Missing Cotton Belt A Branch history

[SSW9389]

Another recent historical quest is to find out what was happening on the A Branch between 1909 and 1938. The A Branch is that Cotton Belt track from Malden, Missouri out to Birds Point, Missouri. There is a 29 year gap in the history of the line out to Birds Point. If you read the current historical writings the Cotton Belt's ferry was washed away by a 1909 flood. But the line out to Birds Point wasn't abandoned between Wyatt and Birds Point by Cotton Belt until 1938. Birds Point, MO was still in the ETTs and service on the A Branch was provided there. Part of the answer is that Missouri Pacific still had ferry service between Birds Point and Cairo, Illinois. At least until the later 1920s when a highway bridge was completed.

And the other thing about the A Branch is the "gusher of oil" Fred Frailey writes about on page 22 of Blue Streak Merchandise. That gusher started flowing to keep the oil off the Gulf of Mexico and making easy targets for Nazi U Boats. The pipeline between Wyatt and Birds Point is being researched. A fellow Cotton Belt fan and I found the remnants of a tank farm and bits and pieces of structure and pipe. We may actually know something more about it by the end of Spring. The gusher of oil travelled on 56# rail from Malden to Wyatt, behind the moguls and ten wheelers that were cleared to operate on that line at 15 mph. Where is that written? A mogul was good for 2500 tons on that line, but the longest siding wouldn't hold that many cars. It's a perfect set up for one of those Baldwin VO1000 diesels, but that hasn't been proven yet.

Ed in Kentucky

[SSW9389]

More bits n pieces are filling in on this old Cotton Belt line. The Great Depression and then the Great Flood of 1937 did damage to the condition and finances of the line. Freight traffic between Wyatt and Birds Point virtually ended with the flood and was a leading cause of abandonment. A book about the Cotton Belt town of East Prairie, Missouri has been located and that sheds more light on this branch line.

Ed in Kentucky

[SSW9389]

A third trip to the Wyatt Birds Point area was made the first week of April. Additional details of the sites were photographed. A Power Point presentation was made at the Scott City Museum on Tuesday April 3rd. After the presentation a retired Cotton Belt engineer showed us on Google Earth the location of the oil track in Wyatt. It was just South of town, parallel to the branch line and across from the Rafferty Mill.

Ed in Kentucky

[SSW9389]

The view looking south from Wyatt along the old Cotton Belt right of way. The back levee is also called the setback levee, the front levee is on the Mississippi River. The back levee impounds the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway that is used only when the river is in severe flood stage. The old foundation is likely the remnant of the Rafferty Mill.

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[SSW9389]

Last October we had time to check out this field in Wyatt. A local man told us he had bulldozed the turntable in early 1990s and that it was located behind Rafferty's Store. The foundation I found may be from the Wyatt Depot. And the yellow line represents the branch line right of way into Wyatt.

Ed in Kentucky

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[SSW9389]

There was an oil tank farm just south of Birds Point. This likely was built in conjunction with the oil pipeline Fred Frailey writes about in Blue Streak Merchandise. The tank farm was destroyed in an explosion in the early 1970s and the site just off the old Cotton Belt right of way is overgrown with trees. This old concrete bone was found on our expedition last month along with a lot of other industrial debris.

Ed in Kentucky

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[SSW9389]

There are a couple of other men helping me with research. Recently one of them found an aerial photo of the wye at Birds Point. The photo shows the raised grade from the point opposite the oil tank farm to a point where a trestle took off over a county road. The railroad crossed the Mississippi River levee over the top and then had a short grade down to the wye and depot trackage. All very interesting at this point some 80 years after the line was abandoned.

Ed in Kentucky

[BSMFF71]

Greetings Ed. Nice to find this forum and another fan interested in the Cotton Belt and it's history. I made one trip to Wyatt out of Malden in 1971 as a brand new Illmo brakeman. Being a SSW railfan even before I began 'real' railroading, the branch lines out of Malden interested me. As a new man on the extra board, I caught those Malden jobs often when a regular man laid off or went on vacation.

Wyatt was the end of the line in 1971. I remember seeing the turntable pit, barely. It was only a circular dirt parapet where the outer rail would have been, overgrown with weeds. My old engineer, Lester Seabright, said the TT was 'Armstrong-powered' by the crew back in the days of steam. The engine had to be perfectly balanced on the TT, and everyone had to push to turn the engine! Mr. Seabright had pulled the oil trains out from Malden to Bird's Point during WWII. Seems he mentioned something about sixty tank cars being the max on the old mainline branch. Sixty 40-ton cars would be about right, at 2400 tons. He also mentioned that sixty sloshing tank cars made train-handling difficult when stopping to get a switch.

My greatest concern on that hot, all-day, 10 mph trip, was that we would run out of time (14-hour limit) and have to stay overnight on the caboose at Wyatt. Fortunately, that did not happen. We delivered (or picked up) one car (cannot remember) then ran around our cab and ran the SW1500 backward to Malden, . Engineer Seabright 'fudged' on his 10 mph 'a bit' to make certain that we made Malden, since he drove home seventy miles to Illmo every evening.

I worked many other Malden jobs up the old mainline, which turned northward at the Lilbourn wye, to pick up soybean hoppers at Ristine or pick up alfalfa pellets at East Prairie (end of line by the late '70s) but never again all the way to Wyatt.

Remembering Malden...

Chip in JeffCity

[SSW9389]

Chip thanks for writing. I made a trip out to Birds Point and Wyatt last October and again last month. Mr. Seabright's info seems about right. The moguls hauling the oil tank trains were rated at 2500 tons. What I heard at the Scott City museum last year was that the loaded oil train would pull into the siding at East Prairie and leave half the train there and take the other half up to Wyatt for unloading. Then come back for the second half of the train. The Special Instructions of the day give a 15 mph speed limit for loaded oil trains.

Ed in Kentucky

[SSW9389]

This is the point where the Birds Point Sub bridged over Route K.

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[SSW9389]

The stakes and flagging tape are centered on the power pole north of the main levee. The power pole is set on the alignment of the railroad into Birds Point. The height is approximate, but you can tell that the levee is taller now than it was in 1938 when the line was abandoned.

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[SSW9389]

After a 900+ mile drive to Texas last Fall a serious clue was found that led to an aerial photo of Wyatt in 1955. This photo shows where we think the turntable was located. The turntable in Wyatt first shows up in a May 1938 Employee Timetable. Still looking for photos of it.

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[SSW9389]

Looking west across the location of the three grain silos that used to be in Wyatt. Their bases remain. The farthest measured a 25' diameter base and the two closest both had 21' diameter bases. That's the Wyatt Post Office in the background.

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[SSW9389]

This is the scale house associated with the grain silos. You can see where it is in relation to the Wyatt Post Office. The silos were behind it to the right. Note that it has a Fairbanks Morse Scales sign on it. The oil pumphouse was across the street I'm standing on to the left.

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