Western Railroad Discussion > Kiowa County Independent article on the Towner Line.

Haven't seen this one from last week linked here, so here goes:

http://kiowacountyindependent.com/news/1618-one-journey-ends-another-begins?fbclid=IwAR0Uw-QwrDAxNn2jDH7RS06mFgh-sMAyIjJZRy6DLueqtP6t-vf0TQ6Ud6U

Peter Varlien
Heimdal,

STB granted operating authority as of 6/29, this is for real. If they could reopen the BNSF connection it really would
help the local shippers.

Out

Stefan Soloviev sent another message that, in so many ways, sums up the past five years. “Colorado Pacific Railroad is the name of the line,” he wrote. “We will refer to it as the community railroad of the people of eastern Colorado and western Kansas.” And then, he added the last two but oh-so-telling sentences. “It’s theirs as much as mine,” he wrote. “We’re all in this together.”

Great to see an example of one person being successful with a "big idea".

So, where is the eastern end of what will be live rail??  Will CP be able to interchange with anyone at the Kansas end?

Rob

If it makes it all the way to Scott City in Kansas it would be able to interchange either east on the K and O or south to the BNSF at Garden City.

There is no connection to Garden City, the last mile or so is gone.

Out

I would think it's going to be open from the BNSF/UP connection at NA Junction (west of Pueblo, where the MP went back on its own rails) all the way to Towner.  Towner already has service from the K&O (connecting to the KS side of the line) and actively ships from their elevator.  The best potential shippers (grain elevators) are all towards the east end of the line, while so far the repair work has started from the west.  Some of that is because of the illegal scrapping attempt by A&K (good CWR between Ordway and Arlington, now with 80% less spikes!), so the west section is the part that needs the most work to make it passable.  However, given their work efforts and comments made about a western BNSF interchange, they'll almost certainly open the whole line again.  I suspect they may even pick up westbound loads from Kansas headed for western ports as through freight.

Here's a K&O train at Towner about a month ago (Jun 8), and a picture of the burned-out bridge west of Haswell being repaired that same day.
 

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As started below the K&O a Watco property already operates to Towner and at one point looked to go west in ther midlle 1990’s Watco is going to be the operator usings its K&O railroad and cars now all go east on the K&O so it will be interesting to see how much grain will move west for export much of the wheat from this line I used to go to flour mills in Denver Area rates from Witchia area large unit train elevators to the gulf point to grain moving east to Wichita and then outbound from the large terminal elevators on the K&O in unit trains to the gulf.

This is great news to those of us who have followed the ex-MP Pueblo line since the 1980s. Maybe I heard wrong but wasn't most of the rail removed on the Colorado portion of the line back in the 1990s, or was rail left in place in some areas? It was a totally asinine move for UP to shut the line down like it did back in the mid-1990s - UP's inability to look ahead and be proactive once again coming into play as always. Looking forward to hearing more news on the railroad as it comes back to life later this summer.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/19 12:24 by fresno.

The Colorado part of the MP is almost completely intact as of the day UP rid themselves of it, save those parts where there's a few spikes missing.   The signals are trashed, and I'm sure more than a few ties could use replacement, but the route itself is complete.  The only part that's really gone in CO is the disconnected piece in Pueblo - basically the junction back off the Santa Fe, across the Arkansas River, and the yard.  

The abandoned parts of the route are all in Kansas - Healy to McCracken, Geneseo to Hope, Herrington to Osawatomie, if my notes are right.


 

NDHolmes, thanks for the update. I might have been thinking of the signals as I remember driving through eastern Colorado about 15 years ago coming north from Lamar, and checking on the old mainline to see how it looked. I do remember seeing some trashed signals along the way.

          There is no way to connect at Scott City as the last five miles ?? north into town is impassable and completely gone in town except a few places you can see rail in the dirt. Buildings have been built over it behind houses. Never happen here.
 

The K&O directly connects the former ATSF and MP route at Scott City which is the only way to get to Towner. Because the UP still owns the former MP/UP from Geneso to Hosington and a bit west, (I was one of the engineers picking up rail west of there so it could be re-laid on the K&O between Wichita and Hutchinson) K&O would not use that route except to service the few elevators on the line when the wheat is moving. Years ago when the MP line was intact to Scott City the K&O wanted to buy the line from the UP but they wouldn't sell afraid of competition to Pueblo . The K&O wanted to run loaded trains across the MP and down to Sterling (due to heavier rail) and handle the mtys on the old ATSF from Sterling to Scott City..

exprail

Nathan; How many TOTAL miles is missing and needs to be replaced? Under Jim Young's tenure, there were rumblings of relaying Herrington to Osawatomie. MKT lines in Texas were rebuilt, so this likely had some credibility to it.

NDHolmes Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Colorado part of the MP is almost completely
> intact as of the day UP rid themselves of it, save
> those parts where there's a few spikes
> missing.   The signals are trashed, and I'm sure
> more than a few ties could use replacement, but
> the route itself is complete.  The only part
> that's really gone in CO is the disconnected piece
> in Pueblo - basically the junction back off the
> Santa Fe, across the Arkansas River, and the
> yard.  
>
> The abandoned parts of the route are all in Kansas
> - Healy to McCracken, Geneseo to Hope, Herrington
> to Osawatomie, if my notes are right.
>
>
>