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The Truman Area Community Network
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The MKT line through Clinton passes very close to the Square and a number of the crossings in the downtown area have very restricted visibility because of the buildings built close to the tracks. In horse and buggy days this was not as serious as later, horsemen and buggy drivers were generally out in the open and had no trouble hearing the whistle signals from approaching trains. Motorists in closed automobiles often couldn't hear an approaching train over the noise of their own car.
To provide some protection, the Katy established crossing guards at a number of the street crossings in Clinton. Each such guard had a small "watchman's house" or "watchman's shanty", generally 6 feet by 8 feet in size to provide a refuge during bad weather and equipped with a bell. When a train approached the guard would start his bell ringing and stand out by the crossing waving a warning flag.
According to the (somewhat cryptic) notations on an engineering map of the MKT tracks in Clinton, the first such crossing guard in Clinton was posted at the Franklin Street crossing, some time prior to 1918. With increasing auto traffic, in 1920 a crossing guard was added at Green Street. In October of 1921 crossing guards were added at Ohio Street, Grand River/Main Streets, and Jefferson Street (and the Green Street watchman's house appears to have been moved. In 1924 two more sets of guards were established, at Allen Street (where the Katy had 5 tracks and the Leaky Roof 2 for a total of no less than 7 tracks crossing the street) and at 2nd Street. The Franklin Street shanty was located on the north east side of the crossing, at a location now covered by part of the former Henry County Library building while the Green Street shanty was on the northwest side of the MKT track, between it and the bumping post at end of the Frisco's Depot track. (These are the only two crossings for which a precise location of the watchman's house is known, although further research with old Clinton newspapers may show where the others were placed.)
Maintaining a roster of crossing guards was expensive and the railroads in the 1920's soon developed automatic crossing signals that were operated by electrical track circuits that detected the approach of a train. In October of 1929 the Katy proceeded to replace all its crossing guards with such automatic signals, equipped with bells and flashing lights. Besides the existing guarded crossings (at Allen, Ohio, Grand River/Main, Jefferson, Franklin, Green, and 2nd), automatic signals were also installed at Lincoln, Oak, and 3rd Streets.
The Frisco‘s spur line to the Green Street station paralleled the Katy over 3rd, 2nd, Oak, and Lincoln streets, but no signaling seems to have ever been installed on this line and Frisco trains did not operate the signals provided by the MKT. Frisco operating instructions of the period required one of the train crew get down on the ground and "flag" his train across 2nd and 3rd Streets.
In the 1963-64, when Highways 7 and 13 and 52 were routed around the new bypass and North 2nd Street was made into Business 13, signals were installed on 2nd Street just south of Golden Valley Ford Tractor, on Highway 7 west of the North Junction (just east of the Town Creek bridge) and on Highway 13-52, south of the East Junction, near the crossing of Coal Creek. When the Frisco line was abandoned the signals on the main highways were removed, but the 2nd Street signals remained in place until around 1990, when traffic to the grain elevator west of 2nd Street ceased. None of the other street crossings on the Frisco appear to have ever had signals.
Sometime in the 1970s the signals on Oak Street were removed when expansion of the Clearfield Cheese factory resulted in the street being closed. In the early 1980s, after years of discussion over the matter, signals were finally installed at the Rogers Street crossing.
In the late 1980s the MKT considered replacing the existing crossing signal system with a modern "motion detector" system, but the purchase of the line by the Union Pacific in 1988 and the ending of through service put an end to this idea - with the service reduced to one or two trains a week it scarcecely required anything fancy.
The costs of maintaining the aging crossing signal system eventually became prohibitive in view of the relatively infrequent trains operating on the line and in May of 2004 the City of Clinton and the Missouri & Northern Arkansas Railroad, which had leased and was now operating the line through Clinton, signed an agreement under which the M&NA would remove all the automatic crossing signals in Clinton and M&NA trains would stop and flag across all crossings in town. As part of the arrangement the M&NA also agreed to remove the remaining portions of the old telephone line along the route and clean up the right of way in the city.
Most of the telegraph poles and associated lines were removed in the early part of 2005 and the right of way cleaned of brush, old ties and leftover scrap. In late June and early July of 2005 the crossing signals were all removed and replaced by simple crossbuck signs.
It is not known if there were ever any watchman's shanties in any of the other towns in Henry County.
Windsor did have automatic crossing signals installed on a number of streets crossing the MKT line, and on the Main Street (Highway 52) crossing of the Rock Island. The MKT signals were removed when the Katy line through Windsor was dismantled in 1989. The Rock Island signals were not used after the Rock Island stopped service on the line in 1980 and were removed sometimes afterwards, although some of the equipment boxes still remain.
Montrose also had automatic crossing signals installed on a number of crossings on the MKT line and these are still in service. Ladue has one automatic crossing signal, where Highway T crosses the MKT.
When Highways 13 and 52 were relocated onto the new right of way to the east of Deepwater town, automatic signals were installed where the combined highways crossed the Frisco tracks. The Highway 52 crossing south of Deepwater town probably had signals also. Both sets of signals were removed in 1978 when the Frisco line was abandoned.
Whether any automatic crossing signals were ever installed on the Frisco line where it crossed Highway O near Harvey / Garland or at Blairstown, or on the MKT at Lewis or Calhoun is not known.
Notations from MKT Engineering Deparmtnet Map:
AFE 5133-3A-M 11-9-29 Abandon watchman's house at Jefferson St,
Watchman's House and bell at Grand River and Main, and
watchman's House and bell at Ohio, installed AFE 2043-3A-M
in 1921; Watchman's house at Allen St installed
AFE 3517-3A-M In 1924.
AFE 5133-3A-M 11-9-29 Abandon Crossing Bell and Watchman's House at
Green St. (Installed AFE 758-3A-M 1920), Watchman's
House at 2nd St (installed AFE 3517 3A-M of 1924) and
Watchman's House at Franklin
AFE 5133-3A-M 11-9-29 Crossing Bell & Flashing Light signals: Allen Street,
Ohio Street, Grand River/Main Street, Jefferson Street,
Franklin Street, Green Street, Lincoln Street, Oak Street,
Elm / 2nd Street, 3rd Street.
AFE 2031-3A-M 10-17-21 Watchman's Shany northwest side of Green Street