Kansas City Southern Railway: Map, Photos, History

Last revised: October 25, 2026

The Kansas City Southern was the smallest Class I of the post-Staggers years, counted in route miles, and it spent that life with larger railroads on every side. Arthur Edward Stilwell built it as a straight line south from Kansas City to a Gulf port he named for himself. The company he left behind kept two slogans that still name it: the Port Arthur Route, and the Route of the Southern Belle.

Oil at Spindletop gave the reorganized railroad the freight it had been missing. The Louisiana & Arkansas, controlled from October 20, 1939, added New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Dallas. William N. Deramus Jr. and his son William N. Deramus III rebuilt the plant, put the trains in diesel hands, and then watched the track fall apart at the end of the son's term. The 1990s carried the map east across the MidSouth and up to the Gateway Western, and on to the Rio Grande. The independent railroad ended on April 14, 2023, when Canadian Pacific's control took effect and the combined company became Canadian Pacific Kansas City.

Steam built since 1900 is the steam roster, 283 locomotives. Diesels built new for the Kansas City Southern are the diesel roster, 479 locomotives. Secondhand road power sits outside that diesel count.

Kansas City Southern E8A 27 with the last Southern Belle near Pittsburg, Kansas, on November 2, 1969

Kansas City Southern E8A 27 has the last "Southern Belle," Kansas City to New Orleans, near Pittsburg, Kansas, on November 2, 1969. Richard Wallin photo.

On this page: Stilwell's Gulf line · At a glance · Spindletop · The Grandview line · Louisiana & Arkansas · System map · Steam · Passenger trains · The Deramus years · East, north, and into Mexico · Canadian Pacific Kansas City

Stilwell's Gulf line

Arthur Edward Stilwell was born in Rochester, New York, on October 21, 1859. His grandfather, Hamblin Stilwell, had been in on the New York Central and the Erie Canal, and the boy grew up hearing that talk. He liked to tell how a map showed Kansas City about 1,400 miles from the Atlantic, and only about 800 miles from the Gulf of Mexico if a railroad ran due south. He quit an insurance job in Hartford and went west to build it.

Kansas City came first, and it came as a belt line. Late in 1886 Edward Lowe Martin, a former mayor, held an option on a belt railroad and needed money before the option died. Stilwell raised it in Philadelphia, A. J. Drexel among the subscribers, and a telegram sent the contractor to work. The Kansas City Suburban Belt Railroad was incorporated in Missouri on January 8, 1887, with Martin as president and Stilwell as vice president. Trains began on August 18, 1890. About 40 miles ran from Argentine, Kansas, through the packing houses, elevators, and stockyards, and on to Independence. Grand Central Station, at Second and Wyandotte, cost $65,000 and served until Union Station opened in 1914. A resort, Fairmount Park, incorporated on July 26, 1895, sat halfway out the Air Line to Independence and was there to make passenger business.

The Kansas City Southern Railway logo. Author's work.

Martin wanted the next piece to stop at the coal around Hume, Missouri, about eighty miles south. Stilwell wanted Pittsburg, Kansas, then the lead and zinc at Joplin, then the coal of Arkansas and what was still Indian Territory. The Kansas City, Nevada & Fort Smith was organized in 1889, and the rail was at Hume by October 1891. Joplin was reached in 1893. The Kansas City, Pittsburg & Gulf itself was incorporated in Missouri on November 6, 1889.

From the south end the connection was a lumberman's railroad. W. L. Whitaker incorporated the Texarkana & Northern in 1885 to reach timber. On July 19, 1889 he renamed it the Texarkana & Fort Smith, with Fort Smith as the ambition and a bridge already across the Red River. Eastern backing failed, and the road came into Stilwell's project. Between Joplin and that Texas line sat Mathias Splitlog's Kansas City, Fort Smith & Southern, organized March 7, 1887, from Joplin about thirty miles south to Goodman and four miles west to a town he was promoting. The gold he had been shown was a salted mine. The Goodman spur came up, the line was pushed on to Sulphur Springs, Arkansas, and the corporate sale to the Pittsburg & Gulf was dated October 30, 1897.

