Railroaders' Nostalgia > Udall, KS by request

By request from our own TO member “trainman” here are a couple of shots taken in Udall, KS on what used to be Santa Fe’s Middle Division 3rd District. This main line trackage ran between Newton, KS on the north (TT east) end & Arkansas City, KS on the south (TT west) end. While predominantly a passenger main, it ran through key locations such as Wichita and Mulvane, where it interacted with the Middle Division 4th District. Today the old 3rd District is BNSF’s Arkansas City Sub and the old 4th is now the BNSF Emporia Sub.

There’s quite a story involving image #1. At 0205 on the 24th I took my call and went to work out of Emporia on train 365 W-1 w/ consist: 6385, 6386 & 3070. We got tied up at Arkansas City at 0955. The pool was “spinning” and we went back on duty -on continuous time- at 1125 on this train (463). And to throw sand in the gear box, there was extensive track work on the 4th District, our normal path home. So this 463 would detour straight north (TT east) at Mulvane and run through Wichita up to Newton to access the 1st District for the 73 mile leg into Emporia. With 9’ 20” already against us we had NO prayer of making it back to Emporia by 1405. So we plodded along as far as Udall where we stopped on the main. The Chief had a crew taxi pick us up and haul us to Newton. We were supposedly going to get rested and work a train into Emporia later on. But as often happens, carefully laid plans went “poof”. We ended up deadheading back to Emporia... on the very same 463 we left Ark City on. So my crew ended up getting working day’s pay AND a deadhead day’s pay out of the same train! Ya gotta love it when a plan comes together...

1. AT&SF 3672 on train 463 W-1 with engineer B. A. “Red” Hamilton. Photo date: July 24, 1979.

2. AT&SF 3667 on a westbound (compass south) train on January 21, 1980. Definitely a typical Texas-bound manifest running the “long way” via Mulvane from Augusta to WN Jct at Winfield. Probably a 335, maybe a 325 or a 315 running late. I don’t remember how I came to be in that part of Kansas in January. It looks like I took this shot just off Main St south of the KS hwy 55 crossing.
(2 photos taken in Udall, KS)

Thanks for riding along!
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/12/21 10:50 by santafe199.

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Great story and photos, Lance!

RC Lundgren

Thanks Lance.

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