Railroaders' Nostalgia > Meet at Chelsea, empty lake

In the late 1970s, after I established myself as a competent railroader who could be relied on to do my job I began to loosen up in the usage of my camera while on duty. By 1980 I pretty much knew who was receptive to me shooting a slide now & then and those who weren’t. Even so, I didn’t go hog-wild with the photography. Which I thought was very prudent on my part. Still, there were certain pivotal moments in local RR history where I should have been more aggressive in my shooting.

When I took the shot below Santa Fe had already relocated its Middle Division 4th District main line over to this new routing. And the construction work on El Dorado Lake was nearing completion. In just a few short weeks water would be lapping at the right-of-way up ahead. But this is one of the very few shots I got of the construction at this stage. Opportunities missed...

1. AT&SF 8709 is eastbound with a manifest (803? 863?) at the west siding switch at new Chelsea, KS. I’m shooting from the front platform of AT&SF 5599 on train 138 O-1 w/ engr RD Bush at the throttle. We’ve got 87 cars in tow on May 16, 1980.

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels
santafe199

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Are those some of the first concrete ties on the ATSF?

Always nice to see new track. Fine photo.

Neat picture.

It appears as though Mr. Bush was not scared of a stop signal.

Back when the main was still on the as built south side. Later, they made that the siding, and the siding became the main.

Posted from Android

I left the middle division just a couple of weeks prior to the cut-over to the new route so have never ran over the portion in the picture.  As to the comment about the concrete ties they did install some between Aikman and old Chelsea as a test.  They started breaking up a few months later and were removed and replaced with standard wood ones,

Mark

RetiredHogger Wrote: > ... Mr. Bush was not scared of a stop signal ...

No reason to be scared. We're stopped well behind the signal...

The new tie and ballast combination was a disaster....I believe the ballast they put under the concrete ties was causing them to crumble so they had to go back and remove all the ballast and replace it...I was on the work train that shoved the equipment out to do that work for weeks.   We would run out in between traffic to do the work.

Neat shot to see it before it was filled. It was pretty crowded around El Dorado with all of those concrete ties.
They were everywhere.

Something else has changed since you took that shot Lance, the mile posts on the line change were re-arranged a little because it was a little longer. MP 166 is not in that location anymore, it was moved back east maybe ten car lengths or so. It was a very good landmark to know when coming into the siding at Chelsea in dense fog. I remember meeting an eastbound there one time with a loaded Red Rock coal train. The fog was terrible, I hit the east switch at 40 mph on a red over yellow signal, and began looking for the first milepost, 165, not too far into the siding. When I saw it, I hit my foot counter there, knowing the next signal was not too far beyond 166. I couldn't see a thing except a dim headlight of the train we were meeting crawling along, doing the same thing. I was slowing with the dynamic and a little air, watching the foot counter measure off the mile. When we came by mile post 166, we were down to about 10 mph. I finished off my stop a couple cars from the red signal, rear end just in the clear.  The conductor was sqirming around in his seat, so was I, but that's the fog for you. It was an "instrument landing". The new siding was only 7010 feet long, the Red Rocks back then were about 6600', so it just about filled up the siding.

Sphincter factor somewhere over 8.5 in the fog like that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/24 07:56 by atsfer.

LocoPilot750 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Something else has changed since you took that
> shot Lance, the mile posts on the line change were
> re-arranged a little because it was a little
> longer. MP 166 is not in that location anymore, it
> was moved back east maybe ten car lengths or so.
> It was a very good landmark to know when coming
> into the siding at Chelsea in dense fog. I
> remember meeting an eastbound there one time with
> a loaded Red Rock coal train. The fog was
> terrible, I hit the east switch at 40 mph on a red
> over yellow signal, and began looking for the
> first milepost, 165, not too far into the siding.
> When I saw it, I hit my foot counter there,
> knowing the next signal was not too far beyond
> 166. I couldn't see a thing except a dim headlight
> of the train we were meeting crawling along, doing
> the same thing. I was slowing with the dynamic and
> a little air, watching the foot counter measure
> off the mile. When we came by mile post 166, we
> were down to about 10 mph. I finished off my stop
> a couple cars from the red signal, rear end just
> in the clear.  The conductor was sqirming around
> in his seat, so was I, but that's the fog for you.
> It was an "instrument landing". The new siding was
> only 7010 feet long, the Red Rocks back then were
> about 6600', so it just about filled up the
> siding.
  Was with R.D. on a foggy night. It was hard to believe that fog could even be so thick. I was so new that I barely knew enough to be scared. We were on smoke 
and RD was running 30. The DS himself called us to ask what the problem was. RD was a good one to have an answer, but I don't recall what it was.
We were a little slower getting off at Wellington account having to scrape our eyeballs off the glass so we could take 'em with us. Can't imagine those guys that 
have to run in it on a regular basis.

Great "office" view...

JG

Just a mere 13 days after my marriage ! While dating , my fiance and I would venture over to get progress shots of the line relocation. With the double tracking recently , that area changed AGAIN !

Posted from Android

Thanks Lance- nice pic and backstory. Where did MP 0 begin--  to MP 166 in your image?
I'm not a Kansas guy or I probably would have known that Location. Up near Emporia?
 

OldPorter Wrote: > ...Where did MP 0 begin-- ...

MP "0" began (still does) at Kansas City Union Station. The Constitution St X-ing at MP 111.9 was the official MP marker for Emporia in the Santa Fe days. But that may have changed when Santa Fe re-aligned its operating divisions before the BN merger......

Lance/199

santafe199 Wrote:
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> MP "0" began (still does) at Kansas City Union
> Station. The Constitution St X-ing at MP 111.9 was
> the official MP marker for Emporia in the Santa Fe
> days. But that may have changed when Santa Fe
> re-aligned its operating divisions before the BN
> merger......

Thanks Lance. I've always been interested in MPs, and how they are arranged on the various RRs.

The good ol' SP made their MP Zero up in San Francisco; dating back to the old CPRR and its descendants.