GREAT PLAINS DISPATCHER

Transcription

1 GREAT PLAINS DISPATCHER The Official Newsletter of the Great Plains Transportation Museum and the Wichita Chapter National Railway Historical Society June 2007 Volume VI Number 6 LOOKING BACK ON KANSAS RAILROADS JUNE 1967 By Lloyd Stagner CORRECTION My LAST STEAM LOCOMOTIVES IN WICHITA in the May 2007 GREAT PLAINS DISPATCHER included an error in the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe section. AT&SF furnished power to the Wichita Terminal Association in 1951, not Three 0-8-Os were assigned to the Wichita operations during 1953, with limited mileage relieving six Alco 1500 series diesel switchers was last used June 6, 1953, July 1, 1953 and October 1, My thanks to member Sam Andrews who raised a question which prompted further research. Operation of separate sections of the Super Chief/El Capitan trains, Nos commenced June 2 westbound and June 8 eastbound for the summer travel season. Orders were placed for the following new freight cars to be delivered during the last quarter of 1967: foot TOFC flat cars, foot flat cars, ton capacity gondolas, ton capacity hopper cars, and foot automobile parts box cars. The early summer cantaloupe movement from the Imperial Valley in California was underway. On June 19 the 10 AM line-up at Pratt showed five eastbound perishable trains between 5 PM and 1 AM. Southern Pacific diesel units were running through Tucumcari to Kansas City on some trains. A big expansion in the use of radio communications would be accomplished in mobile units for locomotives and cabooses would be installed. Five radio base stations would be added. 84 miles of centralized traffic control would be added with 24 switches and 132 signals during This writer was privileged to ride the June 3 Rocky Mountain Railroad Club special pulled by (now 844) between Denver and Rawlins WY. The special operated eastbound from Rawlins to Denver June 4. The big handled the 10 car train on the 23 miles between Dover and Greeley Jct. in 18 minutes. Who aboard thought that the would be visiting Kansas over forty years later? Certainly, not me! COMING SOON An order was placed with Thrall Car co. for ton capacity bulkhead flat cars for lumber and wallboard loadings. SEPT 7-9

2 GREAT PLAINS DISPATCHER PAGE 2 JUNE 2007 THE MISSION OF THE GREAT PLAINS TRANSPORTATION MUSEUM To be THE Railroad Museum Of Kansas. Dedicated to record and exhibit the importance of railroad transportation in the human, agricultural, commercial and industrial heritage of Wichita, Kansas and the Great Plains. To showcase that heritage with an Action Display of rail equipment operation. Giving visitors an exciting learning experience through motion, set in an unique, historic and scenic urban location. To enhance the action display with significant and appropriate railroad locomotives, rolling stock, equipment and structures; through interpretive displays, dioramas, exhibits and media; and educational and community programs. The GREAT PLAINS DISPATCHER is the official monthly newsletter of the Wichita Chapter, National Railway Historical Society, Inc. and the Great Plains Transportation Museum, Inc. Members receive the DISPATCHER as part of their membership. All material submitted for publication should be submitted by the 25th of the month for publication in the next months DISPATCHER. Submissions may be sent to the editor at: editor@gptm.us, or 700 E. Douglas, Wichita, KS NRHS NEWS JUNE MEETING The June meeting will be a picnic at the Great Plains Transportation Museum, 700 E. Douglas, Wichita, KS, Saturday June 16. The doors will open at 5:30, serving will commence at 6:00. All GPTM members are invited. UPCOMING MEETINGS July 20 Platform mtg, location tbd Aug 17 Platform mtg at the museum Sept 22 Annual banquet, Martini Steakhouse Oct 19 Railroad Music Nov 16 Wichita rail corridor by Harry Adams Dec 21 TBD TOUR GUIDES NEEDED A tour for 60 children 5-10 years of age with 6 adult staff members of the Haysville Activity Center is planned for Friday, July 13, 2007, 9 a.m.-11:30 a.m. (Time may vary.) Another tour will be conducted Friday, July 27, 12:30 p.m. Guides will be needed so anyone who will volunteer, call Bob Frahm at so we can conduct these tours. OTHER EVENTS Friday-Saturday-Sunday, June 1-3 and June Thomas the Tank Engine, Midland Railway, Baldwin City. Saturday-Sunday, June 9 & 10, Wichita s Exploration Place. The Wichita Toy Train Club will display about 900 square feet of model and antique trains in the Kemper Creative Learning Studio. Club members will be able to answer your questions about this fun hobby. The Wichita Toy Train Club is an organization whose mission is to promote, operate, collect and preserve toy trains in O and S Gauges. Included with exhibit admission. Saturday-Sunday, July Old Cowtown Museum, Wichita. Rails & Trails/3rd Annual National Day of the Cowboy. WICHITA NRHS MONTHLY CHAPTER MEETING MINUTES, MAY 18, 2007 Wichita NRHS Monthly Chapter Meeting Minutes for Friday, May 18, David Meek called to order the regular meeting of the chapter at 7:31 pm on May 18, 2007 at the Gloria Dei Lutheran Church. A quorum was present. The minutes of the April meeting were read by Richard Hitchcock. A motion to approve the reading of the minutes was made by Harry Adams and seconded by Steve Corp. The minutes were approved. Steve Corp gave the financial report. A motion was made by J. Harvey Koehn and seconded by Lloyd Stagner to accept the report. The Motion was approved. Old Business: the bylaws changes are not ready. (Continued on page 3)

