Nostalgia & History > Echoes of the Katy

By the time 1977 appeared on calendars I was fully equipped with toys of 35mm railfan photography. And from home turf in Manhattan, KS I had 2 very busy crew change points I could drive to in less than 90 minutes. I had the Union Pacific up in Marysville and I had the Santa Fe down in Emporia. Even though I grew up a "die-hard" Santa Fe fan I still managed to give Uncle Pete at least a 30-40% of my free time attention.

Marysville was a 50 mile shot straight north up KS-177/US-77 highway, but Emporia was 75 square-corner miles away to the SSE. Between Council Grove and Emporia there were two options, both involving inconvenient jogs. One was straight east on US-56, then straight south via Bushong & Americus on a secondary paved back road to US-50 and its parallel partner Santa Fe main line. The preferred route was KS-177 south out of Council Grove to Strong City, which put me on Santa Fe's traditional and not-so-busy passenger main. But there was still another 5 miles to get over to Ellinor and official main line territory. And this route actually veered a bit to the west before reaching Strong City.

That's when my back-roads railfanning education began. Somewhere way back in those pre-Google Maps (pre-historic? ;^) years I got ahold of a detailed Kansas map showing abandoned RR right-of-ways as well as all back roads, including gravel. Between Council Grove and Emporia I discovered this angled route known as 'Dunlap Road'. It made an 8 mile beeline to Dunlap and from there it was a mere 10 miles past Lake Kahola down to US-50 and the Santa Fe main just east of Saffordville. This route shaved 10 minutes off of any other route from Manhattan to the SFe main.

During my many ensuing travels up & down Dunlap Road I began to pick out traces of the old MKT line between Parsons & Junction City, KS. It was an interesting education on this former right of way. A still-visible stretch of roadbed here, a small culvert there... And there was a utility pole line that helped to trace the old route. I traveled this route in June of 2012. Here is that same pole line in a sunset silhouette at the end of the longest 'daylight' day of the year:

1. It's 8:41 PM on June 21, 2012 and we're looking NW along the former MKT right of way just out of Dunlap, KS. The utility pole line roughly traces the former MKT right-of-way between Dunlap & Council Grove.

Thanks for remembering!
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/18 07:12 by santafe199.

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Pretty...

Lance, you would be at "home" chasing the many miles of abandoned Katy right of way in Texas.

tomstp Wrote: > ... at "home" chasing ... abandoned ... right of way ...
 
In the last few years I've really gotten interested in where "that old railroad" used to run. Of course, this statement applies to a growing roster of RRs. For that reason I have to beg forgiveness for butchering your cited sentence the way I did. This latent interest of mine started with a few of us chasing the ancient right-of-way of the Leavenworth, Kansas & Western (LK&W, nee Kansas Central narrow gauge) which ran between Leavenworth on the Missouri River & Miltonvale, KS. And Miltonvale happens to be on the Santa Fe's Middle Division Strong City District which I've worked on & ran over. It's now the BNSF Strong City Sub. There are several ghost RR chasing opportunities in my area:

Rock Island main line from Topeka to St Joseph.
Rock Island branch form Horton, KS (on the main above) toward Beatrice, NE.
UP from Junction City, KS to Clay Center, KS.
UP Plainville Branch (all of it)
ATSF Howard District from NR Jct (Emporia) to Moline, KS.
ATSF Alma District from Burlingame (on the psgr main) to Alma, and...
...the old Manhattan, Alma & Burlingame (MA&B).
MP: the entire Osawatomie ~ Pueblo main across Kansas, including that 'little bubble' which reaches up to Salina.
BN: Lots of ex-CB&Q r.o.w. through southern Nebraska, just over the KS/NE state line...

And there are many abandoned R.O.W.s in other surrounding states. More than enough to keep me busy until I can no longer chase anything...

Lance
 



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/22 03:43 by santafe199.