Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis
The Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis (reporting mark TRRA) is a switching and terminal railroad that handles traffic in the St. Louis, Missouri, metropolitan area. It is co-owned by several Class I railroads that reach the city.
It was founded in 1889 in a deal orchestrated by Jay Gould with:
Its current owners are:
It also connects with the Kansas City Southern Railway; the Canadian Pacific Railway is the only Class I railroad that does not reach St. Louis.
The railroad's predecessor companies in St. Louis date to 1797, when the town was still part of Spanish Upper Louisiana. James Piggott was granted a license to operate a ferry between St. Louis and Illinoistown (now East St. Louis, Illinois). In 1819, Piggott's heirs sold the ferry to Samuel Wiggins, who operated the service with eight horses until a steam-powered ferry took over in 1828.
In 1832, Wiggins sold the Wiggins Ferry Service and 800 acres (3.2 km2) of land in East St. Louis, including Bloody Island, to new owners, who began developing a rail yard on the Illinois property. In 1870, the ferry began porting rail cars across the river one car at a time until the 1874 completion of the Eads Bridge.
When the Terminal Railroad was incorporated in 1889, railroads owned most of the Wiggins Ferry property. In 1902 when the Rock Island Line joined the Terminal Railroad, the ownership of the Wiggins Illinois property was complete.
The Association built Union Station. It owns the Merchants Bridge and MacArthur Bridge, the latter which it received in 1989 in a swap with the City of St. Louis in exchange of title for the Eads Bridge.
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