Railroaders' Nostalgia > Yard Limit Emporia

How many of you model railroaders out there had one of these little white ‘yard limit’ signs with the black letters; raise your hands. Wow...... I see hands going up all over the place! Now keep your hands up if you had no clue where to properly place those signs on your layout. Ooh, I see a few hands just dropped. But not mine. I cheerfully (read: ignorantly) plopped my yard limit sign down wherever I thought it looked good. I still remember the day I shot this slide. I wondered why a yard limit sign was posted next to the main line and not in the yard somewhere! It wasn’t until the Santa Fe ended my model railroading days that I would learn about “Yard Limits” and all of the accompanying operating rules. I always meant to come back on a sunny morning and redo this shot with a nose-lit EB train coming out of Emporia Yard, like this 513 was. But you know us railfans and our infamous “come back and shoot it later” attitudes! It never happened, and before long the Santa Fe changed Emporia’s yard limit territory. And this sign was removed from its spot here at Constitution Street, which was MP 111.2 in the Eastern Division timetable...

On this crappy Monday in March I had the day off from my interim job flipping burgers for Hardees up on 12th St. I had come to a crossroads and had to quit my 3½ year job with the USPS up in Manhattan. I was now a temporary tenant, staying with future fellow SFe brakeman & my fellow KS Gang bro Dave Franz and his gracious wife Jeanne. That way I could pester the Eastern Division employment office 2 or 3 times a week. My wife Cheryl was still living and working in Manhattan, awaiting news that I was going to be hired down here on the RR. My application with AT&SF was in, but I was still a couple of months away from getting that phone call, which actually came from Middle Division HQ over in Newton.

When Santa Fe finally did hire me onto the ol’ 1:1 scale, aka the real thing my modeling days would vanish forever. And I would be getting paid to know all about the operating rules. Rules such as ‘yard limits’ and where the denoting signs should be posted. My future was wide open and my excitement was, as they say off the chart! Those were some pretty heady days for an almost 23-year-old kid...

1. AT&SF 8726 is leading train 513 L-1 out of the eastbound yard and onto the main line in Emporia, KS. It was a bit unusual to find a 6-axle 8700 on a train that originated in Texas. But here it is, on March 13, 1978.

Thanks for listening!
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/06/22 23:13 by santafe199.

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santafe199 Wrote:
>> I was now a temporary tenant, staying with future fellow SFe brakeman & my fellow KS Gang bro Dave Franz and his gracious wife Jeanne.>>

I remember those days! That was a cold damp spring (like in that photo), waiting for the phone to ring.
DAF

If only the view from Constitution Street still looked that good...

I was thinking the very same thing when I posted the image...

;^(

Nice story and shot, Lance!

RC Lundgren

Gee Lance, I flipped hamburgers at that same Hardee's about a year after you did....  

Bruce in KC