Tucked away in a warehouse off Brown Station Road, Columbia Terminal Railroad locomotive #2001 takes a well-deserved break for the weekend. The workhorse of the twenty-one-mile short line from Columbia to Centralia, the 2001 currently handles over 600 carloads per year between Columbia and the connection in Centralia to the Norfolk Southern railroad, the line’s original owner.
But unless you live on the city’s north side or drive along the Route B corridor between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday — those are the COLT rail line’s work hours — Columbia’s own short line railroad is probably a mystery to most residents.
“We’re north of the city, kind of out of the way,” said Matthew Sabath, one of two COLT employees certified as railroad engineer, conductor, and track inspector. He acknowledges, “We wear a lot of different hats.”
The city’s utilities department operates the COLT Railroad and Transload, providing myriad shipping, warehousing, and distribution services. Even though the out-of-the-way location at 6501 N. Brown Station Rd. is not well known to residents throughout Columbia, the COLT’s impact is significant.
“It benefits the city in ways that are mostly unseen,” Sabath said.
Case in point: A 2023 economic impact study conducted by University Extension in partnership with others determined that COLT’s previous five-year direct impact accounted for $670 million in total sales, 243 jobs, and $2.4 million in tax revenue for the city of Columbia and Boone County. Without accesss to COLT, two businesses have indicated they would have to relocate outside of Boone County to a rail-served site, and one company is planning to build a new rail siding and building to increase its capacity.
The rail line runs from Columbia to Centralia, generally parallel to Route B to Hallsville and Highway 124 to Centralia. In Columbia, the rail line is located just west of the Route B industrial corridor, crosses Highway 63 some 2.5 miles north of I-70, and ends south of Rogers Street on the outskirts of downtown Columbia.
The railroad that is now the COLT began in 1857 with a charter from the state of Missouri to the Boone County & Jefferson City Railroad. The line was to be a branch of the North Missouri Railroad from Centralia through Columbia to Jefferson City. The Civil War delayed construction by nine years, but once the project began in June 1866, progress was swift and the line was completed to Columbia in October 1867.
The North Missouri Railroad would eventually change hands and names and, in time, became the Wabash Railroad, stretching from Buffalo to Kansas City, serving Detroit, Toledo, Chicago, St Louis, Des Moines, and even Omaha. The Columbia Branch remained a unique operation for the Wabash until its merger with the Norfolk and Western in 1964.
For many years the Wabash operated passenger trains on the branch from Columbia to Centralia, where connections were made to mainline trains bound for Kansas City to the west, or St Louis, Chicago or Detroit to the east. Heeding community complaints about the size of the Wabash depot in Columbia, the railroad built a limestone station in downtown Columbia in 1910 out of the same stone as the church across the street. The railroad continued to operate passenger trains from Centralia to the station until 1969, when successor Norfolk and Western discontinued that service.
But the N&W continued on with freight service into the 1980s. In 1984, however, Norfolk and Western successor Norfolk Southern, citing annual losses in excess of $200,000, filed to abandon the Columbia Branch. The city of Columbia, fearing loss of business, service to the Water & Light power plant, and the loss of jobs and the related tax revenues, explored the possibility of buying the branch from Norfolk Southern. In October 1987, the city completed the purchase, naming the branch the Columbia Terminal Railroad, or COLT.
The COLT was awarded $500,000 in federal funds for track improvements in 1987, and in 1988 handled 602 carloads of lumber, grain, paper, and fertilizer, plus other commodities. Traffic slipped the following year to 550 cars but rebounded in 1990 with resumption of coal shipments to the Water & Light power plant in Columbia.
Traffic continued to grow into the late 1990s, handling nearly 1,500 carloads in 1999. Commodities included coal, grain, lumber, fertilizer, and paper. In May 2001, the COLT purchased a new locomotive, the 2001, to supplement original locomotive #1. Carloads for the year 2001 were 1,536, and by 2005 the COLT handled a whopping 2,600 carloads.
The Highway 63 crossing emerged as an issue as the population grew and vehicle traffic increased, resulting in more accidents at the crossing. A study to replace the crossing with an overpass began in May 2007, and the need for grade separation was solidified in October of that year with another fatal collision at the crossing. Funding was approved in March 2009, and construction began four months later on July 31.
The $3.8 bridge was 458 feet long and 17.7 feet above the highway. The project was completed in September 2010.
In 2011, the COLT began hosting the Columbia Star Dinner Train, providing a two-and-a-half hour dining experience on a round trip from Columbia to Centralia on select weekends. Powered by a locomotive at each end, riders were treated to a luxurious meal as the train rolled through the central Missouri countryside. The first train departed Columbia July 12, 2011, making a round trip to Hallsville for dignitaries. Full service began a few days later, traversing the entire line to Centralia.
The operation of dinner trains is an expensive one, from maintaining the train, insuring it, and paying the host railroad to operate it. The Columbia Dinner Train operation lasted only three years, ending in October 2014.
Freight business on the COLT remained strong until the Water & Light power plant switched from coal to natural gas in 2015. The loss of that traffic resulted in a reduction in carloadings to under 1,000 per year. The railroad, however, continued to haul metal products, chemicals, lumber, and sheetrock to customers in the Columbia area. The transload facility on Brown’s Station Road has 83,000 square feet under one roof, a 58,000-pound overhead crane, twenty railcar spots, and is suitable for short- and long-term storage and rail to truck transloading.
