Great Northward Pilgrimage, Day 3, Eastern Kansas – 20 June 2008

The description written below was written just a few weeks after the pictures were taken.

And Onward We Go . . .

Day 3 started less dubiously than did Day 2, though, having said that, those of you seeking photographic truth (whatever the heck that is) might want to wait until the Day 4 pictures start coming, since these here aren’t really that special.  (By the way, for those keeping score, Day 3 was Friday 20 June.)  I left the hotel in Pittsburg, Kansas, at 07:17 after eating a little bit of the hotel breakfast, which, for a hungry beast like me, is really important, since it allowed me to immediately forage for shots as soon as I emerged from the hotel.

Reconnoitering the KCS yard was the next order of business.  There, I saw a northbound manifest.  Comint soon revealed that I’d witness a flurry of activity in the next hour or so.   As it eventuated, the northbound manifest was actually the H-train, and the same train I saw and photographed in Heavener the previous morning.  Console 1 said something about a couple of southbound grain trains coming into town.   I can’t remember if the first grain train arrived before the H-train left.  There was also a northbound empty coal train that was approaching town from the south.  There was a work train with a pair of SD50s in the yard, and it wanted to head south.  Sweet!

I knew that I wanted my northbound shot at the US 160 overpass, and that’s where I went.

You know that the Big Holy Trainbook says that when thou art awaiting the train and when thou hath camera in hand that thou must shoot other things, or something like that, right?

Here comes our train, KCS train H-SHKC (Haulage – Shreveport, La., to Kansas City, Mo.) through Frontenac, Kansas, at 07:55.

As much as I like H-trains, I didn’t feel like chasing this thing into Missouri and foregoing the other trains in the yard.  You’ll soon see why.

In the second of these two shots, you can see that the third locomotive was the KCS 3942.  Remember when I told you to pay attention to what appeared to be a train on the first shot from day 2 in Heavener?  As best as I can tall, that was another H-train, and, apparently, these two northbound H-trains were combined in Heavener, I guess to fill out tonnage.  The train had 380 axles.

Now, it’s time to head back south into town to get my other trains.  The empty coal train was still approaching from the south, but it still couldn’t enter the yard because the first southbound grain load was sitting crewless on the mainline and the power for a work train was moving about the siding.

Apparently, there was some tie work being done to the south on the Heavener Subdivision.  Notice the duo of SD50s.  Unfortunately, with the arrival of new power, this was to be the only train I’d shoot with Spartan-cab power.  The conductor has just attached the FRED to the rear gondola, as you can see, and he was walking the train checking handbrakes and air brake hoses.  This view is looking south, and soon the power would go past the switch and back into the train.  This would allow the empty coal train into the siding.

Here’s the first of the two grain trains, but the only one that we’re going to see.  This is train G-KCAD (Grain – Kansas City, Mo., to Ashdown, Ark.) loaded with corn bound for a few chicken feed mills in southwestern Arkansas.  Comint revealed the on-duty time for the relief crew (and, no, I can’t remember what it is, nor did I record it).  I guess those cars at the right were set out by the northbound H-train.

Anyway, here’s a view of the roundhouse tracks.

Remember how full these tracks were with locomotives last night?  They must all be south of here now shoving coal and grain over the Ozarks and the Ouachitas.

At 08:56, the northbound empty coal train C-TUKC (Coal – Texas Utilities Plant to Kansas City) arrived.  I got some nice shots of him snaking through the switch from the mainline into the siding, but, unfortunately, for political reasons, I can’t publicize the picture.  However, I can show you these next two shots of some excessive power being pulled off of the train.

The inbound conductor on the C-TUKC untethers two locomotives from each other.  In this picture, the locomotives are actually in the yard track handing the locomotives to the hostler crew, and you can see one of the coal hoppers on the C-TUKC on the top of the picture.

I love railroaders with a sense of humor and those who aren’t uptight.  Here we see the hostler crewman riding the platform of the lead locomotive after setting out a few units at the roundhouse track.

At least he wasn’t giving me the bird.

Right about the time all that this was happening, a fresh crew was boarding the G-KCAD.  I knew that there was a shot south of the yard where I wanted to get it, and all of this screwing around with the coal train almost made me miss out on the shot of the grain train.  I sped southward, crossed the overpass, parked on an embankment, quickly grabbed the Canon (that one’s for you, Red Sox Chic), and sprinted like lightning to the top of that bridge, probably startling a few locals in the process.

The G-KCAD is now moving.

The shot that I really wanted to get was the going-away shot of the pusher and the rear of the train. I present two versions to you, one in RGB color, and the other in black and white.

About a second or two later, we see it again, this time rendered in greyscale.

I had other things to do in the afternoon, and I didn’t want to spend too much time with the trains in Pittsburg.  So, I didn’t chase the G-KCAD southward.  While I was getting the G-KCAD shots, the C-TUKC got a fresh crew and left town, which meant that by getting the G-KCAD shots, I prevented myself from getting the shots of the C-TUKC at Frontenac, where I shot the H-train earlier, and what would have been good place to shoot a coal train.  Oh, well.

Per a tradition that started last year, I then went to the Starbucks in Pittsburg.  I can’t remember exactly what I got, but it was large, gratuitous, and damned good!  I’ve thought about it, and I think that this is the only time that I have yet been to a Starbucks in 2008.

Moving northward from Pittsburg and Frontenac meant that I was leaving the world I knew and entering the world that I had heretofore only studied and wished to know.  I was curing the curiosity that ailed me. Pittsburg was my outpost from which to embark on a real journey of discovery.

I took US 69 north, and my plan was to turn westward at the very interesting city of Overland Park, Kansas, after eating something there.

I exited eastward on College Boulevard in Overland Park.

Lunch was at Le Peep. This place is really good, and I suggest that if you are in town that you stop there (not that I can comment on any other place there.)

While I was there, my silly waitress suggested that I go chat up some of the honies in the place.  From the looks of the ‘scenery’ that was to be found there, that might not have been a bad idea, but I had obligations to keep elsewhere and was therefore only in town for lunch.  Of course, I’m a little curious to explore the town more now, but as you’ll see eventually, I’ve done plenty of exploring in other areas since then.

The telecommunications industry is big here, and in 2006 CNN-Money Magazine had Overland Park ranked sixth in its 100 Best Places to Live list.

I moved across northeastern Kansas at a gingerly pace, a break from the intensity of the two days that preceded this one, and a preparation for the intensities of Days 4 and 5.  I spent the night in Manhattan, making Day 3 the only of these five days of which I spent the entirety in one state.  Tomorrow would be a very long, adventuresome, and great day.  I had moved northward from Pittsburg, my theretofore northernmost point in this part of the country, and would continue pressing on into places not heretofore visited, a rewarding experience indeed.  Stay tuned for more, as you likely will like what you see.

Jimbaux