Nostalgia & History > Side by side stripes at the Salina RH

We Kansas Gangsters didn’t call it “Little North Platte” for nuthin’!!!

The Union Pacific in Salina, Kansas used to attract foreign power just like its big brother up yonder in Nebraska. It its heyday, you could find MP, Frisco, N&W, MKT, Rock Island, SP/SSW and once in a great while even BN. Who am I forgetting? And after the merger a deluge of WP power called Salina home...

It was fun times for railfans! Today Salina is a pale, pitiful ghost of what it once was. The roundhouse as such no longer exists. Most of its employees have gone elsewhere. The turntable was torn out a while back. Locomotives are now fueled exclusively by mobile fuel trucks out in the yard, or at Cozy siding east of town.

God bless the pencil pushers, eh...

1. MKT 621 & WP 3517 rub shoulders at the UNION PACIFIC (!) roundhouse in Salina, KS on February 21, 1982.
Original Kodachrome slide by Bob Helling, aka ‘PRose’ here on TO.

Thanks for looking!
Lance Garrels
santafe199

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Cool pic, thank you!

Randy in PHX

Posted from iPhone

Assuming nose stripes serve a purpose to get attention at crossings and such,
I wonder if anyone has done a study of effectiveness if the stripes move upwards
like the Katy engine or downward like the WP engine.  Color probably has more to
do with that but he stripe direction was a decision too.

At some point, someone made the opposite decision for each road shown here.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/23 04:57 by WrongWayMurphy.

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I spy a GP30 coupled to 3517.  I do not notice any stripes on the end of the hood, so I'm guessing it's a NW or perhaps B&O GP30 rather than a DRGW unit.

Matthew

Roadmaster Wrote: > ...  I spy a GP30 coupled to 3517 ...

In the deep shadow, I'm betting it was a UP 30. If not, then it most likely would have been N&W. We've all learned to "never say never" in the RR world. But I don't remember ever seeing or hearing about B&O/C&O or D&RGW power at Salina during that era (1970s ~ 1980s+). My KS Gang bro Bob Helling was a UP hogger at Salina. A quick phone chat with him confirms my statement. Bob remembers taking the shot, and would have remembered that GP30 being something besides UP...

Lance

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/23 07:43 by santafe199.

Great side-by-side shot!

JG

Both units have five chime horns that sound very different from each other.

santafe199 Wrote: "I'm betting it was a UP 30 . . . Bob . . . would have remembered that GP30 being something besides UP..."

I took another look at the photo and, indeed, I can see 'UNION" on the long hood of that GP30.  "PACIFIC" is also visible on the long hood of 3517.

Matthew