Meanwhile, the 2023 economic impact study led to a $3.2 million federal grant for track improvements. The city will contribute an additional $800,000, resulting in a $4 million investment in the rail line.
David Sorrell, the city’s utilities direction, said the money will be spent on ballast, ties, and rail improvements on 8.35 miles of track within a 16-mile stretch.
“These improvements will increase the resiliency and capacity of the railroad, allowing it to handle heavier loads for new and existing customers,” Sorrell said. “The project will expand commercial freight opportunities, which will invite private investment in the city.”
A Writer’s Experience: Riding the Rail
By Michael C Kellly
The COLT also annually plays host to a unique group of rail enthusiasts. The First Iowa Division of the North American Rail Car Operators Association (NARCOA), runs an annual excursion for its members between Columbia and Centralia and back. The operators have each acquired and restored retired rail inspection motor cars, also known as speeders, and travel the U.S. and Canada to run the cars on operating railroads.
The speeders are typically box-shaped in size, have two seats, with basically a riding mower-size engine underneath. Some larger cars of Canadian heritage can hold up to four people. Some cars are partially enclosed with a windshield and a roof, while others are completely enclosed and have doors like any automobile. These cars typically also have heaters, but not all. Either way, they have two gears and can travel up to thirty-five miles per hour.
Regarding the trips, most host railroads are shortlines such as the COLT, and the host allows the operators onto the tracks on days the railroad does not run freight trains. But some trips, especially in Canada, operate on working mainline trackage, and the operators must coordinate by radio with dispatchers to get into a siding to allow trains to pass.
These speeder cars can date back to the 1940s and were used by the railroads to inspect the tracks for obstructions such as fallen trees or tracks out of alignment and other maintenance issues. Inspectors typically had authority from a dispatcher to be on a specific track during a specific time and would have to pull into a siding to clear the tracks for a passing train.
In the 1980s, railroads began replacing these speeder cars with SUVs like a Chevy Suburban, or pickup truck that had a set of railroad wheels at each corner that could be raised or lowered to get on and off the tracks. This allowed greater flexibility to the railroad as inspectors could get on or off the tracks at any grade crossing rather than have to be lifted off at specific stations. Many of these speeders were gathered into rail hubs and stored, awaiting disposition. Collectors and operators began purchasing these cars and restoring them. Needing a way to operate them, various clubs such as NARCOA were born.
On October 12, 2024, the First Iowa Division ran its annual trip on the COLT, making three round trips between Columbia and Centralia — fifteen miles each way. I was invited by COLT employee Matthew Sabath to ride along with the NARCOA operators that day, and it was quite a fun experience. It is truly a unique way to see the countryside in a way that most people don’t see.
Interestingly, not all NARCOA members are railfans. Some that I spoke to do it just for fun, such as Randy and Kelly Stevenson. For them, it’s all about traveling in a unique way, spending time together seeing the country and enjoying the outdoors. Same for Brad Mangan, who loves the fresh air so much he removed the cab from his speeder to be completely open air. Either way, it was a fun way to spend the day and get a unique view of the COLT.
After departing Centralia for the second time, we stopped for lunch in Hallsville. After lunch, we arrived back at the Transload in Columbia where I said goodbye to the COLT and this unique group of speeder car operators.
For more information on the Columbia Terminal Railroad, go to como.gov/utilities/columbia-colt-railroad. For more information on speeder cars and NARCOA, go to narcoa.org.
ABOUT THE WRITERS
MICHAEL C KELLY is a railroad historian and author and has published five books, with two more in the works.
He has authored Wabash in Color, Volume 2 (2007 Morning Sun Books), and four volumes in what has become the “Rails Around” series: Rails Around Michigan, 2010; Rails Around Missouri, 2013; Rails Around Indiana, 2020; and Rails Around Southern Illinois, 2023.
Rails Around Northern Illinois will be released in two volumes beginning in 2026.
Michael also hosts the “Rails Around Train Guy” show on YouTube: www.youtube.com/@railsaroundtrainguy
Michael lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his wife and granddaughter. For more information on Michael’s books, visit www.michaelckelly.net.
JODIE JACKSON JR is in his third year as editor/copyeditor/writer for COMO Business Times and COMO Magazine. In his early teens, Jodie’s bedroom was just 70 feet from the Rock Island Railroad tracks that ran through Belle, Missouri. He was a major contributor in collaboration with Brett Dufur’s publication, The Complete Rock Island Trail Guidebook (2024).
As a junior in high school, Jodie was hired as the school news reporter for the local weekly newspaper, The Belle Banner, leading to a journalism career that has included stints at the Owensville Gasconade County Republican; the Jefferson City News-Tribune, South Callaway Courier, and Fulton Sun; the Centralia Fireside Guard; his own weekly newspaper, the Northern Boone County Bullseye; the Columbia Daily Tribune; Missouri Life magazine; and COMO Magazine/COMO Business Times. (He was freelance writer for the magazines for five years before finally landing a job there.)
Jodie has written the biography of former Columbia city manager and public works director Ray Beck. That book, tentatively titled, “Fingerprints and Footprints: Ray Beck’s Columbia,” is currently in the final stages of editing.
Jodie wanted to grow up to be a scientist — zoologist, entomologist, or herpetologist (or all three at once) — but, well, math.
