The Line Creek Loudmouth

Interurban Railroad at Barry Road Circa 1980's

New readers may not know this but part of my mission with this blog is to provide a historical record of stuff so people know the who/why/what/when of the Line Creek Valley.  I've kind of taken to preserving and informing about the old Kansas City to St. Joseph Interurban Railroad.  The late Ed Gentry's started this effort here and I'm adding to it.  I've blogged enough about the railline now that I've given its own tag.

One benefit of working for KCMO the past 10 years is that a lot of people have retired or had to move locations.  Somehow being the last man standing on one floor of City Hall made my cubicle the depository (or suppository as I call it as I clean the stuff up) for a ton of boxes full of paper.  Somehow I wound up with a box of old appraisals conductedby the City in the early 80's when they were buying right of way to widen Barry Road between I-29 and US 169.

I found some old pictures that showed where the Interurban crossed Barry Road.  These were for an old pasture tract where the Barclay Club Apartments were built.  For a visual location of the crossing, it's where the large overhead power lines cross Barry at the apartment entrance. 

One can still see the old rail-bed on the south side of Barry and in the aerial below.

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This picture looks like it was taken just on the north side of Barry and is looking northwest at the railbed which is on the right side of the big orange tree.

The next picture is looking east at Barry and one can see the rail-bed in the pasture.  The rail line ceased operation in the early 1930's.  Waukomis/Green Hills Road was built as Route AA by MoDOT in 1942+/- and I assume Barry which was as MO Route T at that time was done in the same era so I assume the rail crossing was leveled when the road was paved.  It's hard to tell with the trees along Barry.

 The final picture is looking north right on top of the rail-bed.  It would be to the left of the picture.

Last year I posted some pictures of where the Interurban crossed Route 152 and also where it was the Drennon Lake Dam (and if you don't know where Drennon Lake was, click here).  You can also check out Matt Staub's post about the railline here and Rick Drozd has some cool pictures of the line at the bottom of his long page here.

Riverside Is Almost Done with a Key Trail Connection

Wow that was fast.  Back on July 14th, I wrote about the connection of the Line Creek Trail to the Linear (Interurban) Trail in Riverside.  I rode down that way tonight with the oldest two and the youngest two in the trailer behind and the new section of trail was fully paved.  We were able to ride all the way down to the Hog Jaw Fritz BBQ place on Gateway in Vivion.

If we would have continued on the sidewalk for 2 blocks we would have made it all the way to Briarcliff (map of how to do that here).

Here is the way to get to it.  Basically ride on the side trail along Vivion in front of Mad Mike's Fireworks and then go south on Klamm Road to the start of the trail.

Here is the end of Klamm and the start of the trail.

This is looking east where the trail turns from south to east.

This is looking east at the halfway point.

This looking west where the trail connects into the Linear Trail which is built on the old KC to St. Joe Interurban rail bed.

 

This adds another 3/4 mile south of Vivion Road that one can ride on without having to go on street.  Of course you can always ride on Vivion to the west over to the "green park" and make it down to the Missouri River via the rest of the Line Creek Trail.

 

ASB Bridge History

Earlier I shared what life was like in Kansas City before freeways.  One thing I noticed in that picture was that the only way to easily cross the river was using the ASB Bridge.  As I was going through scans, I came across a 1979 study of what to do with the car deck on the bridge because the cantilevered (non-engineer definition=hanging) car lanes were so deteriorated that the load limit was 6 tons which is just a little heavier than an ambulance.

The study had a bunch of items but it was the best write up I have come across about the history of the bridge.  I never realized the bridge carried the Excelsior and Kansas City to St. Joseph Interurban Railroad.

Here is a picture of the ASB Bridge with the car deck (public use disclaimer).

One thing I don't quite understand is when in the past someone at MoDOT determined that tolling is not legal.  There are state statutes that allow MoDOT to toll.  No one is willing to investigate that and come up with a sustainable funding plan to rebuild I-70.  It's the fairest way to pay to rebuild I-70.  Don't use it, you don't have to pay for it.

Anyways, here is how the bridge was paid for.

Line Creek Trail To Soon Connect to Linear (Interban Railroad) Trail

As we all know, Riverside Missouri gets trails.  Now they are working on finishing a key gap in the system that will almost fully connect the Briarcliff Village area to Route 152.  It was just a little over 2 years ago that I blogged about how to get from Vivion Road to Briarcliff and that was after riding on road on Waukomis for 1+ miles.  