The Panic of 1893 stopped the money. Stilwell went to Amsterdam anyway, against the advice in the room, to sell a $3 million stock issue. A coffee merchant he had met on a crossing, Jan DeGoeijen, gave up that business and sold the issue. The railroad answered with town names. DeQueen, Arkansas, is as close as American speech came to DeGoeijen. Mena was his wife's name. Vandervoort, Bloomburg, Nederland, Hornbeck, DeRidder, Zwolle, Amsterdam, and DeQuincy honor the Dutch money. The railroad promoted Mena with a mile of track a day, and the Wilhelmina Inn opened on Rich Mountain on June 22, 1898.

A second scare came in the 1896 campaign. The Dutch holders would not take a new equipment bond issue until after the election, and they would not take it at all if William Jennings Bryan won. Stilwell went down a list he had written out, and the first name was George Mortimer Pullman, an old family friend. Pullman lent $150,000. McKinley won, and the Dutch took the bonds. Pullman also promised $3 million for cars the railroad had already ordered. He died on October 19, 1897, before the papers were signed.

Stilwell had already turned the railroad away from buying a line into Galveston. He wanted a harbor of his own on Lake Sabine, inland from the open Gulf, and he laid the town out and named it Port Arthur. The ship canal needed a strip of land the owners priced at a thousand dollars an acre. A Texas statute let the railroad condemn it, and the fight went as far as a House committee, which sided with the railroad by one vote. Through service between Kansas City and Port Arthur opened after the last spike, driven about twelve miles north of Beaumont on September 11, 1897. Stilwell was president of the Pittsburg & Gulf that year. The Galveston hurricane of September 8, 1900, later wrecked the port he had refused.

The receivership came in 1899, with Ernest Thalmann, John W. Gates, and E. H. Harriman in the Eastern group that took it. The Kansas City Southern Railway was incorporated in Missouri on March 19, 1900, and the reorganization is dated April 1, 1900. Colonel Samuel W. Fordyce was the first president. Stilwell was out. He went on to the Kansas City, Mexico & Orient, a line that later landed in the Santa Fe system, and he died on September 26, 1928.

At a glance

Item	Detail
Railroad	Kansas City Southern Railway. Reporting mark KCS. Headquarters Kansas City, Missouri
Dates	August 18, 1890 – April 14, 2023. Incorporated March 19, 1900. Reorganization April 1, 1900
Founder	Arthur Edward Stilwell, born October 21, 1859, died September 26, 1928
Route miles	856 (1930). 962 (1950). 2,995 (2000). 6,700 (2019), the company's figure, including Mexico
1950 lines	Kansas City–Shreveport–Port Arthur. Dallas–Shreveport–New Orleans. Shreveport–Minden–Hope. Minden–Alexandria
Steam	283 locomotives built since 1900. The quantity column adds to 293
Diesels built new	479 locomotives. The 121 of 1963 and the 949 of 2019 are ownership snapshots
Freight cars	581 (1963). 17,500 (2019)
Passenger cars	22 (1963)
Slogans	Port Arthur Route. Route of the Southern Belle
Successor	Canadian Pacific Kansas City, April 14, 2023. Reporting mark CPKC

Spindletop

Stuart R. Knott followed Fordyce and was president from 1900 to 1905. The traffic was local: grain, lumber, less-than-carload freight, and a thin passenger business. The change was a well. Gladys City Oil, Gas & Manufacturing had been founded in 1892 by George O'Brien, George Carroll, Pattillo Higgins, Emma John, and J. F. Lanier. Anthony Lucas took a lease in 1895. On January 10, 1901, Lucas No. 1 came in at 1,139 feet on the salt dome south of Beaumont, and the Spindletop field was in business. The Kansas City Southern's main line already ran through that country. Crude, gasoline, and the later petrochemical plants at Port Arthur, Beaumont, and Lake Charles became the railroad's freight.

Job A. Edson, who had been general manager, became president in 1905 and stayed through 1918. Oklahoma statehood on November 16, 1907, added another local business to the oil. Edson left the chair from June 1918 to February 1920 to serve as federal manager, and Leonor F. Loree was president in that interval. Edson returned and retired on December 31, 1927. Charles E. Johnston, who had come to the railroad in 1906 as a locating engineer, succeeded him.

