A federal court in St. Louis heard the City of Carthage’s appeal of a lawsuit ruling involving Union Pacific Railroad for its alleged lack of maintenance of bridges in the city, including the century-old Route 66 Oak Street Bridge, aka the Whee Bridge.
According to the Joplin Globe, the city appealed a lower judge’s ruling from May 2022 that the statute of limitations had run out in the city’s efforts to prove the railroad was responsible for maintaining four bridges there.
The city’s initial lawsuit in 2019 requested a court to rule the railroad is responsible for the maintenance of 1920s bridges on Oak Street, Sycamore Street, Walnut Street and High Street, plus several railroad crossings, and it had failed to do that.
The Oak Street bridge, a famous landmark on Route 66, is rated for vehicles weighing no more than 5 tons. The bridge’s walkway for pedestrians on the north side was closed several years because of cracks in the walkway supports that did not affect the structure of the bridge itself.
In 2006, the city received a grant from the Missouri Department of Transportation to make repairs to the Oak Street bridge. Then in 2008, the county offered to use state bridge money it receives to help with renovations to the bridge, but the railroad demanded that if any work be done to it, that the bridge be made significantly taller and longer to give it more space for the tracks below.
Discussions have continued for more than a decade, and in the process of gathering information about the bridges, city officials discovered city ordinances and codes dating to 1881 granting what was then called Missouri Pacific Railway Co. In 1997, Union Pacific acquired Missouri Pacific.
Court records show that in November 2021 both the city and the railroad filed motions for summary judgments against the other. The city claimed the railroad had a “unqualified obligation under their ordinances” to maintain and fix the crossings and bridges at the railroad’s expense. The railroad claimed that the city’s claims are preempted by federal law and that the city’s ordinances are not an enforceable contract because they’re no longer valid and is not signed by Union Pacific or its predecessor railroad.
The railroad also said the city’s claims are not valid because of a five-year statute of limitations, but the city’s attorney said the damages caused by the railroad’s failure to maintain the bridges constituted a “continuing wrong” meaning each day the railroad fails to maintain or fix the problem creates a new limit.
The lower-court judge ruled in favor, citing the statute of limitations. The city appealed.
The city attorney said it could be up to four months before the appellate court issues a ruling.
The Oak Street Bridge also is known as the Whee Bridge or Tickle Tummy Hill. The “whee” or tickled tummies from motorists and their passengers occur because of the bridge’s uncommonly steep apex. Locals and Route 66 advocates for years have been vocal about keeping the bridge’s unique character.
(Image of the Whee Bridge in Carthage, Missouri, courtesy of Rod Harsh)