Railroaders' Nostalgia > Calm before the history storm…

At 11:50 PM on this 21st day of October in 1979 I will be going on duty as a flagman (passenger brakeman) on Amtrak train #3, the “Southwest Limited”. I had brought along my thankfully portable tripod in anticipation of shots such as the one below. This will be the last leg of the 2nd of two round trips I caught off of the Middle Division brakeman’s extra board at Emporia. I will work Amtrak #3 through Lawrence, Topeka & Emporia before terminating my trip at Newton, KS. This will be followed by a deadhead drive back home to Emporia and a descent back down into regular freight service off the extra board.

As a card-carryin’, camera totin’ railfan these two round trips mark a very special moment in my young Santa Fe train service employee’s career. Through the unfortunate calamity of being born in the largest city in Kansas not served by the Santa Fe I grew up never witnessing a single minute of Uncle John’s passenger era in person. But tonight, in my railfan heart of hearts I will be working the most famous passenger train I never knew: the celebrated Super Chief! Never mind that the Red & Silver paint was long gone. Never mind that name on the cars no longer said Santa Fe. Never mind that service quality had sunk to the point where Santa Fe no longer allowed Amtrak to use the name “Chief”.

Standing on that passenger platform in 1979 I can close my eyes and let the gentle wind of Kansas City Union Station history envelop me. In a few minutes that wind will rise to a sort of historic storm as my fantasy Super Chief arrives. But for the moment I enjoy catching wisps of ghostly voices of some of the thousand’s of passenger train & enginemen from a dozen different railroads who walked here before me. I’ve no doubt that a goodly portion of those voices came from men who had some railfan tendencies inside their own hearts. With meditative wishing thinking I can sense some of the ghosts are watching as I bend over my tripod. Maybe they are telling this 24 year old kid in the Amtrak uniform: “Carry on son, make us proud!”

1. Amtrak passenger platform scene at Kansas City Union Station [MO] on October 21, 1979. Those hi-level cars on the left sat here for a short time after the cancellation of the Lone Star & The National Limited, both of which served KCUS. About 5 months ago I posted a sunset shot with these same cars in it. (here’s a link to that thread: http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,3607797,3607797#msg-3607797 )

Thanks for reading!
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/15 10:21 by santafe199.

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Lance, You are the greatest! Very cool!

KR

I was in Santa Fe's hog school then; #3 was only slightly better than Amtrak at "it's" worst.  I rode it back to CA in November and its windows were scratched plastic, the interiors were awful but I seem to remember the dining car served food that was OK...

   What year did the buildings come down that were over the tracks.

dcfbalcoS1 Wrote:Do you mean the trainsheds?
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>    What year did the buildings come down that
> were over the tracks.

Love that pic, and the thing is how many railroaders where actually big time railfans themselves! I mean come on, don't be shy about loving your job and still enjoy the hobby when you got time off!

mopacrr Wrote:
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> dcfbalcoS1 Wrote:Do you mean the trainsheds?
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >    What year did the buildings come down that
> > were over the tracks.

What year did the train sheds come down?

Posted from Android

UPRR3985 wrote:  >What year did the train sheds come down? 
A quick dig into my collected photograpy file shows the sheds were still up as of 1970... 

Lance