O. Daily Picayuune 9/10/1860 - in VF Railroads from MJS collection IV 00547)
ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI RAILROAD
Ran from Vinegar Bend, Alabama to Pascagoula via Leakesville. Moss Point Ship Building Company contracted to build 20 cargo-carrying steamers (boats) to be delivered in 1918; activity which caused the A & M Railroad to extend service to Laurel. (Biloxi Press -Friday, June 30,1977. MJS 00434)
ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD
The following time has been sent in by one of our regular contributors: "It is widely rumored that the Illinois Central railroad has had all the plans and contracts completed for the construction of a branch road from Brookhaven, Miss., to Bay St. Louis, a distance of 68 Miles, thence to New Orleans. During the washout of its road in Louisiana recently, the amount paid to the Queen & Crescent road for the privilege of using its tracks, would have been sufficient to build the new road. By building the branch road it would be, in emergencies, inexpensive. This rumor has been heard of before but no attention was given it, but now since it is so often heard of there must be some truth in it." THE ECHO heard of the rumor relative to the above some time ago, but never took no stock in it. If the road is a certainty, why not build it at once? .
Every once in a while The Echo hears some good news relative to the construction of the I. C. R. R. route from Brookhaven to Bay St. Louis. We hope the road will be built at no late day as another railroad in our city means a new page in the history of our thriving and beautiful town. (SCE 10/29/1892)
Illinois Central railroad company. The general agent of the Illinois Central railroad company writes to the Echo that the prevailing rumor of the company building a branch road from Brookhaven to Bay St. Louis is something that he is not aware of and such a project never thought of. We always thought it too good to be true. (SCE 11/5/1892)
MOBILE AND NEW ORLEANS RAILROAD, A DIVISION OF THE LOUISVILLE AND NASHVILLE
1850's
The Railroad That Walks On Water - How the Old Reliable reached Canal Street. by J. G. Lachaussee and J. Parker Lamb.
It is tempting to dismiss the construction and operation of the 140-mile New Orleans and Mobile Division of the Louisville & Nashville as a piece of cake - an appropriate put-down for a water-level, nearly tangent railroad between two of the leading Gulf of Mexico ports. Ah, but remember what happened to Henry M. Flagler's dream of pushing his Florida East Coast down to Key West.
Mother Nature has more than one way to stymie railroaders. The NO&M had no need to tunnel mountain ranges or bridge chasms, but there were (and still are) the periodic and unpredictable visits by frightening, cyclonic monsters of the tropics - hurricanes. And as if that wasn't enough , the original builders were faced with another natural barrier, this time on a miniature scale. Scientists call them invertebrates; we know them as worms...specifically shipworms, which devour wood at a frantic pace.
Plans for the original Mobile to New Orleans line were laid in the early 1850's. Working for the Mobile & New Orleans Rail Road, Col A. A. Dexter had nearly completed the preliminary survey of the route, starting in Mobile, when he met an untimely death from exposure after reaching Chef Menteur, La., 120 miles. M&NO President C. J. McRae appointed Lewis Troost, a consulting engineer to continue the route survey.
Troost and his crew finally recommended a route which left Mobile in a southwesterly direction and made a beeline for the coastal town of Pascagoula, Miss., where the first marine obstacle was encountered. About 10 miles north of town, the Pascagoula River splits into twin streams which flow into the Gulf about 3 miles apart; along the rail route, the area between the forks consisted of sea marsh terrain. Troost knew this would require extensive fill work, to say nothing of two drawbridges to cross the forks. Fourteen miles to the west, just after passing Ocean Springs, the route faced the 6500-foot wide Biloxi Bay, which would require a long trestle and drawspan. The next major Gulf inlet was 2-mile wide St. Louis Bay;, just west of which was the settlement of Shieldsboro, later to be called Bay St. Louis. Again, another drawbridge with trestle approaches was required.
The new rail route crossed into Louisiana near the point where the Pearl River empties into the Gulf. This is a much deeper channel than the previous inlets, although not very wide (900 feet). Once into Louisiana, the route tiptoed along the thin tongue of land which, on the map at least, appears to separate Lake Pontchartrain from the Gulf. However, the area between the Pearl River and New Orleans is inadequately described as land; it is really a 30-mile strip of soggy saltwater marsh barely above nominal sea level.
The freshwater lakes north of this slender strip drain into the Gulf via two meandering rivers which are quite deep compared with the inlets at Biloxi and Bay St. Louis. Six miles into Louisiana, the proposed route crossed the great Rigolets Pass (rig-o-leez) which, at that location, is about three-fourths of a mile wide. In addition, there are tricky crossÂcurrents which have played havoc with river traffic over the years. (The bridge fender system has been repeatedly damaged by out-of-control vessels.)
Interestingly, before the final route was selected, Troost considered a more inland alignment skirting the three major Gulf inlets in Mississippi. This route did not pass through the numerous, thriving coastal settlements, however, and would have required heavier grades and more curvature than the coastal route. Although the latter alignment went where the people were and had virtually no grades or curvature, Troost knew it was far more vulnerable to the marine nemeses of shipworm and tropical storms.
In the book, "Memories of the Route", Troost warned future builders about the teredo navalis, the shipworm notorious for its destruction of pilings. The adult teredo is about the size of a pencil. These mollusks eat their way into wood for long distances, boring holes with a diameter of their bodies; within a few months, the strength of the wood is destroyed. Troost's report mentioned the failure of previous attempts to treat timber against the worms' ravages, noting that the one exception was a new process invented by a Britisher, Dr. Bethell, of impregnating the timber with bituminous material containing creosote. This process coagulates the sap, protecting the fibers from moisture. The treated wood is stronger and waterproof, unaffected by exposure to alternating wet and dry conditions.
NEW ORLEANS, MOBILE AND CHATTANOOGA RAILROAD ( A DIVISION OF THE LOUISVILLE AND NASHVILLE)
Although the original route selection was carried out under the aegis of the Mobile & New Orleans Rail Road, construction of the line was undertaken by a new corporate entity, the New Orleans, Mobile & Chattanooga Railroad.
1869
- Ceremonial ground-breaking took place at Mobile in 1867, 1869 - but construction did not begin until February 3, 1869, under the direction of Chief Engineer Henry Van Vleck.
Among the original construction contracts were those for 400,000 crossties, 2.6 million cubic yards of earthwork, 4500 feet of truss bridges, and 25,000 feet of pile and trestle bridging. In addition, there were four iron pivot bridges for Pascagoula River, Biloxi Bay, St. Louis Bay, and Rigolets Pass. Motive power was supplied by Rogers Locomotive Works of Paterson, N.J., which built two 0-4-0 switches and 22 American type 4-4-0's. By the end of 1869 some 80 miles of track had been finished, most of it between Mobile, Pascagoula, and Bay St. Louis. Indeed, the entire line was built from Mobile to New Orleans in only 20 months.