Railroaders' Nostalgia > Does anyone remember Salina?

With my current computer travails I was making use of some relatively free time. As is my semi-habit, I took the short hop over to my second hometown of Abilene to snoop around. Sometimes BNSF has something going, sometimes not. From there I can always take a 30" left turn down to the former Rock Island GSR at Herington, or head north & west into the back roads to go look for the KYLE. Or I can run the 20+ miles on down old US hwy 40 and check up on Uncle Pete at the division point of Salina, KS.

But the last few times I've been in Salina have produced very few photographic results. The place is becoming a ghost town before my very eyes. Back in the 70s & 80s and later Salina could be counted on to have a very busy RH with all kinds of power sitting around, espcially 'foreign' paint schemes. So much so that we used to call the place "Little North Platte". There were round-the-clock switch engines, and with 4 or 5 locals based out of Salina the caboose track always seemed to be occupied. And a shooter could always count on two manifests each way every day + extras, including semi-hotshot trains 117 & 118.

All that activity has dwindled down to a daily SITP (Salina ~ Topeka) train carrying what little eastbound traffic has materialized. And quite a bit of that tonnage is recieved from the KYLE's sporadic interchange, maybe 3 or 4 trains a week via nearby Solomon. Grain traffic will always be there, but most of that turns south at Abilene. And the coal traffic that arose in the 90s has all but disappeared. West of Salina UP runs a manifest train to Denver. But it is reportedly run "as needed", certainly not daily. Uncle Pete has moved its crew change facilities out of the former Union Station and into a shack behind the old yard office, where there is no longer any yardmaster on duty. YIKES! Salina, KS doesn't have a yardmaster any more!! And the RH looks like it's drying up as well. They've even removed the turntable...

During my 9 year stint with Santa Fe ('78 ~ '87) we used to look at the UP as our playfully fierce, arch-rivals in the area. But nowadays there is hardly anything to be a rival with...

1. & 2. Uncle Pete's entire yard east of the Ohio St overpass is 100% empty. That's FIRST time I can recall ever seeing such emptiness in Salina, KS. Photos taken May 6, 2021.

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels
santafe199

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I sure remember Salina, and have visited it many times on long treks on I-70 between my old hometown of St. Louis and Colorado. If you make the drive in two "normal days", and don't try to push farther west to Hays, or (ouch!) Oakley (almost in Colorado), Salina is the usual spot to tie up for the night. Then go the rest of the way to the mountains on the second day. And most stops would call for some time trackside, and getting reacquainted with Uncle Pete (before he came to St. Louis).

But never -- and I do mean never -- would I ever have expected to see an image like this. I know the yard, I know the spot. But to see it completely, totally empty like this? Never saw it. Never would have expected it.

I fear for what images like these mean. Not just here, but other places where I have seen such scenes of once bustling facilities utterly bereft of traffic.I totally get all of the economic arguments made for railroading as practiced today (even pre-PSR), even if I may not agree with them all. And I understand how Uncle Pete now evidently has enough capacity up in Nebraska with so many fewer PRB coal trains (and also, unfortunately, without other traffic that has been run off) that almost everything can route that way. Concentrating traffic there just makes sense, even if it also is not what it once was. Ever watch the Kearney, Neb. Virtual Railfan webcam for a while? Sorry to break the news: it's not the Big Yellow Streetcar of days of yore anymore.

But it's also indicative of radically changed local economies in places like Salina that aren't apparently helping to keep yard like this busy anymore. Or that are -- even worse -- still producing traffic that the railroad can haul, but it isn't going by rail anymore, for whatever reason. All of that just makes for ammunition for the Wall Street vultures and their PSR minions. The easier, lower-hanging PSR fruit has done been harvested, boys and girls. The lines of locos in storage  are done parked in yards, the switch jobs are done annulled, the locals of old have gone poof. Monster trains are everywhere, with little or none of the makeup by traffic types that we once knew and that customers valued -- remember them? It's all very efficient, and the stock prices show it, and Wall Street is happy. But what about Main Street? What about places like, yes, Salina?

It won't be enough. It's never enough for those locust hordes. They never have their fill -- never. Thank goodness some of them are, at least based on recent reports here on TO, finally asking at shareholder meetings about growing top line revenue once again by, yes, actually going out and getting new traffic that can help fill a yard...like at Salina. Imagine that!! How creative!!

