• Omaha Area - Florence Cutoff

  • Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in the American Midwest, including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Kansas. For questions specific to a railroad company, please seek the appropriate forum.
Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in the American Midwest, including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Kansas. For questions specific to a railroad company, please seek the appropriate forum.

Moderator: railohio

  by AceinOmaha
 
The Briggs Spur corridor that used to connect the Omaha Road (CStPM&O) to the CNW Road west of Florence. This road was the last to be built and the first to be abandoned by the CNW. I agree with the latter, but I may have found some evidence that this corridor is much older and was 're-used' by the CNW.

When looking thru an 1885 book that describes the current status of the CStPM&O, I noticed that it mentions the current state of the 'Florence Cutoff' project. The following is what I found:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-kwd ... WlSTG1lVHc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That made me wonder where did they cutoff the six miles? The corridor that I am familiar with heads west out of Florence and then heads straight north (thru tall cuts) to the area around Nashville. I always thought that was an expensive venture for a fledgling RR as the original owner of that segment was the Omaha & Northwestern (which was later purchased by CStPM&O as the Omaha & Northern Nebraska RR). By accident, I found this 1876 map of Douglas county. It clearly traces the Omaha & Northwestern RR and it is NOT the corridor that I know. So I used Google Earth to trace from this old map (in yellow) and trace the abandoned line that we know (red) See this link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-kwd ... 0xjd2VycWc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I found that the yellow line is around 7.5 miles. I stopped tracing at the county border because I didn't know where to go. Then I found the following 1886 map of the Fort Calhoun township in Washington county. It shows the 'old' and 'new' lines. But I think the map maker has them reversed. So I modified my Google Earth trace to include this new information and I found that this equals 10 miles. The length of the cut-off mentioned in the 1885 book is 6 miles. That leaves a difference of 4+ miles (the amount of decrease mentioned). The following picture has the amended trace and the 1886 map of the area. Again, I am sure that the map maker has the 'Old Line' and the 'New Cut Off' labels reversed by mistake. See link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-kwd ... 0VIakVvVXM" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So if this is the first road to Fort Calhoun that was built by the Omaha & Northwestern (and later bought by the CStPM&O in 1880), then you can see that the Briggs Spur re-used this corridor to some extent. The fill that is still visible from 66th & State was originally built in 1870!