For those of you who are interested in the history of unusual short lines, I have a book recommendation for you...
_The Columbia Branch Railroad: A Chronological History of the Short Line Railroad from Centralia, Missouri to Columbia, Missouri_
by Marty Paten, self-published by HAGR Publishing. Marty is the facilities director at the office where I work, and spent 11+ years researching every copy of every newspaper in Boone County, MO on the hunt for material for the book. It begins before the (Un)Civil War and carries right up to modern operations of the line by the Columbia Terminal Railroad (COLT) and the Columbia Star Dinner Train.
The book has over a thousand old and current-day photographs and is a great history of the railroad branch (long a part of the Wabash, N&W, and NS, until its purchase by the city in 1987.
http://columbiabranchrailroad.com/
