Nostalgia & History > Maroon Monday: McFarland Memories

Here’s another 40-something year old slide I scanned from the collection of my friend Dan Codespoti during my 25 day east coast odyssey last winter…

1. CRI&P 4306 rolls east with a manifest (train #22?) at McFarland, KS. The branch up to Manhattan, Clay Center & Bellville on the old ‘Rocky Mtn Rocket’ mainline can be seen curving away in the right hand background. The old steam-era coal tower still stands, most likely because the Rock didn’t want to spend precious money to have it razed…
Photo date: January 17, 1977

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels (santafe199)
Dan Codespoti (SouthRailDan)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/20/22 20:52 by santafe199.

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Nice photo. Is that a PS 85' TT flat car I see with two 40' Fruehauf UP trailers?

Cheers, Jim Fitch

I'd love to hear the story of how a branch line freight is handling TOFC traffic at this late date. I don't think I ever saw that before.

march_hare Wrote: > ...  the story of how a branch line freight is handling TOFC traffic ...

The train pictured is NOT on the branch seen on the right hand side. It is on the MAIN line at McFarland between Herington & Topeka, otherwise know as the Golden State Route (GSR)...

Lance/199

Yes, and #22 was a Ft.Worth - KCK run. wag216

Fantastic photo! How long did the coaling tower last into the Cotton Belt era before it was torn down?

Mike

If you didn't say it was Kansas and loco wasn't blue and white, I'd say it could be North Dakota anytime from October-May. LOL!

BB

Atomicpunk Wrote: > ... How long did the coaling tower last into the Cotton Belt era ...

I really don't know, Mike. If I had to guess I'd say it was gone within a couple of years after Cotton Belt took over the GSR in 1980...

Lance

> I'd love to hear the story of how a branch line
> freight is handling TOFC traffic at this late
> date. I don't think I ever saw that before.

RI's McFarland - Belleville line was really more of a "secondary mainline" than a branch. It handled traffic moving between the Denver and Kansas City / St. Louis gateways as well as Denver - Texas. As a result, in the late '60s / early '70s trains handled TOFC, auto racks and other priority shipments on that line. Ford's FAST trains (auto parts for Milpitas, CA) even used that line for a while on a test basis. Toward the end of the '70s as track condition deteriorated & running times increased, RI lost most of its priority traffic and the "branch" handled mostly grain, fertilizer and other local and/or low-priority traffic, more like a normal branchline would.

FWIW I can recall a few cases where TOFC shipments moved on Midwestern branchlines around that time (eastern Nebraska, W/NW Iowa, So. Minnesota), most often loads of meat in reefer trailers moving from packing houses to eastern markets.

Take care,

Mark

mamfahr Wrote: > ... really more of a "secondary mainline" than a branch ...

Eeyeahhh...... I guess I'm guilty of wavering back & forth between the 2 descriptions. Compared to the high & mighty UP running through town I was very much used to looking at the McFarland ~ Belleville line as a branch. Even back in my childhood 60s I don't have any memories at all of the Rock Island moving at anything but a very slow pace. By the time I picked up a camera in 1976, and especially by the time I acquired a Rock system timetable and discovered the real status of the line it was only a year or 2 before the bitter end, and I'm thinking it was all down to a blanket 10 MPH...