I am in St Louis for meetings related to work. I was able to make a trip downtown to and travel to the top of the Gateway Arch. Can someone describe the various rights of way used to create the Metrolink route from downtown west toward the airport and Shrewsbury? It is obvious we were using some old tunnels under the city and rail lines on the surface.

Thanks.

Wesley

The trackage over the Eads bridge and through the tunnels downtown was TRRA trackage. With the growth in container traffic and autoracks, which would not clear the tunnels, this trackage was of limited usefulness in moving freight. I only rode it between LaClede Landing and Union Station, so someone else will have to fill you in on the rest.

Amtrak may have been the last user of Eads Bridge. They did stop about 1974 when their new Diesels wouldn't fit in the tunnel West of the bridge.

Here is a short version of the info from my article (with my wife) that was in Passenger Train Journal for the 4th quarter of 2007. The MetroLink line going west from the Mississippi uses the lower level of the 1874 Eads Bridge and the connecting tunnel that took its tracks to the Mill Creek Valley, home of the St. Louis Union Depot and since 1893 the later Union Station. This was Terminal RR of St. Louis trackage when last used by Amtrak. Going west the route stays on the TRRA (except for a new deviation to serve Union Station by using what had been the baggage tunnel under its tracks) until Grand, where it takes what had been the Wabash passenger line toward the airport. This was last owned by NS. It leaves this route after the north campus station for UM-St. Louis and it is all new construction to the airport.
At the Forest Park station there is a junction with the line to Shrewsbury, which uses a combination of former Rock Island and St. Louis streetcar trackage until turning south after the Clayton station, where it again uses a former TRRA route along I-170. The RI portion stopped being used by the line in 1934 and was abandoned a few years later, caused when the Wabash rebuilt its line and depressed it below grade. The RI did not want to spend funds to keep the junction and rerouted its trains. The RI roadbed became a street and later Forest Park Parkway, which was rebuilt to provice MetroLink service. Streetcar tracks were parallel to the RI on the north, but at a different elevation at the time. The current line shifts from south to north, using both former lines. The St. Louis Belt & Terminal RR build the line along I-170 and became part of the TRRA. MetroLink follows this until past the Sunnen station, and then it is new construction to the terminal.