Kansas City Southern F7s leading empty hoppers westbound near Sulphur Springs, Texas, in December 1981

Kansas City Southern's remaining F7s lead a long train of empty hoppers westbound near Sulphur Springs, Texas, in December 1981. Gary Morris photo.

The Grandview line

From the start of through service in 1897, the railroad had used St. Louis-San Francisco track from Belt Junction, Kansas City, to Grandview, under a contract dated January 3, 1902. Johnston's administration replaced it. The Kansas City & Grandview Railway, Leeds to Grandview, was finished in the fall of 1929. The new line was 13¼ miles. The ruling grade dropped from 1.6 percent to 0.5 percent, and the stretch had a single road crossing at grade. One concrete viaduct ran more than 500 feet and stood 65 feet high. A steel span, 875 feet long and 110 feet high, crossed a ravine and a highway. The Frisco segment itself was abandoned in 1991.

Johnston left on January 1, 1939, to become commissioner of Western railroads. Harvey C. Couch took the presidency on May 23, 1939. His brother, C. P. "Pete" Couch, followed him before William N. Deramus Jr. began the long term that opened in 1941.

Louisiana & Arkansas

The Louisiana & Arkansas was the piece that made the historic Kansas City Southern. William Buchanan started it about 1896 as a logging road into his mill at Stamps, Arkansas. It was chartered as a common carrier on March 18, 1898. Hope, Arkansas, on the Missouri Pacific and the Frisco, was reached June 1, 1903. Alexandria opened July 1, 1906. Shreveport came on July 1, 1910, by way of the Minden East & West, a logging road F. H. Drake had built west from Minden. By then Buchanan had something over 300 miles, put together without a cent of bonded debt in the early telling of the property.

The Louisiana Railway & Navigation was the other half. William Edenborn's Shreveport & Red River Valley opened from Shreveport to Coushatta on October 1, 1898, and was at Mansura by September 1902. The company was reorganized as the Louisiana Railway & Navigation on May 9, 1903, and it reached New Orleans on April 14, 1907. On April 1, 1923 it picked up a former Katy branch from McKinney, Texas, to the Louisiana line near Waskom, and reached that disconnected piece by trackage rights over the Texas & Pacific west of Shreveport. That is the Dallas line the Kansas City Southern kept.

Harvey Couch already controlled the Louisiana & Arkansas and the Louisiana Railway & Navigation when a second Louisiana & Arkansas Railway was incorporated in Delaware on July 7, 1928. The properties were combined May 8, 1929. The Louisiana, Arkansas & Texas, the corporate name on the Texas end, was purchased into the Louisiana & Arkansas on July 1, 1939. The Kansas City Southern obtained control on October 20, 1939. The two railroads kept separate operations under one management until July 6, 1992, when the Louisiana & Arkansas was merged into the Kansas City Southern along with four short subsidiaries: the Kansas & Missouri Railway & Terminal, incorporated in Kansas on November 15, 1922; the Fort Smith & Van Buren; the Arkansas Western, incorporated in Arkansas on May 13, 1904; and the Maywood & Sugar Creek, incorporated in Missouri on March 22, 1904.

The Fort Smith & Western was chartered in 1899. Its own first twenty miles, Coal Creek to McCurtain, Oklahoma, opened near the end of 1901, and it used the Kansas City Southern from Fort Smith to Coal Creek. The line was completed to Guthrie by the end of 1903. A successor company, the Fort Smith & Western Railway, was incorporated in 1921 and began operating the property on February 1, 1923. It ceased on February 9, 1939. The Fort Smith & Van Buren, a Kansas City Southern subsidiary incorporated in Arkansas on April 9, 1910, took the original Coal Creek–McCurtain piece. The rest, on west to Guthrie, was scrapped.

Kansas City Southern E8A 28 with train 10, the "Flying Crow," at New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal on November 22, 1967. Roger Puta photo.

System map

An official 1966 system map of the Kansas City Southern, the railroad before the MidSouth, the Gateway Western, and Mexico. Author's collection.

By 1950 the owned network was 962 miles. Left at that size, the Kansas City Southern would have been a regional railroad in the years after Staggers. The 1966 map is that railroad: Kansas City to the Gulf, and the Louisiana & Arkansas east and west of Shreveport. The Kansas City Southern also owned one-twelfth of the Kansas City Terminal, incorporated July 10, 1906, alongside the other trunk lines into the city. At Joplin it was in the Joplin Union Depot Company, incorporated June 23, 1908. The Santa Fe had joint use of 24.39 miles from Joplin to Pittsburg under a contract of April 1, 1911.

