The Iron Mountain Trailway is a series of 47 geocaches places along the railbed of the historic St Louis Iron Mountain Railroad Jackson - Gordonville - Delta line. This railroad served freight traffic between Jackson Missouri and Delta Missouri, originally built by the Jackson Branch Railroad Company.
The original line was meant to connect with the Belmont Branch at Allenville and travel through Jackson into Perry County and a ferry connection along the Mississippi River. When the line reached as far as Jackson from Allenville in 1885, construction stopped, and railroad freight service commenced. The JBRR was soon absorbed into the Saint Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad, which itself was merged into the Missouri Pacific years later.
The MP first submitted the line up for abandonment in 1932 and now, in 2015 all but the northernmost 7 miles of the railway have been abandoned and the land reverted to the descendants of the original owners.
Beginning in Gordonville at a park that is actually railroad property that once served as a station for the line, the first six miles of the remaining track wind through pastures and fields, flirting occasionally with Hubble Creek.
the last, most northern mile, cuts into the heart of the comparatively urban Jackson, Missouri, crossing the intersection of Highway 25 and highway 71 diagonally and entering the St. Louis Iron Mountain Railroad Company yard.
::CAUTION::
This Railroad is semi-active. A real live actual train runs on these tracks on Saturdays from April through December. The train may also run on other days during these months at irregular times when it is charted for a private event.
The train moves very slowly, reaching a maximum speed of six miles per hour and it is very loud. If you are paying attention you will have no problem hearing and seeing the train coming and getting off the track and out of the way.
If that still seems too dangerous to you, keep in mind that the train does not run at all from January through March and you would be able to get these caches during those months without worry about the train coming down the track.
As with anything else, your activities are at your own best judgement. If this kind of caching causes you concern, I want to urge you to seek other caches. There are lots of them out there.
About The Southern Pacific 4449
Southern Pacific 4449 is the only surviving example of Southern Pacific Railroad's (SP) GS-4 class of steam locomotives. There is one other GS-class locomotive surviving, but it is a GS-6. The locomotive is a streamlined 4-8-4 (Northern) type steam locomotive. GS is abbreviated from "Golden State", a nickname for California (where the locomotive was operated in regular service), or "General Service". The locomotive was built by Lima Locomotive Works in Lima, Ohio, for SP in May 1941; it received the red-and-orange "Daylight" paint scheme for the passenger trains of the same name which it hauled for most of its service career. No. 4449 was retired from revenue service in 1956 and put into storage. In 1958 it was donated, by the railroad, to the City of Portland, who then put it on static display in Oaks Amusement Park, where it remained until 1974. It was restored to operation for use in the American Freedom Train, which toured the 48 contiguous United States for the American Bicentennial celebrations. Since then, 4449 has been operated in excursion service throughout the continental US; its operations are based at the Oregon Rail Heritage Center in Portland, where it is maintained by a group of dedicated volunteers called Friends of SP 4449. In 1983, a poll of Trains magazine readers chose the 4449 as the most popular locomotive in the nation.
"Freedom train in ga7" by Original uploader was Mrpoundsand at en.wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia; transferred to Commons by User:Oxyman using CommonsHelper.. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.