Nostalgia & History > Depot Friday: WAG Sr posing at Menoken

Those of you familiar with UP main lines in Topeka, KS long before all of the 1980s-90s mega-mergers will remember Menoken Jct out on the west side. This physical junction between the Denver & North Platte main lines is still out there, but somewhere along the line the term ‘Junction’ went into disuse. Now it is known universally as just plain Menoken. In the pre-9/11 days access to Menoken was normally pretty easy. You could drive right into the area and shoot pictures with all kinds of signal hardware for background fodder. With a daily mixture of 4 pre-Amtrak passenger trains and at least 4 manifest freights on the KP (Denver) main & a large variety of freight movements on the North Platte main a fan could shoot several trains here in a given day.

In the image below we have the incomparable father-son “Team Gibson” spending some time at Menoken on a summer day in 1965. They probably didn’t have long to wait for some train to shoot…

1. Bill Gibson poses for his son Art at the Menoken “depot”, which has definitely seen better days. At one time this smallish structure was an important train order/open office of communication on the west side of Topeka, KS.
Photo by William A. ‘Art’ Gibson (WAG Jr) in August of 1965.

2. In this previously posted image UP 2910 rolls past Menoken with a KP-bound passenger train some time in the summer of 1938. The exact date was undoubtedly recorded, but this image was scanned from a B/W print with no info attached.
Photo by William A. Gibson (WAG Sr).

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels (santafe199)
Art Gibson (wag216)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/22 20:41 by santafe199.

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Thanks Lance for Bill's great look at history on the railroad.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/22/18 08:31 by Bob3985.

Nice photos of Menoken. I used to see it on the CTC board and wondered what the place looked like! It didn't register on a road trip.

Bob3985 Wrote: > ...  great look at history ...

Indeed it is! The Gibson collection is nothing short of amazing.
While I'm at it, I just got off the phone with Art. He was able to supply me with some additional info tidbits, some of which I suspected & some I just plain didn't know:

1) The man in image #2 is Frank O. Kelley, who was a contemporary of Bill's. Frank is working the 2nd trick operator's job by preference because it allowed him to attend church on Sunday mornings. Art remembered other times when Mr Kelley would take him & 'Frank Junior' out to Menoken during his earlier 3rd trick days so they could spend a few hours watching trains. Art also described how they would chase snakes around, along with any other adventures 2 young boys could scare up.

2) Also in image #2 this train #99 (& #100) was the "City of Salina" which usually ran with the original M-10,000. But it was absent this trip, no doubt because of some mechanical difficulty. It seems the M-10,000 didn't live up to its glorious expectations...

3) And related to, but not in image #1: Access to the "depot" at Menoken was a lot more open in days of yore. There was a small grocery store in the immediate area around the Menoken Road crossing. It turns out the original Menoken structure was a full sized, 2-story affair which was on the south side of the tracks. That's opposite to what is seen here. And finally, young Frank Junior, mentioned above, was actually born right here. Frank Senior and his family lived in the 2nd story when he wasn't working.

(RR History sure is fun, ain't it... :^)

Lance



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 06/22/18 11:15 by santafe199.

I bought seveal items from Frank Kelley back in the early 70's, including his Illinois pocket watch. He told me he took his watch to be repaired or serviced, this watch was a loaner. For some reason, he kept it, and never did get his own watch back.

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Art and Lance, this is really neat history in review. I remember when the Menoken depot was actually the standard white and green.
Brian Stevens

Good photos. Thanks for sharing those.
sd-45

santafe199 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Bob3985 Wrote: > ...  great look at history ...
>
> Indeed it is! The Gibson collection is nothing
> short of amazing.
>
> 2) Also in image #2 this train #99 (& #100) was
> the "City of Salina" which usually ran with
> the original M-10,000. But it was absent this
> trip, no doubt because of some mechanical
> difficulty. It seems the M-10,000 didn't live up
> to its glorious expectations...
>
>
> (RR History sure is fun, ain't it... :^)
>
>
Thanks for this, Bill and Lance, as I was wondering which train this was.

Isn't it interesting that the Q's "streamliners" largely got saved while the UP's went to scrap.

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

Thanks for the memories. I personally rode those rails at least 8 times on the City of St. Louis or KC.
BB