Steam

The steam that kept this railroad moving was articulated freight power on the grades south of Pittsburg, Kansas, and a short list of passenger engines. In 1912 Schenectady delivered twelve 0-6-6-0s, numbers 700–711, the largest group of that wheel arrangement and the last of it built in any quantity. They worked Pittsburg to Westville, Oklahoma, on grades up to 1.75 percent, with 56-inch drivers and oil fires. All but two were retired in 1937, when the 2-10-4s arrived. The other two lasted until 1947.

Schenectady followed with seven 2-8-8-0s in 1918, and Brooks with ten more in 1924. Between 1941 and 1943 the railroad rebuilt all seventeen to single expansion. For a while in the 1920s, No. 753 carried a booster on the rear truck of a Vanderbilt tender. Lima's ten 2-10-4s of 1937, numbers 900–909, were the modern freight engine: five oil burners and five coal burners, 70-inch drivers, 509,000 pounds, and 93,300 pounds of tractive effort. They outweighed the 2-8-8-0s by 14,000 pounds. Numbers 900 and 901 had already been used, on two Shays of 1913 and 1914 that switched Kansas City spurs pitched as steep as 10 percent. Those Shays were gone by 1929.

Passenger power was thinner. Baldwin Ten-Wheelers of 1903 generally stayed south of Shreveport. The only modern passenger class was eleven Pacifics, eight from Schenectady in 1912 and three in 1919, with 75-inch drivers. A few of them carried an air horn that cawed, for assignment to the Flying Crow. The last 0-8-0s were conversions off Consolidations, done in the company shops in the 1920s. The steam roster is the full built-since-1900 grid, including the Louisiana & Arkansas, the Louisiana Railway & Navigation, and the Texas company.

Kansas City Southern F7A 75 and other covered wagons on the fuel racks at Pittsburg, Kansas, on July 30, 1967

Kansas City Southern covered wagons, with F7A 75 closest to the camera, on the fuel racks at Pittsburg, Kansas, on July 30, 1967. Roger Puta photo.

Passenger trains

The Flying Crow began between Kansas City and Port Arthur on July 15, 1928. Diesels took that train in 1938, early for a railroad of this size, and the Crow lasted until May 10, 1968. The Shreveporter was the shorter train, Hope to Shreveport.

The train people remember is the Southern Belle. It was inaugurated on September 2, 1940, Kansas City to New Orleans, 868.1 miles in about 21½ hours, trains 1 and 2. Pullman-Standard supplied the lightweight baggage-mail-dormitory cars, the coaches, and the dining-observation cars. A system beauty contest produced Miss Southern Belle, Margaret Landry of Baton Rouge, chosen at New Orleans on August 24, 1940, and her portrait went on the drumhead. The colors were Brunswick green, so dark it read as black, with yellow and red. The Belle was discontinued on November 2, 1969. Deramus III wrote, in the brochure that explained the end of the passenger trains, "We deeply regret the situation which brings about this action. (We, too, have loved the passenger train!)" E8A 27 that day, near Pittsburg, is the photograph at the top of this page.

Kansas City Southern E8A 25 at the Pittsburg, Kansas, engine terminal, circa 1968

Kansas City Southern E8A 25 at the engine terminal in Pittsburg, Kansas, circa 1968. Robert Eastwood, Jr. photo. American-Rails.com collection.

The Deramus years

William N. Deramus Jr. was president from 1941 to 1961. The program under him relaid rail, much of it 127 pounds, eased curves, cut grades, lengthened sidings, and rebuilt yards. Centralized traffic control went in during 1943. Freight and passenger trains were in diesel hands by 1951. The last 0-8-0s on the steam roster lasted until 1955. Deramus Yard at Shreveport, named for him, was dedicated on March 24, 1956, and it stayed the operating hub. The railroad ran freights of 200 cars and more, a long train for a 962-mile property, and it made money doing it.

A trio of new Kansas City Southern SD40s, including 605 and 602, at Pittsburg, Kansas, in the summer of 1967. American-Rails.com collection.