3 GREAT PLAINS DISPATCHER PAGE 3 JUNE 2007 (Continued from page 2) New Business: no new business. Railroad News: Rail Corridor project? David Meek said the ballast is in place. Historian Lloyd Stagner: Ferromex locomotives have showed up. Foreign Power is common around Newton now. There was a stack train with six BNSF passenger cars behind the train. Lloyd Stagner rode Amtrak to Chicago recently and returned on time. Lloyd Hurst reported on a KCS of Mexico engine. J. Harvey Koehn has news printed by Altamont Press on a print-out. GPTM is on the website by invitation, and for free, worth about $3500. One virtual tour is inside engine 93 s cab. GPTM is at the top of the list for a while. J. Harvey Koehn gave the National Director s report. VP chapter picnic in June 16, July is the platform meeting. August platform meeting is at museum. September is the banquet. National Director Report: there is a survey on internet one may see J. Harvey Koehn. Convention is at Chattanooga TN in August. No news about the national office s water problems. David Meek thanked us for the card and is recovering from surgery (carotid artery). VP report: Program tonight is by Lee Clerico, a slide program of the Missouri Pacific steam and diesel engines and also depots. Steve Corp moved and Fred Tefft seconded to adjourn and it was approved at 7:52 pm. Respectfully submitted by Richard Hitchcock COUPLER CLATTER By Jayhawk Service Interruptions The UP had some minor damage in the Greensburg, KS tornado that happened on May 4 th, which was a Friday night. The town was 95% destroyed with only minor damage to the UP with some cars derailed at the elevator. One of the strangest things about this was a tank car load of anhydrous ammonia began leaking on Monday morning. It was Monday before authorities allowed anyone back into the town due to all the damage. Just as the people were beginning to return to town to retrieve their belongings, the tank car began leaking a vapor cloud of ammonia. The UP began to send a new part out of Kansas City for the tank car top that had been damaged by the tornado. It was coming by truck and since it was to take several hours to get to Greensburg, the National Guard sent a helicopter to meet the truck at Topeka and get the part to the elevator quickly to allow people back to town. One of the things that I forgot to mention about the Greensburg Tornado is the damage it did do to the former ATSF line at St. John. The La Junta sub was hit with three miles of pole lines down and crossing signals knocked down. One intermediate signal near St. John was blown away at MP Also commercial power was out from MP 269 MP 325 for about 4 hours. The UP had a service interruption early morning on May 7 th at Junction City, KS. An empty coal train was operating apparently at a slow speed when the lead engine of the train derailed on a rain softened bridge piers and crashed through it. UP AC4400CW 7139 had most of the front trucks cross the bridge then the rear of the engine went into the creek with the rails in front of it pushing up and through the front door. The second engine UP SD90MAC 8224 had the rear of the engine hit the top of the leader and take about half of the carbody and rear parts inside the engine off of it. The head car was damaged when it hit the second engine but did not derail. The crew managed to escape without serious injury. The Fort Riley Military Emergency Personal at Junction City were on the scene just a few minutes after the incident and were able to get the crew out. The remaining 102 cars were pulled back away from the mess with DP engine UP AC4400CS The empty train was returning towards Grand Junction, CO after it was dumped near St. Louis. The UP had to place three large culverts to allow the creek that was an overflow from Moon Lake to flow towards the Republican River and then use fill dirt to build the roadbed and replace the track. The Kansas Pacific Line was out of service for a couple of days. The UP suffered another service interruption on the Golden State Route on May 10 th when a small bridge near Bucklin, KS was destroyed by flood waters. The UP had a westbound stack train approaching the area when they were alerted by the roadmaster to stop and inspect the area. The roadmaster was on one side of the bridge and the conductor on the other when the roadbed washed out taking the bridge with it. The track remained suspended in mid air. The UP had to detour traffic over BNSF and over the UP between Herington, KS and Fort Worth, TX. At least three eastbounds were detoured via the BNSF between Vaughn, NM and Kansas City and two westbounds between Wichita, KS and Fort Worth, TX. Trains detoured via the Transcon were the F-VAUKCK6-07 that was UP train Z- CIGI-03 (City of Industry, CA to Global 1 in Chicago) with UP 4009 & 4840; F- VAUKCK7-07 that was UP train M- EPHN-06 (El Paso to Herington) with UP 9122 & On May 7 th, the BNSF had problems with the weather on the Emporia, La Junta, Douglas and Topeka sub. Shortly before midnight on the 7 th, the railroad had to come to a stop due to high winds and flash flooding in the areas. A total of 48 trains were affected and held for anywhere from 20 minutes to 4 hours. These delays included Amtrak trains 3 and 4. Train #3 got 2 30 delay on the Topeka sub and train #4 got 40 delay on the La Junta Sub. The Marceline Sub had problems beginning at 01:00 on the 8 th. Train Z-WSPPHX9-07 had a track light stay on behind the train so a track supervisor inspected the track and found water running along both Mains between Hardin and CA Jct. A 10 MPH speed restriction was placed on this location. Water was running over the top of a levee in the area and a possible levee break was reported on the Crooked River with water running to the top of an overflow (Continued on page 4)

