Class III shortline railroad in Missouri
The
Missouri & Northern Arkansas Railroad, LLC
(
reporting mark
MNA
) is a
Class II
Regional Railroad
in the U.S. states of Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas. The company is headquartered in
Carthage, Missouri
. It is not to be confused with the
Missouri and North Arkansas Railroad
which connected
Joplin, Missouri
, with
Helena, Arkansas
, from 1906 to 1946.
MNA is owned by
Genesee & Wyoming
, a shortline railroad
holding company
, having been purchased in 2013 with the acquisition of
RailAmerica
who bought the MNA back in 2000.
[1]
Operations
[
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]
MNA operates approximately 527 miles (848 km)
[1]
of trackage in
Arkansas
,
Kansas
, and
Missouri
. Its mainline extends 384.1 miles (618.1 km) from
Pleasant Hill, Missouri
, through
Carthage, Missouri
, to
Diaz, Arkansas
. It also has trackage rights on
Union Pacific Railroad
lines for 32 miles (51 km) between Pleasant Hill and
Kansas City, Missouri
, and 2 miles (3.2 km) between Diaz and
Newport, Arkansas
. On the mainline, MNA interchanges with the Union Pacific Railroad at
Pleasant Hill, Missouri
, and
Diaz, Arkansas
, and with the
BNSF Railway
at
Aurora, Missouri
. The line no longer
[
as of?
]
interchanges with the BNSF Railway at
Lamar, Missouri
, or Carthage, Missouri.
[2]
[3]
[4]
MNA operates a 78.3-mile (126.0 km) secondary line from just east of
Fort Scott, Kansas
east to
Clinton, Missouri
. This secondary line interchanges with MNA's Pleasant Hill?Diaz mainline in
Nevada, Missouri
.
[3]
It formerly interchanged with BNSF at
Fort Scott, Kansas
in 1998. Along this track, MNA serves an
ADM
Bio-Diesel Plant located to the west of Deerfield, Missouri. MNA uses its track between Nevada, MO and Clinton, MO to serve a few customers in Clinton and the now shut down Montrose Generating Station, an
Evergy
coal-fired power plant
near
La Due, Missouri
.
[2]
[5]
MNA also operates a 16.7-mile (26.9 km) branch line from Carthage, MO to Joplin, MO that interchanges with MNA's Pleasant Hill?Diaz mainline At Carthage, with the
Kansas City Southern Railway
in Joplin, and with the BNSF in Joplin. A 6-mile (9.7 km) MNA branch line that branches off of the Carthage?Joplin branch line originates from an interchange in
Webb City, Missouri
and terminates in Atlas, Missouri.
[3]
[2]
MNA also operates several miles of industrial trackage in the city of
Springfield
; this segment is disconnected from the rest of the MNA system and traffic is hauled via
BNSF
to and from the Aurora interchange. Here MNA interchanges with BNSF at Springfield, MO.
[3]
[2]
Other operated segments are leased from the
Union Pacific
and
BNSF
Railroads. MNA has
rail yards
in
Carthage, MO
,
Nevada, MO
,
Joplin, MO
,
Aurora, MO
,
Cotter, AR
, and
Batesville, AR
.
MNA operates unit coal trains to a major power plant in
Newark, AR
.
The
Branson Scenic Railway
, which runs on track owned by the MNA, operates the "Ozark Zephyr" from
Branson, Missouri
. Trains operate mostly south into Arkansas but occasionally north to
Galena, Missouri
, depending on MNA traffic and/or track work. The restored 1906 depot it operates out of is across from Branson Landing in historic downtown Branson.
From 1997 until 2000, the White River Scenic Railroad had operated an excursion train from
Flippin, Arkansas
to
Calico Rock, Arkansas
.
[3]
Unit grain trains sometimes run from the interchange at Pleasant Hill, MO to the
Tyson Foods
feed mill at
Bergman, AR
and back empty.
MNA also runs
Union Pacific
unit coal trains to unload at the
Independence Power Plant
in
Newark, AR
, then hands them back to UP in
Newport, AR
.
Genesee & Wyoming Control
[
edit
]
(All as of 2023): The Missouri & Northern Arkansas Railroad, owned by
Genesee & Wyoming
, holds 490 total miles, 126 of them in
Arkansas
and 364 in
Missouri
. MNA has a maximum capacity of 286,000 gross pounds per railcar. There are a few interchanges as well:
BNSF
(
Aurora, Missouri
,
Joplin, Missouri
, and
Springfield, Missouri
);
Canadian Pacific Kansas City
(
Joplin, Missouri
);
Union Pacific
(
Kansas City, Missouri
and
Newport, Arkansas
).
[4]
History
[
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]
The MNA mainline between Kansas City and Newport originated as the former
Missouri Pacific Railroad
's White River Line, which was initially chartered in 1883 and was part of the MoPac's mainline between Kansas City and
Memphis, Tennessee
. The MNA began operations on December 13, 1992, and purchased the 102-mile (164 km) segment from
Bergman, Arkansas
, to
Guion, Arkansas
, from MoPac.
[3]
The secondary line from
Fort Scott, Kansas
, through
Nevada, Missouri
, to
Clinton, Missouri
, was once part of a former
Missouri?Kansas?Texas Railroad
mainline from
Parsons, Kansas
, through
Sedalia, Missouri
, to
St. Louis, Missouri
. The disused track between
Nevada, Missouri
, and
Fort Scott, Kansas
, was an important link between the MNA and BNSF's Fort Scott subdivision; In 1998 it was completely abandoned west of 240th Street just east of Fort Scott.
[6]
When Railtex took over operations on the White River Line, they used a handful of older-generation
Electro-Motive
products including several GP40s, GP35s, GP38s, road slugs, SD40s, and a GP20. After the G&W acquisition in 2012, ten ex-Southern Pacific SD40M-2s were purchased from the Union Pacific to replace the GP40s in road service. In 2018, most of the SD40M-2s were repainted from the UP lightning scheme into the G&W corporate orange.
In late 2022, MNA began phasing out several SD40s, and have replaced them with ex-BNSF
General Electric C44-9Ws
. Since 2022, approximately 12 C44-9Ws have joined the railroad roster.
MNA 4081, an
EMD SD40-2
MNA 3026, an
EMD GP40
References
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External links
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North American railroads
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Other operations
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Former operations
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