Western Railroad Discussion > Traffic over Rich Mountain

What’s the current traffic like on the KCS between Heavener and Mena these days?

Grady McKinley
Asheville, NC

Posted from iPhone

Several in daylight is pretty common. Was up in that neck of the woods several weeks ago and they were bringing southbounds up to the fuel rack right behind ones that were departing.

Seems like 1-2 southbound manifests and 1-2 northbound manifests daily, plus a good number of coal as well as oil trains. Grain trains too, at anytime. Be prepared to see a lot of BNSF power on most of the coal trains.

The wrinkle is when there’s multiple long trains that need to meet, and/or if Heavener gets plugged up. Heard the phrase “straight to Page and die of old age” over the radio from the crew of a northbound.

I'm not familiar with the KCS.  Would this be the part south of Kansas City that CP traffic will use to get to the Gulf and Mexico?  Will it be a bottleneck and need more capacity?  How steep are the grades?  I would guess there is less coal traffic than in the past.  Thanks for any information.

Jim