Nostalgia & History > Pretty Prairie

I took this photo at Pretty Prairie (Ks.) in the summer of 1977. Stations like this could be found all across Kansas (probably Oklahoma and Texas too) on the Santa Fe. Pretty Prairie was on the H&S District of the Plains Division of the Santa Fe which ran from Hutchinson to Blackwell (Ok.) and then to Wellington (Ks.). My recollection is the mixed train that travelled the H&S District was shown in the ETT but had no class (so to speak) and thus got its operating authority by train order.
 
My late friend Allan Ramsey and I once tried to ride the mixed train from Hutchinson to Kingman. We took Santa Fe train #2 (San Francisco Chief) from Wichita to Newton and from there took #17 (Super Chief/El Cap.) or #23 (Grand Canyon, I can’t remember which) to Hutchinson. Our plan was to ride the mixed train from Hutchinson to Kingman whereupon we would board #68, Santa Fe’s eastbound Wichita-Pratt mixed train, and ride it back to Wichita.
 
Things went badly wrong in Hutchinson. Since the H&S District train had no timetable authority, it was treated as an extra train and was called more or less when its train was ready and the crew rested. My recollection is that the train wasn’t going to be called in time for us to make the connection in Kingman. My recollection is also that we (maybe just me) thought were being jerked around by someone (yardmaster, train crew, station agent?) who didn’t want any stinking passengers on that train. So, we suffered the ultimate indignity of taking a Continental Trailways bus back to Wichita.
 
But alas, some 15 years or so later, I did make it to Pretty Prairie by car and photographed the station there before it disappeared look so many other Santa Fe depots. 
 

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That's a welcoming town name and a great depot.
Bob

The depot was move to a few miles north of Yoder, Ks and was used I think for bee hives (not sure My memorry is that correct).  It has been extremely remodeled so that you would not even it had been a depot.  Your trip that didn't happen is an interesting story.  A couple of us that knew Alan Ramsey did get to take the entire trip thru Blackwell and up to Wgton.
sd-45

Pretty Prairie's depot was a nearly perfect example of Santa Fe's 24x64 standard "Frame Depot No.3 for Branch Lines."  It now looks like this, though to be fair, it had fallen into fairly serious disrepair before the makeover: http://depotmaps.com/Images/DepotKS/PrettyPrairieKS.jpg