Update: See the dramatic change in the streetscape in the fall of 2019.

Normally, when driving down Kingshighway, you’re just trying to pay attention to the traffic, and you miss the hidden corners of the city, often right in the open.

The old Wabash Railroad tunnel, which now serves MetroLink, passes under Kingshighway by Children’s Hospital.

Oddly, there’s about forty feet of grass between the street and the edge of the viaduct.  Had the builders expected a much wider Kingshighway one day?  Regardless, there is a giant cast-iron water main that has to jump up over the tunnel, and it appears above ground in this area.

Glad to see Forestry recently cleared out the giant volunteer trees that had grown around the pipe and stonework.

I could not figure out when this viaduct was built; the spur for the Wabash met up with the railroad’s main line near Ferguson, apparently.

Already at the turn of the century the railroad had been platted through the area.  Perhaps it was built at the time of the World’s Fair.