Railroaders' Nostalgia > Forty years ago...

...I passed this way

In my recent ramblings around north-central & north-western Kansas I was mostly looking to cover the KYLE, a regional RR comprised of the western half of the Rock Island's Rocky Mountain Rocket main line and stems & chunks of a handful of Missouri Pacific and Union Pacific branch lines. Over about a 10 day stretch I made a few forays into the area, and I did pretty well. I was especially pleased to get some extended coverage of the KYLE's recently acquired, oddball UTAH units. But I also got some unexpected bonus stuff. I ended up shooting dozens of "ghost" images in former Mop branch line territory, including a few depots I never knew still existed. And I also ran across my old Santa Fe working turf. Although I'm embarrassed to say I didn't even recognize it.

Driving south from Downs, KS I rolled over a RR crossing with paved over rails. And on either side the rails were completely beyond anything you would call recently rusted. They were solid dark brown in color. Not one to waste a literary opportunity, I let this episode spawn another RRer's Nostalgia offering. Take a good look at images 1 & 2, and then read on:

1. & 2. Looking due west from KS hwy 181: This is greater metropolitan Corinth, KS! Population, you ask?? Er... umm...... Hmmm... Whch way is the wind blowing? :^)

Somewhere in the ballast supporting those faded old ties & beyond-rusted rails are the boot prints of a 25 year old Santa Fe brakeman. They shouldn't be too hard to locate! They're ONLY 40 years, 3 months old...

In February of 1981 I was force-assigned to a regular job known then as local train 1351/1352 (WB/EB). On Mondays & Thursdays we went on duty at Abilene @ 0700 and ran north up the Strong City District to Manchester, then west out to Barnard over the Minneapolis District. The job mostly took care of agricultural business at Talmage, Minneapolis, Ada & Barnard. Service was "as needed", so the actual run was annulled on once in a while. But we still got paid the basic 100 mile day.

---

---

On Tuesdays & Fridays we went on duty at Abilene @ 0600 and ran west over the UP with any tonnage up from Emporia that needed forwarding on to Salina. Once done with station work we got on the former Salina Northern RR, known then as the Salina District. We ran out to the end of the line at Osborne where we connected with the Mop. We usually toted a healthy string of empty grain hoppers which were peddled out a few at a time to every little whip-stitch burg that had an elevator. Arriving at Osborne we took care of whatever transfer work there was with the Mop, and put together the next day's outbound train. After getting a good night's rest at the "Camelot Inn" motel, the next moring we snarfed down a hearty breakfast at the local beanery. We were on duty @ 0700 to run back east to Abilene. At those same little whip-stitch burgs we picked up any grain loads that were released and ready to go.

There's something to be said for the easy going pace of a local train like 1351/52! During my career I always enjoyed the work routine involved in switching out & spotting grain elevators and other business locations. Local work was always a pleasure when you were part of a crew that worked well together. So with my tongue stuck firmly in my cheek, I will state unequivocally that working a local broke the utter monotony of always working some 70 MPH hotshot and being on duty significantly less than 8 hours to make a day's pay. But ya know... when my seniority situation improved to the point where I could bid off the job and go back home to the brakeman's extra board at Emporia, what do you s'pose I did? (heh heh heh... ;^)

3. Now looking due east from the same 181 crossing: I will never forget looking from an engine cab into bright morning sunlight like this, especially on Saturday mornings. After Forney, Corinth was actually the 2nd station out of Osborne. Further down this track were some exotic-sounding names like Tipton, Hunter, Ash Grove, Denmark, Goldenrod, Lincoln (formerly Lincoln Center), Barton, Westfall, Juniatta, Glendale & Hedville. At Lincoln we used to cross Uncle Pete's more famous "Plainville Branch". And at Salina we would pick up whatever Emporia tonnage we could handle, get on the UP and run the final 23 miles back into Abilene.

*It's confession time! About that so-called good night's rest. On Fridays our crew had one absolute rule that could not be broken under any circumstances. We simply HAD to be tied up at Osborne by 5 PM. Oh yeah, we had to make that deadline by hook or by crook, which often translated into 'hustling our asses off' at station stops along the way. Here's the deal: Osborne had a local watering hole that advertised a happy-hour "2-for-1" special. Between 5 & 6 PM you could purchase two 20-oz drafts of your favorite beer for the price of one. Once we were inside this fine imbibing establishment we had one final rule that had to be observed. And that rule was every member of the crew had to buy one round within happy hour. Since we were only too happy to do this it quite often led to the whole crew forgoing supper time, or the consumption of any kind of chow al all! You see, there were pool tables and a loud juke box pulsing with the hits of the day, both rock/pop & country. There were also lots of bar patrons of the decidedly feminine persuasion. No further explanation will be provided here. I suspect it isn't necessary anyhow... ;^)

Suffice to say, the beanery we sometimes ignored at suppertime would often rescue us the next morning! This rescue was from the not-so-nice after-effects of fooslishly extending our own version of happy hour well into the evening. It's just plain amazing what a large plate of country-style biscuits & gravy with a huge sausage patty and an ice-cold glass of milk can soak up...
(3 photos taken April 11, 2021. Oh my... if those rails could only talk... ;^)

Thanks for looking back 40 years!
Lance Garrels
santafe199

Post-script: Nowadays the K&O operates most of my old Salina District, including running rights over the UP between Salina and Abilene. But the line has been truncated in the west, and no longer runs all the way to Osborne. I believe it's still in place as far as Tipton, and maybe even as far as this spot I found at Corinth. In a recent conversation with a K&O man I learned that their grand plans to run unit grain shipments east out of Tipton ran into a political brick wall. After they did some considrable M.O.W. upgrading work! Imagine that...

*Oh yeah, one final fact: Due to the usual winter time slow down there were always more qualified engineers than there were actual engineer jobs. So local train 1351/52 sometimes had a fireman on the crew. Try to imagine what that meant during "happy hour 2-fers"!

---

Gosh, what a great human/railroad  story.  Thanks Lance.

Neat story, Lance. Well-written, with the kind of evocative detail that makes it come alive for us -- whether or not the crew that week included the fireman for an additional round at the bar on Friday evening.

I hope that these "trips down memory lane" have been good for you, and as interesting and enjoyable as they have been for us.

MC

After departing Osborne, we stopped to pick up a load of wheat at Corinth, I can't remember the details, but we had our waycar on the rear of our pick up, and headed out to our train on the main line. The 130 ton hopper broke all the ties under the north rail, and decided to roll almost over, twisting the waycar over off it's truck at the same time. We got got uncpupled from them some how, and headed for Salina with no caboose, just a flag on the rear car. Like I said I don't remember anymore how we happened to have the waycar in there behind our pick up, it was 40 years ago, but it was all "Uncle Jerry's" Idea, so it must have made sense to him somehow.