Kansas City, Clinton and Springfield Railway

Abandoned rail line of United States
The Kansas City, Clinton and Springfield Railway ("KCC&SR"), also known as the Leaky Roof Railway, was a consolidation of earlier railroads. As of 1917, it had a mainline running from Ash Grove, Missouri through Clinton, Missouri to Olathe, Kansas, almost 155 miles. It has since been abandoned.

The KCC&SR was incorporated February 10, 1885 and February 12, 1885 under the laws of Missouri and Kansas respectively, as a subsidiary of the Kansas City, Fort Scott, and Gulf Railroad. Its background is complicated. Starting at the beginning, two railroads called The Lawrence and Pleasant Hill Railway Company and the St. Louis, Lawrence and Denver Railroad Company consolidated to form the Saint Louis, Lawrence and Denver Railroad Company under articles dated April 30, 1870. The cars worked fine for shipping the tiles produced by a major customer, since rain could not harm them; but, a flour mill refused to use the railroad to ship its porous bags due to all those leaky roofs, and the word got around. After consolidation with the Frisco, the route was deemed somewhat redundant to the parallel and better constructed Frisco "Highline", with the two railroads intersecting at many places. Seeking to cut costs, the Frisco chose to consolidate the two lines into one by keeping the track of whichever railroad had the favorable route between these numerous crossings, with the less favorable sections then being removed. Service continued over these portions of the line with a daily except Sunday local until the mid 1970s, when dam construction and bridge fires ended through service on the route between Kansas City and Springfield, Missouri. Operating for a while as a North and South branch line, services were cut and the line was, section by section, successively abandoned. Although the rails are now gone, traces can be found along Route 7 and Route 13; however, along most sections, little remains to be seen. A tiny portion of the old mainline continues to exist in Belton.