William N. Deramus III succeeded his father in 1961 and remained president until July 31, 1973. The SD40s above belong to his term, and so does the mid-1960s rebuilding of Belle equipment that could not save the train. After the 1958 recession the railroad deferred maintenance. The track that resulted could not carry the trains, and late 1972 brought a run of derailments. Record business kept the company off the Rock Island's path. Thomas S. Carter replaced Deramus III in 1973 and spent heavily to get the railroad back. Mike Schafer, in More Classic American Railroads, puts the 1974 bill at $2 million across 41 derailments. Coal and petrochemicals carried the recovery, and the 1980s were profitable again. Carter's presidency ran to 1986. William N. Deramus IV followed, then Landon H. Rowland, then George W. Edwards from 1991.

Kansas City Southern GP7 154 at the Pittsburg, Kansas, engine terminal, circa 1967

Kansas City Southern GP7 154 at the engine terminal in Pittsburg, Kansas, circa 1967. American-Rails.com collection.

Kansas City Southern Baldwin S12 1160 at Kansas City, circa 1965

Kansas City Southern S12 1160 at Kansas City, circa 1965. American-Rails.com collection.

Kansas City Southern F3A 95 at Kansas City, circa 1977

Kansas City Southern F3A 95 lays over at Kansas City, circa 1977. Mac Owen photo. American-Rails.com collection.

Kansas City Southern GP30 115 and F7A 93 at Shreveport, Louisiana, on March 9, 1969

Kansas City Southern GP30 115 and F7A 93, ex-76D, lay over at the engine terminal in Shreveport, Louisiana, on March 9, 1969. Tom Hoffmann photographs, Rick Burn collection.

East, north, and into Mexico

Edwards's years produced the two purchases that changed the shape of the railroad. The Graysonia, Nashville & Ashdown, a 31-mile short line from the Kansas City Southern at Ashdown, Arkansas, east to Nashville, was acquired on July 13, 1993. It had come down from the Memphis, Paris & Gulf of 1906 and the Memphis, Dallas & Gulf, sold at auction on August 15, 1922, and reorganized as the Graysonia, Nashville & Ashdown on the Ashdown–Shawmut piece.

The larger one was the MidSouth, 1,212 miles. It was formed on March 31, 1986, and its first day of operation was April 1, 1986, on Illinois Central and Gulf, Mobile & Ohio lines the Illinois Central Gulf was selling: Shreveport to Meridian, north to Counce, Tennessee, east to Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, and down to Gulfport. The Interstate Commerce Commission approved the Kansas City Southern merger on June 4, 1993. The first day of consolidated operation was January 11, 1994. For the first time the old north-south railroad had an east-west main line, Dallas to Birmingham.

Kansas City Southern GP7 4156 at Heavener, Oklahoma, circa 1984. Mike Bledsoe photo. American-Rails.com collection.

Michael R. Haverty became president in May 1995, out of the Santa Fe. Kansas City Southern control of the Gateway Western was effective May 5, 1997, Surface Transportation Board Finance Docket 33311. That railroad was the East St. Louis, Illinois, to Kansas City, Kansas, line, about 461 miles, with branches to Springfield, Jacksonville, and Fulton, and it included the Gateway Eastern. Its predecessor, the Chicago, Missouri & Western, had begun operating former Illinois Central Gulf track on April 28, 1987. The merger of the Gateway Western into the Kansas City Southern was scheduled on or shortly after September 28, 2001, Finance Docket 34099. The Gateway Eastern stayed a subsidiary. Santa Fe traffic had used the Gateway Western into St. Louis until the Burlington Northern Santa Fe merger of 1995.

The same decade took the railroad to the border and beyond it. The Texas Mexican Railway put Kansas City Southern on the Rio Grande at Laredo. Grupo Transportación Ferroviaria Mexicana, later Kansas City Southern de México, was the Mexican railroad in the family. Together with the U.S. lines, the system the company reported for 2019 was 6,700 route miles. The U.S. railroad of 1950, at 962 miles, was still inside that number.