Now Riverside is constructing the connection from the Line Creek Trail to the Linear Trail which uses the old Kansas City to St. Jospeh Interurban Railroad corridor.  I used that high tech drafting program MS Paint (which I first used in 1989...) to highlight the general location of the connection. 

The Line Creek Trail is shown in green at the top of the aerial and also over on the left side.  Riverside needs to/is doing some planning and design to figure out how to connect and finish the gap.  Until it is finished, just ride on Vivion Road between the Sonic™ and QuikTrip™ (blue lines)to get to the lower portion of the Line Creek Trail and the Missouri River.

The Linear Trail on the old Interurban Railroad is shown in green at the bottom.  The connection between the two is is shown in the dashed purple.  I think it would be technically named the Vivion Road Trail since that trail would start at Line Creek and go east.

I'm not sure what the schedule is but it is short and should be done fairly quickly.  Here is the construction at the end of Klamm Drive. 

In order to get to it from the Line Creek Trail just loop around and cross the bridge and head towards the street (Klamm Drive) right next to Mad Mike's Fireworks and go south 200 or so feet.

What is amazing is how much has been built in just 2 years.  There is a lot of green on this Northland trail map that wasn't there in 2012 and there are a lot of people to thank for that but Riverside needs to be thanked again for thinking and acting regional.  Without their efforts we wouldn't have such a connected bikeway/trail system in Platte County.

Read more about Riverside's trail system from their official website here.

Interurban Railroad at Missouri Route 152

I have to say I was excited but now am mad.  I went out today to do some reconnaissance.  I had been trying to figure out where the Kansas City-St. Joseph Interurban Railroad crossed the Missouri Route 152 Trail.  Ever since we started construction, every time I neared the point where the south side Green Hills on-ramp merged with 152, I had been looking around for the old railbed.

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When MoDOT built 152, they had a bunch of excess material and stockpiled it on the south side of the highway just north of the fence between the highway and the retirement home to the south.  When the retirement home was built, the buildings were cut below grade so it is hard to line up where the railroad would have crossed the trail.  I could never find anything when I was out before but decided to look at it today.

This time of year with snow on the ground is the perfect time to explore the outdoors.  The snow on the ground gives perspective and allows one to see the topography better.   Most of the trails being built now were all scouted with snow on the ground to give perspective of how to design the trail to take advantage of God's Creation.

Since it is supposedly going to warm up (where's the 50's+ we were promised weather.com?), I figured this was my last day to have the snow on the ground to use to my advantage.  I ended up getting some pictures and documenting a short segment of the rail bed around the highway.

That all sounds nerdy and exciting so you might wonder why I am mad?  I thought I had cleaned the camera lens but didn't notice till I got home that the left side of the lens was not clean and the pictures were blurred.  I wear polarized glasses and use an old screen protector for my phone so when I was reviewing the pictures after taking them, everything looked fine. 

I still uploaded 9 of them to panoramio.com since I want to archive the corridor and am not sure when I will get another chance to take clear pictures with the snow on the ground.  You can look at the pictures and their location on a map by following the link here.  I'd describe them in more detail if they were clear but don't feel like it now since the pictures aren't perfect and it takes time for them to upload to the blog.

How did I finally figure out where the Interurban crossed the trail?  Something I never thought about before, I found the break in the cattle fence.  Since most of the area was farmed in the summer and used as pasture in the winter, there would have been a break in the fence at the property line for the railroad and a fence parallel to the railroad to keep cattle off the track.  If you venture out onto the phase of the Line Creek Trail under construction south of Barry Road, you can see old smashed fence all along the stretch on the Interurban since that area was always pasture.

When building a livestock fence, two posts at the break or corner of the fence have to be set otherwise the fence falls apart.  The corner or end post won't support the tension within the fence and any livestock pushing on it.  A connection brace made of wood, steel, or wire is anchored from the end post to the next post which braces the end post and provides extra support.  In case you can't visualize that, check this out.

Near the Route 152 Trail, I hope to go out again and see if I can find any other fence artifacts once the snow melts.  The picture below is one of the end posts braced with steel tube and wire. 

If you want to learn more about the Interurban, I recommend the late Ed Gentry's page here.  Again, I am sorry the pictures are blurred but I know next time I will clean the lense before leaving the house.

