The Kansas & Oklahoma is busy on the western end of their Kansas operations on 17 March 2025. WAMX 3936, GP39-2 nee-Delaware & Hudson 7603, led a loaded eastbound unit grain train at Horace, Kansas, past the abandoned Missouri Pacific RR (MoPac) Horace depot.
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Close up view Kansas & Oklahoma busy on the western end of their Kansas operations on 17 March 2025. WAMX 3936, GP39-2 nee-Delaware & Hudson 7603, with a loaded eastbound unit grain train at Horace, Kansas. MoPac had a crew change, away from home crew hotel and yard back in the day at Horace, KS.
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Back about 1975/76 the defunct Railway Classics had an article on the MP from Hoisington to Horace. Hoisington was the crew change east of Horace.
That, and a few page spread in Modern Railroads, an ad for a railroad supplier, that featured the MP made me a fan of the MP.
When I looked them up a few years ago both former crew terminals still had rail service, such as it is, but the line is severed between them. I think then each was served by different shortlines that picked up the pieces as the class ones retrenched.
Jeff
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Cool looking scene that has been photographed.
Rich
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Back on July 25, 1964 I passed that depot at about 432am if train MoPac 11 was on time.
Also, I recall waking up at Hoisington and looking out the coach window and seeing two clocks on the depot wall. One to the left was one hour behind the one to the right. The next morning I told my dad and we asked the conductor…that town was where time zones change came into effect - Central time became Mountain time.
Big stuff for a 9 year old.
Ed
Too funny. What’s the chance?
Rich
Great photos. Thanks for posting. The cars don’t look like the 143-ton variety. Do we know where the cars are destined? Perhaps to Hutchinson or Wichita to be transloaded into a UP or BNSF shuttle train?
Welcome back on board, Vermontanan2.
David
No idea on destination. Didn’t have a chance to talk with the K&O train crew.
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Grain I suspect is the financial life blood of the K&O coupled with inbound seed and fertilizer for the farmers.
As a railroader I would see grain trains destined to two grain piers in Baltimore that I was familiar with, which became one when the Western Maryland closed theirs and became none when the B&O’s failed and fell into Baltimore Harbor and was not rebuilt by its owner.
Watching some farmer channels on YouTube, the farmers are taking 40-50K pound truck loads to their local grain elevator/processing facility. To fill a 286K rail grain hopper takes almost 4 truck loads - a unit grain trains (that CSX runs) were normally 65 cars or 100 cars in the pre EHH days.
I drive from Maryland to Topeka using I-70 across Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri. Driving past cultivated grain fields for mile and miles as far as the eye can see in every direction.
The US farmer grows grain in truly astounding amounts! Much larger amounts than the USA can utilize. Unseen by Americans the Canadians are equally adept in their farming activities and yearly apply pressure to both CN & CP (CPKC) to move the harvest to the ports in a timely and expeditious manner.
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Well, part of the reason I found these photos so interesting is that they fit in with a story about the Colorado Pacific Railroad in the April 2025 issue of TRAINS. Part of the article is about the the railroad on the Colorado side of this same ex-MP line west of Towner, Colorado. The article mentions that smaller covered hoppers move grain from non-shuttle locations to the lone shuttle facility at Stockton (Sheridan Lake) where the grain is unloaded and eventually transloaded into the 286,000 pound cars as part of a 110-car (or more) UP or BNSF shuttle that is delivered to one of those railroads just east of Pueblo. I surmised that KO operation from Horace might be the same thing, except going the other direction, and with a longer haul on the short line. A similar situation is done on state-owned short lines in Washington State. What I find especially interesting about both the Kansas & Oklahoma operating and the Colorado Pacific operation is that they exist with shuttle elevators being directly-served by the UP being located only about 30 miles away at Sharon Springs and Cheyenne Wells, and directly-served BNSF elevators slightly further away in Holcomb and Coolidge, KS. In today’s world of grain transportation, these are not huge distances for producers to drive to get the better price at a shuttle facility.
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