| For many years the Wabash and then the N&W ran a mixed train several times a day from the college town of Columbia MO to the main at Centralia. In this case it's 10:30 AM as N&W train no.32 departs for the 22 mile run up to Centralia, where it will meet wesbound train no.203, the City of Kansas City and eastbound no.210, the City of St Louis. By 1968 they were down to two each way daily; the service lasted through April 1969, only about six months after Ozark Airlines finally offered jet service to the new Columbia Regional Airport, with DC-9s and FH-227s replacing the DC-3s that had called on the old Columbia Muni Airport. Power in this shot is NW 2446, a freight GP7 of Nickel Plate ancestry. |