Junction city, Kansas

I’m staying here in Ks. for at least a year. I have the prefect view of the tracks that UP uses every day. The majority of the freight are coal tipple cars or regular hoppers which I believe still are coal. Usually a 2 engine pull with a 1 engine push at the end. We get a few tanker trains or cement hoppers.

Had an interesting one a few weeks ago. BNSF running on UP tracks hauling single flatbed loads max length probably 40 cars long. Can’t quite tell what they were. Looks like fuselage or windmill parts, something like that.

I can send the pics to anyone that wants them. Not sharp enough. Trying to figure out how to attach to this post.

I used an image as my avatar.

As a citizen of the state, let me be the first to say welcome. You will find that Kansans are the most friendly folks one will find anywhere. I do not have any knowledge of what UP does on the Kansas Pacific route. Close by to Junction on I70 is Abliene and the BNSF Strong City Sub runs north-south and does interchange a good amount of traffic w/ UP and shortline Kansas & Oklahoma. Abliene is also home to the tourist Abliene & Smoky Valley and on May 23 they are scheduled to fire up former SF steamer 3415 on its public excursions.

Let me correct a mistake I see with this. According to BNSF Timetable No. 8. Kansas Division. The Strong City Subdivision has been abandoned and pulled up. It not longer joins the La Junta Sub west of Strong City. The Strong City Sub may continue in operation from Abilene to Superior Neb. But south of Abilene, its gone. The KP does run mainly coal, but BNSF does have trackage rights all the way to Denver I believe. I would like to see the pictures if you could post them. I should be able to tell what they are if I could see what the cars are.

Dru-Cimarron Valley Railroad- Satanta Kansas. Engineer-Conductor-Brakeman

Easy, easy there. The Strong City Sub is by no means dead. For yrs it has been closed down east of Lost Springs. It remains in daily operation from Lost Springs-Superior, NE. It connects w/ the La Junta Sub at Peabody via a connection w/ UP @ Lost Springs on a rights agreement which dates from 1986. Traffic is grain trains and a couple locals–one from Newton, the othr w/ Abliene being the HT. The regular assigned jobs go high in ATSF whiskers and a NHSF guy like me can’t even touch them. There is no rights agreement for BNSF on the KP line. You might be thinking of the Hutch-Vaughn agreement on the Golden St route that was a condition of the UP/SP merger. These rights have only been used for just a short period of time in early 2003.

I believe the freight was Windmill Blades loaded on special flatcars. I saw an add yesterday in Trucks Weekly for trucker flatbeds with that item listed and pictured.

I was only able to post the pic as an avatar. I don’t know how to upload any pics from my laptop.