 

Rail Transit in Platte County

In light of this week's first public meeting for the North Kansas City streetcar study to extend the Kansas City Missouri streetcar across the river, I thought I would share some old stuff from the KC and St. Joseph Interurban.  Reader Greg Douglas came across and gratefully shared this fare chart from the old railroad.

 

I also scanned the Interurban page from "The History of Riverside" book that was printed by the City of Riverside in 2001 as part of the 50 year anniversary of the city.

I previously wrote about the Interurban bridge which in case you missed it can be found here.  I wonder if the trolley was too full and people had to ride like these guys...

 

Line Creek Trail is Almost Half Mile Longer

The Line Creek Trail keeps getting longer.  Over the past couple of weeks, almost another half mile of concrete trail was poured. This means that around 4.5 miles of the trail are paved between Vivion and Barry Roads.  The new portion is shown below with the vertical profile of the trail.

The Trail isn't open for use as the sides of the trail haven't been back-filled.  I took some pictures as a preview.  The one below is at the north end of the concrete where the trail veers away from the old Interurban rail bed.  The trail goes to the left and the old railroad is on the left.

Looking southeast towards the new pavement which is on the right side of the picture.

This is looking south where the trail is on top of the Interurban and Line Creek is on the right.

Looking northwest at mid-point of new pavement.  Note the size of the trees and topography.

This is looking north at the south end of the Interurban section.  Line Creek is 20+/- feet below on the left.

This is looking southwest where the trail transitions from the Interurban down to the existing trail at the end of Platte Brooke Drive.

I love how this thing lays out with the topography and views of the valley.  Unfortunately, I think it has reached the time of the year where it becomes too wet and cold for the ground to dry out to allow rock and concrete trucks to pave any more trail. 

Getting supplies and equipment to this project is hard enough to do when the weather cooperates.  The ground doesn't really dry out because all of the monster trees keep the sun away from the ground.

Maybe we will get lucky and have a long dry spell and more can be done before the end of the year.  Last winter was an unproductive winter and I am guessing this one will be the same.

Final KCMO Line Creek Trail Gap Out to Bid

How many of you use the Line Creek Trail and get to the north end, see this view, and go "when the heck is this going to go up to Barry Road?"  Thanks to easements donated by Barth Real Estate and an ownership group controlled ny MD Management, this gap is going to be gone real soon.

The final gap in the Line Creek Trail is out to bid.  I don't know if I ever had a project where I can't wait to start tearing stuff up and start fixing it.  This segment of trail is going to be one of the top two segments of trail within Kansas City.  Starting at the end of the concrete, the trail will curve to the right and then back to the left right along the banks of Line Creek.  The trail will transition from the low floodplain area to the high bank.  This picture is about 500 feet due northeast of the trail end and is looking to the southwest at the trail corridor.

The trail runs on about 1800 feet of the old Kansas City to St. Joe Interurban Railroad railbed. This is looking south about a quarter mile north of the trail end.

As you can see in the pictures, the biggest threat facing the valley right now is very ambitious beavers.  After the trail is built we will have to wait and see if the native Missouri Redneck still inhabits the area and will remove these anti-tree varmints.

It then winds around the banks of the former Drennon Lake till it gets to the old house south of Barry Road and Line Creek Parkway. The picture below is the view of the trail as it moves away from the old Interurban and moves to the East.  Note the topography through the trees and how Ozark it appears.

This view is southwest along the south side of old Drennon Lake.

This shot was taken from the convergence of the north and west sides of Drennon Lake and looking north.  Again note the relief.

This picture is the dam for the upper siltation basin.  The folks who built Drennon Lake were smart enough to realize that if they were going to get people to pay to swim, camp, and fish in their lake that they needed to make sure the water was clean and silt-free so they built a lake upstream that would fill in and the cleaner water would enter the lake (ahem novel idea Weatherby Lake).  I don't think you can make it out but at the far end of the dam in the picture is an abandoned upside down BMW.  The first time I went out there, I called KCPD and they went out and looked at it and reported that the car had been stolen for some years, they knew about its location, and no one ever wanted to come get it and tow it away.

This is the overview looking south at the silt basin and will be the first good glimpse for trail users of the awesomeness of the area.  This is only about 500-800' south of Barry Road.

The trail will go underneath an existing reinforced concrete box culvert and connect to the sidepath along the west side of Line Creek Parkway (which will soon connect to the Route 152 Trail).

Here is the map of the Line Creek Trail final KCMO project that is out to bid. 

I have some more pictures uploaded to Panoramio in case you want to browse.

