Western Railroad Discussion > Hey, they took away the Blue & Yellow!

In this past Friday’s chase of the Santa Fe yellow bonnet-led SW Chief I shot the train in 3 locations west of Kansas City. And I had plans to chase the train as far as was practicable. I was awaiting its arrival at Argentine’s main line fuel pad when I learned from an inside source the Blue & Yellow unit was coming off the train. Getting a shot at the pad was looking to be a very dicey situation. It would take a near kamikaze dido of hitting the emergency flashers, jumping out out and grabbing a couple of shooting angles and jumping back in the car. All in a matter of seconds. Although I’m certainly not the only one, I’ve used this method before. But I don’t recommend it.

After 3 or 4 dry reconnaissance passes across the 42nd St overpass I decided to abandon the idea. I rolled the dice and tried to catch the train inbound from near the 55th St overpass. But those dice came up snake eyes because by the time I got to 55th St #4 was already by. So I headed downtown to take up position on the Grand Blvd overpass. It was odd: there were several places where Metro KC’s Finest had streets barricaded off. (Then it dawned on me that there was a stand-up comedian downtown giving another foaming room-only performance… ;^). I stood at my spot and waited for #4 to depart. I could see & verify the old Santa Fe freight unit was gone, leaving the lone Amtrak 114 to handle the train. Kansas City’s new street car system provided a nice little diversion prior to #4’s departure:

1. KCSA 801 starts another round trip up Main St from Kansas City Union Station while Amtrak #4 is down below, engaged in a rather latent station stop. Like over 5 hours late…

2. AMTK 114 now occupies the lead spot that BNSF 1770, still in Santa Fe blue & yellow, held for 100s of miles previous. Photos 1-2 taken from the Grand Blvd overpass.

After exiting the Union Station area I moseyed over to Doc’s Caboose hobby shop for a visit. While there I caught some runaround action by Uncle Pete:

3. UP 2766 on the left suffers the humiliation of being ran around by a loaded coal train led by UP 5690. We’re looking WSW from the Hickory St crossing in the West Bottoms.
(3 photos taken December 7, 2018 in Kansas City, MO)

Thanks for looking!
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/18 05:34 by santafe199.

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Nice shots, Lance!  Really like the UP shot.

Randy Lundgren

texchief1 Wrote:
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> Nice shots, Lance!  Really like the UP shot.
>
> Randy Lundgren

Agree with No. 3 UP shot. I wonder if No. 4 could hit 90 mph with one loco?

BB

bmarti7 Wrote:
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> texchief1 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Nice shots, Lance!  Really like the UP shot.
> >
> > Randy Lundgren
>
> Agree with No. 3 UP shot. I wonder if No. 4 could
> hit 90 mph with one loco?
>
> BB

Agree with this question.  I'm also wondering how much further it dropped behind schedule.

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

bmarti7 Wrote:
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> texchief1 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Nice shots, Lance!  Really like the UP shot.
> >
> > Randy Lundgren
>
> Agree with No. 3 UP shot. I wonder if No. 4 could
> hit 90 mph with one loco?
>
> BB

If that one locomotive was a 2900 Class, absolutely...with throttle to spare...