Nostalgia & History > Maroon Monday: over the fields & thru the woods...

…to Belleville we must go!

In the summer of 1966 the Rock Island still might have been able to run a decent speed over the trackage shown here. But the crossbuck leaning one way & the train’s consist leaning the other seems to be a harbinger of rocking & rolling things to come. This particular summer when Jim Watson shot these slides I was only 11 years old. It would be full decade before I would pick up a 35mm camera and shoot the Rock Island, and then only for a preciously short 3½ years. By 1976 the speed on this branch line connection between McFarland, KS on the Golden State Route and Belleville, KS on the Rocky Mountain Rocket mainline would be down to mostly a blanket 10 MPH. You could almost chase a train here on a bicycle…

This area along Anderson Avenue on Manhattan’s west side has undergone major & not very surprising changes. In 1966 Anderson & the Rock’s branch line loosely paralleled each other along & through farm fields the entire 8 miles to tiny Keats, KS. Half a century later a vast majority of this area has filled in with scenes of modern civilization. A bridge abutment here & a line of trees there are all that’s left to indicate a Mighty Fine Road once ran here…

1. & 2. CRI&P 128 is rolling west between Manhattan & Keats, KS in July of 1966. Taken from a rural crossing what is today called 'Pebblebrook Circle'.

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels (santafe199)
Jim Watson (UP6900)



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/22 21:53 by santafe199.

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Definate time machine, excellent.
JB

Manhattan was not a great experience for me as a railfan. Both UP and Rock Island seemed to run most of their trains either at night or while I was teaching classes at K State. So my hat is off to the late Tom Lee and to Jim Watson (a former student) who managed to find something to photograph there. 

Looks like through the weeds of Kansas!!  I can smell the burning weeds with the wheel slip.....

BillMarvel Wrote: > Manhattan was not a great experience for me as a railfan...

Nor for myself from the mid-70s on. Although you could generally count on seeing UP's #117 between breakfast & lunch, it was mostly hit & miss between the 2 RRs. And I mean a LOT of 'miss'! You might catch UP #155 or #154 in the late afternoon if either one was running close to schedule. Rock Island train schedules were total chaos. ('nuff said...) Once in every 13th blue moon you might catch #118 meeting #117 at Manhattan, but you certainly didn't hold your breath. (UP's number #117 & #118 were carried over from the Portland Rose's latter mixed-train days just before Amtrak)

Lance



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/08/15 08:24 by santafe199.

            i didn't get there until 68 and 69 but caught a few trains. Unfortunately very few photos.