But that takes time, and work, and patient customer contacts, and Wall Street is nothing if not impatient. So, whaddya gonna do for us, Uncle Pete, for the next quarter, huh? Huh? C'mon, make it snappy -- I gotta write that research report and need a new operating ratio target...and it better be good! Really? That's all you can do for me? The Street ain't gonna like it, Pete. Nope. Not one little bit. You gotta do better than that.

So....next it will be the track and the plant. You can do track and physical plant reductions quicker than you can build new traffic -- especially at the elevated margins expected now. So, why is it that you say you need that underused yard in Salina? Really? What good do empty tracks do -- and you gotta pay taxes on 'em, too. Why do we need that other yard in Wherever, Kansas or Somewhere, Nebraska?

And yes, do you really even need the KP? A whole parallel line from Denver to KC? That's a lot of capital tied up, maintenance expense, cost to keep at least minimum crew boards. It adds up, you know. And, since you're are no longer the Big Yellow Streetcar of Yore across Nebraska, and only now carry traffic that you really, really, really want (still a common carrier?  what a quaint old concept...!!), do you really still need that third main up there that costs a mint to maintain? Oh, and don't forget, your bonus depends on lowering the operating ratio another X percent. Just don't want you to forget that little detail.

I fear those kind of things are what that empty yard in Salina ultimately can mean. And I fear for that, and for what it means, for lots of places like Salina. Places that need to be remembered....and not forgotten.

MC



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/21 13:34 by ironmtn.

Lonely looking pictures, Lance.

RC Lundgren

The removal of the yardmaster craft at many locations has become quite common. BNSF abolished Enid yardmasters in 2020, with UP doing same here @ Wichita also last year. Ouch.

Sad images to be certain with a good write up.  Let me ask, though, what was the traffic base that was in this yard.  What local traffic?  Obviously, it wasnt coal?  If grain, where does it now load?

Thanks!

skyview Wrote: > ... what was the traffic base that was in this yard ...

Salina was (still is) a crew change point for mainline trains between Kansas City & Denver. Those trains got cut & fill work at Salina, which accounts for some of the need for yard trackage. But once upon a time Salina hosted locals running to & from numerous locations, both main line & branch. Here's a run-down given to me by my long time Kansas Gang bro Bob Helling ("PRose" here on TO) during his career as a UP hogger at Salina: 

Local trains #157 & #156 ran to & from Ellis, and later Oakley when Ellis was eliminated as crew change point. They were ran out on Monday/Wednesday/Friday and back Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday with the crew laying over. Although on occasion the crew had time enough to double right back to Salina from Ellis.

Local trains #183 & #184 ran to Plainville, KS on that namesake branch on M/W/F and back T/T/S. The power for these locals was usually swapped out at Plainville with the Ellis (later Oakley)-based local trains #185 & #186 that ran into Plainville from the west.

Local trains #166 & #165 ran via Solomon up to Beloit, KS to connect with the Mop.This local was run "as needed" of off the extra board(s) at Salina.

Local trains #181 & #182 (known colloquially as "the Dink") ran to McPherson, KS as a daily down & back turn. It was advertised to work 6 days a week with Sunday off. But it was usually annulled on Saturdays unless there was some "hot car(s)" that needed handling.

Local trains #158 & #159 worked main line towns (predominantly Abilene) between Salina and the old crew change point of Junction City. This train ran over to J. C. on M/W/F and back T/T/S. Even though it was only 20-some-odd miles between the 2 points. In later days the crew was transported back & forth for tie-up and on duty times, eliminating the layover at Junction City.

In the mid-20 the Century there were many dozens of small Kansas towns on the UP that had various & sundry local businsses needing rail service/transportation. Not to mention the fact that also in those days every little whip-stitch Kansas town had a grain elevator the would take a small handful of hoppers now & then. During summertime "wheat rushes" all of these towns went into absolute high gear! So with all of this local traffic swirling around Salina yard was constantly full of cars going every which-way! But as the 70s & 80s morphed into the 90s & beyond the general trend was for the Big Bad RRs to consider this local business as not profitable enough to compete for. The grain & ag business was centralized in huge transloading spots that sprang up in key locations. Big 100+-car "unit trains" were here to stay, and the rest of that local business was swatted away like flies buzzing about their corporate faces. It was trucks to the rescue. Pity that from a railfan standpoint, but RR business must roll on...

Lance/199



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/21 07:39 by santafe199.

Hard to beleive so much business has disappeared.  Thanks for all the information, very interesting to read!!!!