Nostalgia & History > A Couple of Colorful Lashups on the UP

The UP KP Line across central Kansas was always a mecca for foreign power in the 70s-80s.  Horsepower hours engines seemed to gravitate to the KP as they could lead (no need for cab signals, Topeka to North Platte) or as trailing units.  Here are a couple of examples from the archives.

1)  The WP GP40s started showing up at Salina in the early 1980s.  They were mostly used in the Salina Yard as switch engines or on the various branch line jobs.  Once in a while they
were used on Main Line Freights but not very often.  One exception was this day on KC-Salina Freight No. 155.  If you were called early in the afternoon on No. 155 out of KC, you could
figure on heading in at one of the center sidings at Bonner Springs, Linwood, Lawrence or Perry for a following hotter westbound train.   So, here I am in the center siding at Linwood, KS,
waiting on another westbound to run around me.  The WP power is unusual as it never seemed to go east as far as Kansas City. 

UP No. 155
Linwood, KS
May 19, 1982.

2) Here we are at Oakley, KS.  My Local Freight No. 156 (Oakley to Salina Local) is ready to depart as soon as my Conductor gets his paperwork ready.  Some of the power we used
to get out on the KP, it was like my journey to the lines of the engines I got to run.  Here I have a pair of CXS units on the point of my train.  I always liked having foreign power on
the point of my trains. 

CSX 7596 on UP Train No. 156
Oakley, KS
March 7, 1993

Thanks for looking.

Bob Helling
PRose

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Great photos Bob. I get to host Lance and Art in a couple of weeks. Will see if we can stay out of trouble.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

Bob, did you turn on the Mars light on the WP unit ? They had nice sounding horns. --Kelly

Great look back when the job was quite fun. I also tried to put foreign units on the point whenever I could. Who's GP30 is that in the first photo, BN?
JB

JB, checked my timebook and the GP30 was the NW 555. 

Very fondly remembered days! I wish I had made a few more efforts to shoot the KP, but I guess I did OK considering I was working full time down in Emporia. 1980 & 1981 were my 2 busiest years for working for Uncle John.

Lanzo