4 GREAT PLAINS DISPATCHER PAGE 4 JUNE 2007 (Continued from page 3) bridge. The NS was notified of this and had to shut down some operations of this area as well. On the 7 th & 8 th, BNSF restricted all traffic eastbound towards KC to run at 45 MPH due to water problems in Missouri. Due to the weather problems and a washout on the Topeka Sub, Amtrak Trains 3 & 4 operated via the Emporia sub via Ottawa. Train #3 was already at Topeka and had to be turned back to KC then ran west causing quite a delay in train #3. Train #4 of the 5 th was delayed at Emporia some while the BNSF decided if it was safe for them to run via Topeka or not. It was delayed only a short time before the decision was made to run via Ottawa. Train #4 of the 6 th also detoured but not via Ottawa. Its detour was due to the high water in Missouri near Hardin and it was detoured via the ex BN Brookfield Sub between Kansas City and either Bucklin, MO or Galesburg, IL. Two westbound Q trains, a westbound Z train, and eastbound Z train and an eastbound H train were also detoured via the Brookfield sub. The Triple Crown trains were rerouted from NS delivery to the BNSF at Kansas City to St. Louis. The trains routed from St. Louis to Perry via the ex SLSF and Tulsa where they got back on the former ATSF to run to Saginaw. Between St. Louis and Perry, OK, the BNSF called these NS detours and used the symbols F- STLPRY westbound and F-PRYSTL eastbound. Between Perry and Saginaw, they used the normal symbols of Q-KCKSAG and Q-SAGKCK. On May 12 th, the Q- SAGKCK1-12 departed Saginaw with BNSF 161 as sole power and ran to Kansas City via the normal Santa Fe route. Due to the high water on the NS, the NS requested that the train be delivered to them at St. Louis. The train departed KC as train Q-SAGKCK1-12 after a four hour delay at Argentine with NS 9939 for power running via Fort Scott and Springfield. This move would have necessitated turning the train on the wye at Santa Fe Jct. The westbound Triple Crown train that was delivered to the BNSF on the 14 th of May came to them at St. Louis as did the train on the 16 th. Eastbound trains on the 15 th and 16 th were routed via Springfield and St. Louis. Amtrak had to detour via the UP between Hutchinson and Topeka on May 25 th, 26 th, & 27 th, due to the Little Arkansas River flooding at Halstead, KS. The Army Corp of Engineers closed the flood gates that hold the water back from getting to town and they block the BNSF La Junta sub. This forced Amtrak Trains 3 & 4 to detour via the UP. The trains had to make back up moves at both Hutchinson and Topeka to get to the Amtrak (ex ATSF depots) and then continue on the normal routing. At 15:45 on May 12 th, BNSF suffered a derailment at Red Oak, IA on the Creston, Sub. Train C-NAMSLC0-18 derailed 57 cars from lines 5 61 due to a heat kink on Main 1. The cars accordioned and blocked both main lines. They were all stacked crossways to the main lines in a short span. The damage to the freight cars was over $3.1 Million due to this derailment. Main 2 was opened at 21:00 the evening of the 13 th, but main 1 was not back into service until 09:00 the 14 th.the coal train runs from North Antelope Mine in the Powder River Basin to North St. Louis on the BNSF. Both head end engines made it over the kink without incident. The lead unit was a camera equipped locomotive and the heat kink was plainly evident on the recording from the camera. Due to Amtrak #5 being out and running at the time of the incident and Amtrak not having a good way to get busses to bus passengers around the mess, they combined train 5 with train #3 at Cameron, IL. Train #5 was coupled to the rear of train 3 for the trip from Cameron (west of Galesburg) to Kansas City. After the long combined train arrived at KC, it was