Kansas City Southern GP38-2s 4001 and 4010, GP40 777, and SD50 705 west of Cresson, Texas, circa 1983

Kansas City Southern GP38-2 4001, GP40 777, GP38-2 4010, and SD50 705 lead a westbound outside Cresson, Texas, bound for Brownwood, circa 1983. The Fort Worth & Western has this line now. Mike Bledsoe photo. American-Rails.com collection.

The last U.S. mileage of any length was the Macaroni Line, former Southern Pacific track between Victoria and Rosenberg, Texas, 87.5 miles. The property passed to the Union Pacific with the Southern Pacific and was sold to the Kansas City Southern in 2001. Service returned on June 18, 2009. It replaced a 161-mile routing that had used Union Pacific trackage rights, and it was the direct link toward the Mexican lines. Centralized traffic control covers it.

The Kansas City Southern business train at Houston Union Station in October 1996. Minute Maid Park now occupies the site. Gary Morris photo.

Kansas City Southern MP15DC 4365 at Deramus Yard in Shreveport, circa 1983

Kansas City Southern MP15DC 4365 at Deramus Yard in Shreveport, Louisiana, circa 1983. Mike Bledsoe photo. American-Rails.com collection.

The herald itself held still. The freight colors did not. White, red, black, and gray schemes came and went, and in the mid-2000s the railroad went back to the Belle colors, Brunswick green with yellow and red, on new road power. Arthur L. Shoener followed Haverty in 2005. David L. Starling was president from 2008 to 2015. Patrick J. Ottensmeyer, from 2015, was the last president of the independent company.

Canadian Pacific Kansas City

Canadian Pacific announced in March 2021 that it would acquire the Kansas City Southern. The shares went into a voting trust on December 14, 2021, with David Starling, and later Ronald L. Batory, as trustee, and the Kansas City Southern kept operating on its own while the Surface Transportation Board reviewed the application. The company described that closing as a $31 billion acquisition. Canadian National had a competing proposal that also depended on a voting trust. The Board rejected that trust unanimously on August 31, 2021, Finance Docket 36514.

Decision No. 35 in Finance Docket 36500, decided March 14, 2023, and served the next day, approved Canadian Pacific's control of Kansas City Southern, the Kansas City Southern Railway, the Gateway Eastern, and the Texas Mexican, with conditions. The decision is effective April 14, 2023, and it authorizes control on or after that day. The combined system is Canadian Pacific Kansas City. The Board's own summary says that even after the merger, CPKC remains the smallest Class I, and that the transaction creates the first railroad with single-line service across Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Oversight runs seven years. The Board expected the new service to shift about 64,000 truckloads a year onto the railroad.

April 14, 2023, is the day the Kansas City Southern ceased to be an independent railroad. The name on the locomotives changed with the company. The Belle colors, and E8A 27 at Pittsburg on the last passenger run, are the picture the railroad left.

Sources

Kansas City Southern Historical Society. Presidents of the Kansas City Southern and its predecessor lines; the corporate evolution of the company and the subsidiaries merged on July 6, 1992; and the history adapted from Charles Pitcher, "Saga of KCS Lines," KCS Newsfolder, July 1950.
Schafer, Mike. More Classic American Railroads. Osceola: MBI Publishing, 2000. The 1974 derailment figure is his.
Burns, A. J., and J. F. Burns. "Kansas City Southern Railway Company, The." Official Guide of the Railways, Vol. 62, No. 8, January 1930, pp. 738–740.
Kansas City Southern. "For the Long Haul: 2019 Sustainability Data Update," p. 2. The 2019 route miles, diesel count, and freight-car count in the glance.
Drury, George H. Guide to North American Steam Locomotives. Revised edition. The Kansas City Southern and Louisiana & Arkansas chapter. The steam count and the locomotive specifications in the steam section.
Surface Transportation Board. Finance Docket 36500, Decision No. 35, decided March 14, 2023, service date March 15, 2023, effective April 14, 2023. Finance Docket 36514, August 31, 2021, the Canadian National voting trust. Finance Docket 33311, Gateway Western control effective May 5, 1997. Finance Docket 34099, the Gateway Western merger scheduled on or shortly after September 28, 2001.
Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern. Joint release, March 15, 2023. The December 14, 2021 voting-trust closing, described there as a US$31 billion acquisition, and the name Canadian Pacific Kansas City.
Trains. Report that Macaroni Line service began June 18, 2009.

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