Nostalgia & History > Toto Tuesday: JAA 'n me (pt #4) Falls City Special

My late friend John Arbuckle was the ideal companion to have on any given railfan excursion. His knowledge and preparation along with his quiet enthusiasm for these trips set a standard I had never considered before. With an impressive array of maps & timetables plus his trusty pocket scanner he could take on any railfan assignment anywhere in the country! He raised my “railfan bar” several notches without ever saying anything to me about it. All I had to do was pay attention. But John was human. He couldn’t control the weatherman. At any rate the company was certainly enjoyable.

Here I am with a quartet of well-known & well-traveled Kansas railfans who were also career railroaders. And all of whom had vastly more railfanning experience than me. Check out my introduction in caption #2. Our collective mission was to drive toward Omaha and intercept, then chase a southbound Missouri Pacific business car train that had future merger partner Union Pacific participating. The Mop supplied a lead unit & its business car #2. All other power & equipment was banana yellow. This special would run over Mop’s Omaha to Kansas City main line, in territory which was brand new to me. This obscure main line got very little, if any coverage in railfan publications I read over the years. Even though by its schedule the train would be a while getting there, we chose to stop and wait at Falls City, NE. It would have been too easy to miss it on the zig-zag if we had tried to cut any closer. The captions carry on:

1. The MP depot in Falls City, NE. We’re looking NW as the crow flies (TT north?) toward Omaha. My four compatriots are just hangin’ around at the other end of the depot, waiting on the train. The already crappy weather would take a serious turn for the worst…

2. The usual suspects left to right: John Arbuckle, Tony Fey, Norman Walters & Lloyd Stagner. All 4 have since passed away.
(Photo previously posted)

3. Some of us decided to scale the handy Harlan St overpass for the main event. MP 3318 leads UP 3791 & 3790 + 13 UP business cars with MP car #2 on the rear.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/18 07:04 by santafe199.

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4. 5. & 6. As I round up 37+ year old memories the train left Falls City at restricted speed, allowing for a couple of extra shots. I also had a chance to get on the ‘other side of the road' for the away shot. That’s the BN’s KC ~ St Joseph ~ Lincoln main line at the left.
Photos 1-6 taken in Falls City, NE. Overhead photos taken off the Harlan St (US hwy 73/159) overpass.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/22 01:31 by santafe199.

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7. & 8. The weather is getting worse as the special passes through Reserve, KS as seen from the US hwy 73 overpass.

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9. & 10. In fact, the weather has turned to a foggy mush as the special rolls over the west siding switch at Willis, KS. For image #9 I got away with using a medium telephoto and the away shot was with my 2nd camera’s normal lens, both off of the US hwy 73 overpass. With the weather turning to pea soup fog our 5-man entourage parted ways here.
All photos taken December 29, 1980.

Next week John & I will chase Uncle John’s varnish down in Temple, and I’ll tangle with more Jalapeño peppers than I should have…

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels (santafe199)
In remembrance of the The Chief Way



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/22 01:33 by santafe199.

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Your commentary of this trip and these well-done grubby-day photos make this a memorable set of images.
Bob

Nice photos Lance. This line as you know is mostly northbound traffic these days and a bunch of them hop off on the Hiawatha Sub., but you can still find a yellow passenger train on the Falls City Sub. pretty often--maybe even a dozen times a year or more if you compiled every trip. (Hell I think it's up to 6 or 7 separate business car moves already this year on that line.) I guess some things really do stay the same. I'm fortunate to have met John and Tony several times over the last few years of their lives. I wish they were both still around, they each had a knowledge of their territory that could easily, accurately, be described as 'encyclopedic'. I'm glad they had the patience to impart some of that 'useless information' to us younger guys. Without them some of the things I know would only be how they are now, not why they are that way.

Pump



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/18 08:27 by UPTRAIN.

Your stories make me wish I had gotten to know John a little better. I only met him briefly at
the Santa Fe Historical Society convention in Wichita.

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

Great photos Lance. I may even recognize one of those compadres in the second photo.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

Great story and photos Lance. John was co-owner of the last Skytop sleeper COFFEE CREEK with the truly great PV mechanical engineer Mark Bucol. CN had stripped it down to a shell but John had been able to recover the vast majority of the parts and fittings and stash them in various places on the car. Unfortunately just before it was going to leave Winnipeg on a freight train they got busted and CN retrieved most of the materiel. Why the railway went thru the bother of doing the stripping in the first place is beyond me. This is the main reason it's taken so many years and so much money to get that car back on the road.

UPTRAIN Wrote: > ... I'm fortunate to have met John and Tony several times over the last few years ...

I feel the same way, having had friendships with both virtually all my adult life. They were pure class top notch railfans, both of whom had a particular interest in all things passenger oriented. If you had a question about some passenger train or operation, chances are they knew the answer. Or at least knew where to find an answer. And I know personally that both John & Tony were very proud of the up & coming youngsters within the Kansas group of fans...

Lance

The last image is a symbolic statement of 2 lines for me; the B&O St. Louis line and the Tennessee Pass line. Red block to oblivion (and the fog). You just do good work. Those 4 guys in image #2 had to have been an invaluable clan to capture some priceless frames on some pretty interesting events. Thank you for sharing the Falls City Special safari.

Lance, thanks for the kind words about my four late friends John, Tony, Norm and Lloyd . Seven years after your slides were taken that day I would meet John in Austin , TX when he came down to photograph a Texas Southern passenger special running from San Antonio to Austin and return. Another late friend Murrell E. Hogue introduced me to John at the Amtrak depot . John asked if he could railfan the special pulled by former US Steel F-7 A-B-A diesels with me. I agreed and a 30 year friendship began. Oh, BTW, John got his slide of the Texas Southern special published in Trains magazine. It was through John that I became acquainted with Lloyd, Norm and Tony. I was most fortunate to have had all of them as friends. I sure miss those guys. --Kelly

             Everything was nice and clean, shiney. And the MoW had obviously been out painting signal masts as can be seen from the over spray on the ground all around.