TRAIN HOPES TO GAIN STEAM: JACKSON RAILROAD TURNS NONPROFIT TO KEEP ROLLING

JACKSON, Mo. -- Operators of the St. Louis Iron Mountain and Southern Railway hope their tourist train will pick up steam thanks to its new nonprofit status, a move designed to secure government grants and private donations.

Area train enthusiasts opened the railroad 16 years ago as a for-profit venture. It was a financial disaster, staying on track only because of the generosity of its 25 investors who have continued to dump money into the endeavor.

Walter S. Drusch, a lawyer and Jackson resident, helped found the tourist train in 1985. He wanted to put a caboose in his back yard. His wife, Harriet, decided it would be better to invest in a train.

"She put up the first money, $5,000," Drusch said.

The couple, other investors and about 20 volunteers help man and maintain the train, tracks and depot just north of the intersection of highways 61 and 25 in Jackson.

Investor and Jackson resident Cheryl Huffman said specific figures on the total losses for the group aren't available, but the railway hasn't turned an annual profit since it opened.

Huffman helped set up the new nonprofit corporation two months ago. She said the corporation will lease the train from the SEMO Steam Railroad, the for-profit group that started the tourist attraction.

The new corporation plans to sell $50-a-year memberships. Members will have voting rights, including choosing a board of directors.

"This is a piece of Missouri history, and we have to keep it going," Huffman said.

The railroad is named for the original St. Louis Iron Mountain and Southern Railway that operated throughout parts of Missouri, Arkansas and Texas for 150 years before it ceased operation in the 1980s after Missouri Pacific Railroad bought it.

Jesse James and his band of outlaws robbed a train on the line near Rolla, Mo., Huffman said.

History should help

The new corporation hopes to tap into the railroad's history in its efforts to secure state and federal grants.

The nonprofit status also might help the tourist railroad secure used railroad ties, train cars and other equipment from commercial railroads willing to make donations for tax deductions, said Jarit Keith, the tourist train's only paid, permanent employee.

Keith, a certified train engineer, helps run the train and maintain it. The Jackson resident and railroad fan assisted as a volunteer conductor before he was hired in July 1994.

Maintenance work is a never-ending and often expensive task, said Keith, pointing to a pile of 500 used railroad ties that cost $5,000. That doesn't even include the cost of bolts, spikes, fuel and everything else it takes to operate a railroad, he said.

The steam engine has been permanently sidetracked for the past few years by continuing repairs. Keith hopes to get it running again this year. But first some improvements must be made to the engine's boiler.

Meanwhile, the railway relies on its 1950 diesel locomotive.

The average passenger will settle for the diesel engine, but railroad buffs want to ride behind a steam engine, Keith said.

20,000 riders a year

Still, the train regularly draws more than 20,000 passengers a year, including busloads of schoolchildren and rail fans from St. Louis.

The train operates on weekends and some weekdays from March through December. The train runs from Jackson to Gordonville, Mo., and back, a 10-mile round trip past fields and woods.

Tickets for a train ride range from $6 per person for groups of children to $37 for adults on one of the train's "murder mystery" excursions.

"It makes money when it actually runs," said Keith. But in between all the runs, there are lots of maintenance expenses, he said.

The railroad started with a 1946 steam engine and tender and two 1926 passenger cars. The used locomotive cost $35,000. Fixing it up cost $90,000.

The railroad has expanded over the years, adding a third passenger car built in 1948 and air conditioned, a 1929 caboose and a Pennsylvania Railroad diesel engine built in 1950 and later used by Amtrak and the Reading Railroad. The tourist train also operates a second caboose owned by one of the railroad's volunteers.