Nostalgia & History > Detouring Warbonnets

The epic summer of 1993 floods reached their peak in mid-July resulting in many railroads detouring trains wherever they could. The ATSF no exception. On July 10, the double track bridge over the Grand River near Bosworth, MO was washed away. It took ATSF crews two weeks to re-open the line only to have it closed a day later by flooding west of Kansas City. On July 28, I was heading home on Metra and was shocked to see 3 GP60Ms with what looked like a detouring 199 train poised on a departure track in BN's Cicero Yard with a crew ready to go. I raced home from the Clarendon Hills train station, grabbed the camera and hustled over to Highlands on the east side of Hinsdale. After a few Metra trains went by, the detouring train crested the hill at Western Springs and raced into the setting sun. I was living on the edge that day and did not realize that there were only five pictures left on the roll of Kodachrome. The very last two shots were the keepers. It worked out good because I raced that roll over to Helix camera and got the slides back two days before I headed out on vacation. I and sent what I thought was the best of the lot to Train Magazine. I was pleasantly surprised when the November issue showed up and I found my picture at the top of the monthly ABCs of Railroad column with a Mike Blaszak write-up of some of the legal issues involved with detours.

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So there was no useful connection between BN and AT&SF at Galesburg in 1993? Guess so. Here is the connector between the AT&SF tracks and the BN tracks as it is today southwest (RR west) of Galesburg. The BNSF Yard is just left off the map. Thank you my friend Google.

Marty Bernard



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/14 19:02 by MartyBernard.

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Great shot, thanks for sharing.

~Ryan

MartyBernard Wrote:
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> So there was no useful connection between BN and
> AT&SF at Galesburg in 1993?

Correct. A post-merger addition.

Best regards,

Rob L.

Just one minor correction. The Grand river bridge did not wash away in 1993. The area that washed out
was a normally dry area in the Grand river bottoms.

Another keeper, Kevin! I should mail you my slides to scan of the detours on the Cuba Sub in 1993.....

Posted from Android

Is that the same Highlands Station we used to see as the "Mascot" of Model RailroadING
Magazine??

Frank30