Arkansas & Missouri Railroad (AM)

Another-5-Train-Friday-Scranton-Pa-6-26-2015 (81)

Another-5-Train-Friday-Scranton-Pa-6-26-2015 (83)

Legendary among Alco operators, the Arkansas and Missouri Railroad (AM) is a 139.5 mile short-line not like most other shortlines. Besides having continuous welded rail (a characteristic it shares with the Georgia kaolin shortline hauler, the Sandersville Railroad) and EMD’s newest SD70ACe diesels for its motive power, the road is also unique in that it was once an all-ALCO road.

The line was built between 1880 and 1882 by the St. Louis, Arkansas & Texas Railway, an affiliate of the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway (SLSF) (known to railfans as the “Frisco“), a predecessor of Burlington Northern Railroad, and was leased by the BN to the Arkansas and Missouri in 1986.

Headquartered in Springdale, Arkansas, it operates from Fort Smith, Arkansas (where it interchanges with the Kansas City Southern (KCS) to Monett, Missouri (where it interchanges with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF).

The A&M also interchanges with the Union Pacific at Van Buren, Arkansas and leases 3.2 miles of track (locally known as “The Bottoms“) from Union Pacific at Van Buren to provide haulage services for them between Van Buren and the Fort Smith Railroad in Fort Smith.

The line has vertical clearances for double-stack cars although traffic mostly consists of grain and feed supplements, paper products, sand, plastic, food products, steel, scrap, lumber,aluminum, and mineral products.

The Arkansas & Missouri Railroad