Nostalgia & History > The End (pt 25): Markers

Here’s a change of pace from the usual waycar/caboose subject in my ongoing series “The End”. The is the rear end of UP train #70 departing Manhattan, KS on a sunny afternoon in July. In this summer of 1966 I was an 11 year old kid, still a certified train nut from my earliest memory forward. But that summer I had another all-consuming passion dominating my young life. To be sure, whenever I was downtown I would always try to spot a train. But my main concentration was riveted on my next little league baseball practice or better yet, the next actual game I would be playing in. At that point in my life absolutely nothing was more exciting than playing baseball! But my future older friend Jim Watson was already headed down a different track. He was already applying his talented photographic endeavors to the hobby of railfanning. I wouldn’t join him on that track for another decade, meeting him at a local Model RR swap meet in 1976.

There’s quite a bit of history to soak up in this image. Other than the train itself, I believe the 2 boxcars in this image are atop the old junction switch between the KP main line and the old Manhattan & Marysville branch line peeling off to the left. Once upon a time UP motor cars with real live passengers would depart Manhattan and run north up the Big Blue River valley. At Marysville those motor car passenger “trains” would in effect cross over UP’s old St Joseph & Grand Island main line on the way further north to Beatrice & Lincoln in the Cornhusker State. The Great Flood of 1951 was the beginning of the end for this branch. Construction on Tuttle Creek Lake was started in the 1950s, and by 1962 when water started rising north of the new dam all that was left of the M&M branch in Riley County was an industrial spur running up the east side of downtown Manhattan.

The old UP Freight Depot Jim is shooting around also has some interesting background history. This structure doubled as a depot for the short-lived Manhattan, Alma & Burlingame Ry. This quaint line lasted from the onset of its construction in 1880 to its partial dismantling in 1898. The line coming up from Alma basically paralleled the Rock Island’s line from nearby McFarland up into Manhattan. The Rock Island ran on up to Belleville, KS. After the Manhattan portion of the MA&B was cut back to Alma the remaining line would of course became Santa Fe’s widely beloved “Alma Branch”. It would continue to serve the tiny Kansas towns of Harveyville, Eskridge, Hessdale & Allendorph running up from Burlingame on Santa Fe’s passenger main between Topeka & Emporia.

1. Union Pacific train #70 is leaving Manhattan, KS with a pair of passenger express boxcars in tow. Note the marker lamps attached to the rear car.
Original Ektachrome slide by James W. Watson in July of 1966.

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels (santafe199)
Jim Watson (UP6900)



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/12/22 01:17 by santafe199.

---

Interesting photo.  Would expect the cars were to be dropped off enroute.
ALLEN

krm152 Wrote: > ... Would expect the cars were to be dropped off enroute ...

Interesting, but the only logical place would have been Topeka. My guess is they ran all the way into Kansas City...

Lance/199