Hoxie Subdivision - Cape Girardeau, MO To Poplar Bluff, MO - Inquiry

Hello, Matt.

I live in Cape Girardeau and my grandparents lived 10 miles west of Advance.

I made thousands of trips along Highway 25. The old Frisco roadbed can still be seen beside the road from Blomeyer, through Delta and into Advance. The landscape towards the southside of the tracks in this area is generally flat cornfields with occasional single hills in the distance.

Pretty close to the north side of the tracks you can see tall rock bluffs, rolling tree covered hills and deep hollows or hollers with corn planted right up to the bluffs and hills. It is a very beautiful area to see and model.

My Zalma Branch is to the north of the mainline. Starting at Brownwood, it snakes through the hollers 8 miles to end at Zalma, MO. Check out my photographs in the layout section to see my rendition of the local scenery. By the way, you can still see the old rails and grey ties at Delta.

I am always glad to hear that someone else is interested in modeling this part of the Frisco.

Good luck to you.

Jim

 

Matt,

Karl and Jim are spot-on.

Depending on the exact area you want to model, there is a lot to offer.

What Jim described between Delta and Advance, I have always thought it would be nice to model. Bluffs behind the track, and flat land on the other side make for ideal scenic model railroading.

Puxico onward does get more into the rolling hill country.

I do not know as much as I would like about Poplar Bluff, but the depot is a real gem. What fun it would be to see the mixed trains No 875 and No 876 meeting at Poplar Bluff behind ex AT&N RS-1 diesels.

The Missouri Pacific there is a good interchange if you are more into the operations side of things.

There is a frisco.org member by the name of David Silverberg. He lives in Poplar Bluff and works with their railroad museum. You might want to send him a private message and see what information their organization has to offer.

Karl,

Your map of Delta is very helpful.

I have always been spotty on how the wyes were arranged. Somewhere I have a photograph of the old Missouri Pacific (MP) / St. Louis Southwestern (SSW) or Cotton Belt crossing gate, looking north toward where the Frisco Hoxie Subdivision would have crossed the MP line.

What a rambling note.

I think it is time for mid-morning coffee.

 

I toured the line quite a bit in the early 1990s all the way from Nash, MO to Hoxie, AR.

I also made visits to Poplar Bluff, Naylor, Pocahontas and Hoxie in the early 1980s which were a couple hours drive from Thayer, MO. This is one of the best abandoned Frisco branches to explore because of the access and nature has not reclaimed it as quickly some branches even though the line was officially abandoned on 12/1/1965.

The roadbed is still visible alongside the road from Blomeyer to Advance, Kinder to Puxico and Rombauer to the Highway 60 grade crossing north of Poplar Bluff. You can even drive on top of it from Mingo to Rombauer. After abandonment the State of Missouri converted the oil roadbed into a gravel road.

The line skirts for a short time right next to Crowley's Ridge just south of the Highway 25 grade crossing south of Delta and cuts thru a low section of the ridge just north of Mingo. Sections of the line in Delta and Poplar Bluff were turned over to the Missouri Pacific (MP) for operation when Frisco pulled out and survived in operation at least until the late 1980s.

Depots still exist at Puxico and Poplar Bluff which have been converted into museums, hobby shop, visitors center. The Poplar Bluff depot was even used as police station for a while.

The line also had many branches, the Brownwood to Zalma, abandoned 3/1934, Brownwood to Aquilla, abandoned 1930, Mingo to Hunter, abandoned 1938, 1939, 1940, and Poplar Jct. to Piggott, abandoned 1951. Wyes were located at Nash, Brownwood, Mingo and Poplar Bluff.

You could probably spend a whole day checking out the Poplar Bluff area. The track in Poplar Bluff was, as of 1993, still there from the Highway 60 grade crossing to Poplar Jct. and the ex-Frisco yard south of the depot was still being used by Union Pacific (UP), but the rest of the line was gone.

One interesting thing was a cut with rough faced stone walls that gave a sort of tunnel like look under North Broadway Street and North Main Street just north of the depot. I was able to walk through it in 1983 but I do not think you can today.

The bridge over the Black River was still there in 1983. It was being used as a pedestrian bridge, but when I returned in 1993 the ends abutments were removed to prevent access.

One more thing, do not confuse Poplar Jct. with the MP crossing. This was known as Linstead. The line to Piggott and Kennett began at a wye just east of the Black River bridge. This was known as Poplar Jct.

I use a combination of Terraserver and MapQuest to follow these lines. On a lot of these maps the railroad and long lost towns are still shown. If you want to explore the branch I suggest you get a good map, like the Missouri Gazetteer. With gas at $4 bucks, you do not want to make too many wrong turns.

The Frisco Museum published a 4 or 5 part article section on the branches in the area back in the 1990s which was very informative. At our library there is a big book about Brownwood, MO. It also covers the surrounding area and the railroad, especially the abandonment of this branch and the Brownwood to Aquilla line.

Also check out the Bridge Hunter .com web site. It has photographs of a lot the bridges on the line. Please see the following link.

http://www.bridgehunter.com/

Good luck!

Roger

 

Roger,

Your note evoked a nice childhood memory.

When we would trek to campouts at Mingo and Duck Creek or would visit kin in Advance and Zalma, I recall an old, very weathered wooden crossbuck just east of Advance along Highway 25. It was near the John Deere implement dealer.

I figured it has either long rotted away or was harvested by a railroadiana collector. I am frankly surprised it lasted as long as it did.

Karl,

If you are still online, here is hoping you and yours remain safe from the perils that Hurricane Ike seems to be bringing to your neck of the woods.

 

Here is my interpretation by personal observation on the topography in the area.

It covers the Hoxie Subdivision from Cape Girardeau, MO to Poplar Bluff, MO.