Western Railroad Discussion > UP's NEKM line traffic

Is UP's ex NEKM line still just handling empty coal trains or is there any other traffic running on it now days? Thanks for any info.

AaronJ

As far as I know, UP is still using it for empty coal trains west of Hiawatha, Kansas. As for east bound traffic east of Hiawatha, none. Plans are to rip of the line east.

Tom Stolte

The NEKM, or the former St. Joseph Branch, has a roller coaster profile of many grades upto 1%, so it would be difficult to run other trains over the line besides coal empties. Because the routing is much longer than the direct Marysville sub between KC and Marysville, the only other good candidates to run over the NEKM would be westbound junk manifests with HPT ratios 1 or less, but those trains would easily stall on those 1% grades anyway.

By the way, is there any local traffic to speak of on the NEKM, especially from the various grain elevators along the line?