It's a surprisingly pleasant Monday in March, and once again, another chase of the Missouri Eastern RR in western St Louis, MO. This time, the train is seen heading westbound. In this video, the MER is seen at seven locations between Maryland Heights and St Albans, MO. Recently, the crew call time has been pushed to 1100, which is later than the previous earlier call time. This proved to be positive as far as lighting goes for the westbound run.

MER operates over close to 50 miles of former Rock Island trackage, which is part of the original Rock mainline from STL to KC. The majority of the line has been ripped up, and some even converted into a biking trail further west. The tracks would later be used for SP/UP coal trains that ran to the Labadie power plant, and before operating as MER, were operated as the Central Midland Railway under Progressive Rail.

Six runbys and work at a rock facility at Baxter Rd in Chesterfield, MO, are featured here. The train would pick up loaded gondolas at Baxter, and continue on west to a business park called West Rock, also in Chesterfield. No footage was captured during this process. since I was having a couple conversations with the conductor and engineer of the job, and at that point was just taking it all in, I guess you could say. The westbound and eastbound jobs met in Chesterfield, and the loaded gondolas (and I believe some boxcars) were handed off to the eastbound job for St Louis. Therefore, the train was shorter at the final three spots in the video.

MER is really going at it, utilizing this line and the business along it. It is great to see.
If you like what you watched and would like to see more quality content, consider subscribing and dropping a "Like".
Enjoy. (c) 2023