cut apart and Train 5 detoured over the BNSF St. Joseph sub from Kansas City to Lincoln where it got back on the normal route to Denver. On May 23 rd, BNSF suffered a runaway at Denver when 34 cars of beer got loose at the old BN Rennex yard and rolled to the 31 st street yard. Initial reports are that the crew bottled the air on the train, but that is just a report and no the final BNSF report. The cars struck the Y- DEN in track 144. The crew of the yard job had been told to get off the train and get away from it. The cars struck the yard power at 04:30 AM hitting BNSF GP and totally destroying the locomotive. All parts of the engine above the frame were cleaned off the frame by the loads of beer. BNSF GP was the second locomotive of the yard job. It was badly damaged when the cars hit the train pushing it into the head car in their cut of cars rupturing a tank car load of asphalt and spilling it all over the engine and the ground. Three loads of beer ruptured and spilled on the ground making a foamy, sticky mess. No injuries were incurred due to the dispatcher alerting the crew to get off the power. On June 4, BNSF train H-MEMTUL1-02 was arriving in Tulsa when 14 cars derailed upright on Main 2 as the train came off the Cherokee Sub at MP 425. The cars were lines of the train. The incident blocked both main tracks from 02:30 until Main 1 was cleared at 06:05. Main 2 was opened the next morning at 04:40. The cause was not determined as to why the train derailed. It did block several crossings in Tulsa making it difficult for some trying to get to work in the morning. There were no trains detoured, but at least four were parked until the track was cleared. Track Building The track laying machine is supposed to be at Hazelton, KS working westbound starting the week of June 11 th. The road bed is in place from Hazelton to Kiowa and from Kiowa to East Brink where the asphalt underlayment is in place and ready to accept track. The dirt work is done from East Brink to almost Alva but no asphalt is on the roadbed as of yet. The bridge at Alva over the Salt Fork of the Arkansas River is the big obstacle here. BNSF has procured at least 22 acres of land to get dirt from to build up the approach to the river bridge. The bridge itself has not been started. Rail is being placed for new track installment on the Wichita Hump extension project and possibly could be laid after the TLM finishes up on the Panhandle Sub. The Wichita Project is an extension of the elevated track between South Jct where the UP heads south for Fort Worth and the BNSF heads south for Fort Worth on their own tracks, and 18 th street in north Wichita where a new connection to the UP will be built to eliminate UP trains from tying up traffic in the city. BNSF and UP share track over the Wichita Union Terminal and have for years with predecessor roads operating there. BNSF (former ATSF) dispatches the traffic over this route.

5 GREAT PLAINS DISPATCHER PAGE 5 JUNE 2007 Wichita Chapter, NRHS & GPTM ANNUAL PICNIC ALL MUSEUM MEMBERS ARE ENCOURAGED TO ATTEND! Date: Saturday, June 16, 2007 Time: Fellowship at 5:30 PM Eat at 6:00 PM Location: Great Plains Transportation Museum 700 E. Douglas in Wichita s Oldtown BRING YOUR LAWN CHAIRS. BRING 2 COVERED DISHES TO SHARE COME HAVE SOME FUN AND FELLOWSHIP ICED TEA AND LEMONADE WILL BE PROVIDED ALONG WITH HAMBURGERS, HOTDOGS, CHIPS, CONDIMENTS, PLATES, CUPS & PLASTIC WARE. WITH A LITTLE LUCK, THE LOCAL RAILROADS WILL PROVIDE THE ENTERTAINMENT. FOR MORE INFORMATION OR QUESTIONS ON WHAT TO BRING CALL HARVEY KOEHN. Phone: jhkoehn@prodigy.net

6 June 2007 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat PICNIC GREAT PLAINS DISPATCHER Great Plains Transportation Museum 700 East Douglas Wichita, KS (316) Return Service Requested