The Clover Leaf

The Toledo, St. Louis & Western Railroad was a remnant of the Toledo, Cincinnati & St. Louis, a final attempt to establish a narrow-gauge rail system to compete with the dominant standard gauge. A railway's gauge is the distance between the rails. During the early years of railroading builders tried many different widths between the rails. This created problems when connecting tracks was necessary. Over time, the so-called standard gauge, a width of a little more than four feet, became the popular track size. The Toledo, Cincinnati & St. Louis was a narrow-gauge system using a width of three feet between the rails. Narrow gauge construction began in the 1870s and was attractive because it was cheaper. Lighter iron rails and savings in construction costs lured some investors to promote the narrow gauge system. Narrow gauge construction was most successful in remote regions of the west where traffic on the rails was light and there was an expectation that the lines were temporary.

The Toledo, Cincinnati & St. Louis ended in bankruptcy in 1883, but its standard gauge track from East St. Louis to Toledo continued to run while the company was in receivership. The company was reorganized as the Toledo, St. Louis & Kansas City, most commonly called the Clover Leaf.

To read more about building railroad bridges, go to the RiverWeb Archives and view excerpts from J.L. Ringwalt's 1888 book, The Development of Transportation Systems in the United States.

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