 

 

7 Years Ago Today

Steve Rhoades and I fired up the GPS machine for a field visit to start the design and layout of the Line Creek Trail.  We trekked the trail starting somewhere in Riverside and made it all way up to Platte Brooke Drive.  We turned around and headed back and encountered this bad boy about a quarter mile north of NW 68th Street on the old Interurban Line. 

We had to throw rocks at it for a while until one got close enough to make it want to move.  It was one of those 60 degree days in April when reptiles come out to soak up the sun.  Steve won the first tick lottery and after that, our field visits were over for a while. 

It's awesome to see after a ride tonight how many people use it to walk, bike, spend family time, or just use it to find some place to throw rocks in the creek. 

When I first started out doing the route from my house to the Briarcliff area, it took me over 2.5 hours.  I've worked myself into the shape that I can do it just around an hour and fifteen minutes which is about all the time I can scrounge up to ride anymore. 

The best times to do this ride are like tonight when the wind is out of the south 25+ mph.  My average speed downhill into the wind was around 12 mph and my average speed uphill with the wind was around 18 mph.  I use the "MapMyRide" app on my phone to track how far and where I go.

I didn't see any snakes tonight which was good.  I still get the heavie geevies every time I see that picture above.

 

Clip credit to Jim Stafford.

 

Tresspassers Beware

I frequently like to get off the official trail and wander around the woods.  I only like to do that from November to March.  My reason?  In the summer and spring, some of these property owners have actually went out and hired some of the best security guards I have ever encountered.  I ran into one of them on the old Interurban Railroad line.  This guard was somewhere around 5' 6" and about 30 pounds and it took me just under 5 minutes to make it a quarter mile back to the car and back on the couch.

 

Little Shack on Barry Road

I had the fortune of visiting Minnesota recently and made a stop in Des Moines.  Both communities have a very outdoors focused parks and recreation vision.  We stopped at a city park in West Des Moines which was an old sand and gravel pit along the Des Moines River.  We intended to play at the park but there was a beach and before I knew it, 2 boys were in the water and the other 2 were building sand canals and castles.  It was March 25th and the weather was warm enough that people were actually swimming.  We have stopped before in small podunk towns in Minnesota along the way and found similar old fashioned swimming holes where someone dumped some sand and called it a beach.  Why don't we have that here? 

Well at one time we did.  It was called Drennon Lake and it was a half mile south of Barry Road and Line Creek Parkway.  The dam was the old KC-St.Joe Interurban railroad and it was accessed from Barry Road.  Pictured below is the 1964 aerial of the Lake which I located using the blue lines.  The Interurban is the orange line.  Barry Road is the red line and MO-152 is the purple line.  This is upper Line Creek Valley in 1964.

The USGS topo map from the 1960's shows the lake and how sparsely populated the area was.  AA is Green Hills Road and the purple shading on the left side of the picture is the Coves.  The lake is shown in the light blue and the Interurban Railroad straight double dashed line that forms the dam.

 

I am not sure where the Drennon name came from-family, trading post, stop on the train?  I have an old 1930's road map that shows a town of Drennon at the intersection of Barry and Green Hills Road. People would pay to fish and camp on the site.  The Line Creek Trail follows the camp access road and there are some remnants of outhouses near the lake.  The land to the north of the lake used to have a pay to ride horse stable and parts of the old barn foundation are still there. 

As one drives along Barry Road, there is a little shack on the southeast corner of Barry Road and Line Creek Parkway that is shown in the lower left side of the first picture and a close up in the second.

I don't know exactly what the shack was for but I have some ideas I have learned over time. 

Theory 1:  This was the bait shack for Drennon Lake where people would stop and pay for tackle and permits to fish and camp.

Theory 2:  It was the bath house for the family that lived right where Robinhood Lane is today.  The family that owned that track used the bath house since indoor plumbing hadn't been invented.

Theory 3:  It was a trading post for people crossing the original state line on their way from the town of Barry to Leavenworth.

One theory I do know isn't true is that it was a stop on the Interurban.  The railroad crossed Barry Road where the large power lines cross next to the car wash and gas station and Barclay Club apartments are today.

According to long time valley resident Kent Mayfield, the lake existed until the Plaza Flood of 1977 when the dam broke and the City of Riverside was flooded.  Once the Line Creek Trail is complete, the part around Drennon Lake will be one of the best stretches of trail in the metropolitan area.