Nostalgia & History > When it was still Emporia (vol #5)

In its prime Emporia, KS was a busy, 24/7/365 proposition for the Santa Fe. And you can see a few of those attributes in this image! The recently vacated Freight House still stands in the background with M.O.W. equipment stored on the old service tracks. Searchlight signals governed everywhere through town, nearly all of them on cantilevers or overhead signal bridges. Piggy-back vans ruled the day but containers were on the horizon. Extra-long, hi-cube auto parts boxcars were regular visitors, but 40 & 50 foot boxcars could still be found en masse on manifest trains. Emporia averaged 50-60 through trains a day, all of them changing crews! The caption tells more of this story>>v

1. AT&SF 3665 and 3514 are bringing a short intermodal hotshot down 3-Track into Emporia, KS. This is Denver Big Lift-bound train 194 BH-1. The inbound Eastern Division crew will ultimately stop the train, make a cut and pull ahead so a local switch crew can put a fill on the train. Right now the hogger is slowing his charge to let the rear end crews on waycar 999522 change on the roll, albeit no more than 4-5 MPH. The outbound head end crew is most likely in a van on the way to the middle of the yard to board the consist. When given the signal by radio, outbound Middle Division hogger Jimmy Mallon and his head brakeman will shove back, couple onto their train and wait for the carmen to give them an air test. When released this short little train will roll on down 3-Track to the Merrick crossovers on the west side of town. It will most likely cross over to the north main track while passing under the KS Turnpike. As soon as Jimmy gets a highball from his rear end crew he will maneuver his throttle into the “company notch” (run-8) this little rocket will reach 70 MPH very quickly... :^)
Photo date: December 29, 1977.

Thanks for remembering!
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/24 05:17 by santafe199.

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santafe199 Wrote:
>> As soon as Jimmy gets a highball from his rear end crew... >>

Click. Click.

DAF

Nice one, with an interesting back story. Why did railroading seem to be more "big time" back then? Where did the hustle go?

JG

jgilmore Wrote: > ... Why did railroading seem to be more "big time" back then?

For starters, there were a lot more people/jobs making the RR run. And there was much bigger variety of subjects to burn your Kodachrome on. They keep trying to make it more & more sterile, but there will always be flanged wheels on steel rails... :^)

Lance

Lance,
I believe it was Einstein who said, "Make it as simple as possible, and no simpler". That is railroads in my lifetime. Keep stripping away everything that isn't needed. However at times they try to strip it a little too much. Then need to replace what they stripped!
Sterile today's mainline railroading in a nutshell. Even most shortlines have lost the uniqueness they once had.
Gonut