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Missouri's Rock Island Trail - What is the current status?

Submitted by Brent Hugh on Tue, 09/23/2014 - 4:58pm

With work currently underway that may result in the addition of about 145 miles to the planned Rock Island Trail State Park, people have been asking: What is the status of the Rock Island line?

Potential Rock Island Trail - we could see over 200 miles of trail on the Rock Island Corridor and over 450 miles on the combined Katy/Rock Island system

In 2007, Ameren agreed to allow a trail to be built on 46 miles of the Rock Island corridor between Windsor (on the Katy Trail) and Pleasant Hill. Since then, Jackson County and communities along the remaining portion of the line from Pleasant Hill to Kansas City have been working to acquire that portion of the line for use as a commuter rail and trail link.

And now Ameren has put up for sale the remainder of the Rock Island from Windsor all the way to the outskirts of St. Louis.

It all makes for a confusing situation. Where do all of these different segments stand?

Working our way from the western terminus of the Rock Island line--near the Truman Sports Complex in Kansas City--and working our way east, here is the current situation:

22 miles of the Rock Island RR from Kansas City through Raytown, Lee's Summit, Greenwood, and Pleasant Hill is owned by Union Pacific Railroad. Union Pacific is currently in negotiations to sell the corridor; cities and counties involved are working on various plans to fund that acquisition. Jackson County Executive Michael Sanders recently announced an agreement-in-principle to purchase the corridor from Union Pacific.
46 miles of the Rock Island corridor from Pleasant Hill to the connection with the Katy Trail in Windsor has been officially railbanked--the end result of a lengthy process of negotiating with Ameren, which owned the corridor. Legal work is Missouri State Parks is currently working to construct the trail on this section of the corridor. Why has this segment been so long delayed? The original agreement was to build a trail alongside the railroad tracks. But State Parks soon concluded that a trail on top of the railbed--similar to the Katy Trail--would be a far superior alternative. Ameren and Missouri State Parks have spent the past several years painstakingly negotiating the legal agreement to railbank the 46 mile segment. Those negotiations are now complete and actual trail construction is likely to take far less time.
145 miles of the Rock Island Corridor from Windsor through Versailles, Eldon, Gascony, Owensville to Beaufort is currently owned by Ameren and has not carried any rail traffic for decades. This is the primary section of the corridor that Ameren is now interested in transferring or selling and railbanking. More information about this situation--and how you can help--here.

In July, the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy stepped up with an offer to purchase the railroad in a way that will ensure that the 145-mile section is railbanked and turned over to Missouri State Parks to become a trail.

Latest news: We may hear an announcement from Ameren about the fate of the corridor in early October.
- Please sign the petition to encourage Ameren to do all it can to move this section of the corridor to trail use.
Over 50 miles of the Rock Island corridor from Beaufort through Union, Labadie, and St. Louis is currently in active railroad use. All plans are for that current active railroad use to continue. However, this section, or portions of it, are potential rails with trails corridors.
Altogether we could have 213 miles of the Rock Island Trail connected with 240 miles of the Katy Trail, creating a 453 interconnected cross-state trail system.

Your support of the trail can make a huge difference--please take the time to contact Ameren and our state officials now:

Sign on to support the Rock Island Trail now - our new cross-state trail needs your support

Most of the Rock Island Corridor through Missouri has sat unused for more than 30 years--read this article to find out why. In the 1990s, there was a concerted effort to railbank the line and turn it into a trail. But the process went awry and the result is that the corridor has now remained unused for an additional 20 years.

Now is the time take action to actual railbank the Rock Island corridor and start work to turn the whole corridor into another Katy Trail-style cross-state trail.