Nostalgia & History > Santa Fe at Merrick Tower. July, 1984.

Santa Fe B23-7s-6396 & 6399 are E/B on the Emporia Sub, passing Merrick Tower. Radio chatter had the Dispatcher asking "Special 6396, what's your location?". Answer: "Comin' by Ellinor". Hmmm! What would it be? As I was later told by a Santa Fe employee, turns out it was a train load a nuclear waste. 10:01AM on 7-24-84 in Emporia, KS.

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That's the infamous "White Train". First and last cars are the guard cars with their cupola "gun turrets".



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/31/23 15:39 by PHall.

Nice catch! You sent me digging through my '84 time book. It shows me not working on the 23rd & 24th, so I didn't 'meet' this train anywhere. I also didn't know about it. I'm pretty sure I would have been out shooting a train this unusual someplace. Maybe even bumping into the photographer here at Merrick...

Lance/199



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/01/23 11:35 by santafe199.

That was such a unique tower!  Amazing that there wasn't any traffic on the turnpike!

That's one fine shot at Merrick Tower .  Thanks for sharing. 
Does the tower still stand ? 

Guitartrain Wrote:

> As I was later told by a Santa Fe employee, turns out it was a train load a nuclear waste.

Can't confirm what the train was carrying on that trip, but it was designed to handle warheads, not waste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Train

See also page 5 of this PDF: https://web.archive.org/web/20060927214554/http://www.mbe.doe.gov/me70/history/August06.pdf


UP951West Wrote:

> Does the tower still stand ? 

Demolished in 2006: https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,1140076

I was still living in nearby Wichita,KS that summer and remember the hullabaloo in the media over this train. Probably came off the Third District from Connell, on the Southside of Wichita. Connell siding was Santa Fe's access to both Boeing and Mc Connell Air Force Base. Mc Connell was a Strategic Air Command base and had a wing there responsible for the twenty Titan missle silos within a 200 mile radius of Wichita. At the time, the Air Force was decommissioning the Titan missles and disposing of them.

Chad Tyk

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