May 31 and June 1, 2015
K.C. Union Station area and
"Kansas Belle" dinner train

by Dave Ingles

Our five-car High Iron Travel/Iowa Pacific chartered private-car train pulled into the northerly private-car track just west of Kansas City Union Station, and south of the Amtrak platforms, at 2:17 p.m. Sunday after completing 791 miles of travel on BNSF from St. Louis to Memphis to Springfield, Mo., and K.C. The train would continue Monday on to West Quincy, Mo., over the former CB&Q, then couple onto Amtrak’s “Illinois Zephyr” #380 on Tuesday morning to get the cars and the remaining passengers to Chicago.

With the planned early-afternoon Sunday K.C. arrival, Jim Fetchero, IPH’s manager of car movements, and Clark Johnson had set up an evening charter on the “Kansas Belle” dinner train, which runs 10.5 miles on a former Santa Fe branch from Baldwin City, Kans., south to Ottawa Jct., within sight of BNSF’s “Transcon” main freight route. This is the Midland Railway, a tourist line begun in 1987, two years after Santa Fe sold off the branch. According to the “Belle’s’ owner, Bruce Eveland, he relocated to Kansas in 2012 after two decades operating out of Fremont, Nebr., on an old Chicago & North Western line (part of the early Fremont & Elkhorn Valley), and began his Kansas service in early 2013, using Midland locomotives and his cars.

Once at K.C. Union Station, we had until 5 p.m. to do as we wished, that being the time our charter bus was to leave for Baldwin City, 45 miles or so southwest of K.C. My roomette in “Cimarron River” was on the south side, so I could not readily witness the parade of BNSF and UP mainline freights passing Union Station. I did snap a few shots (below), then concentrated on packing my clothes etc., so I could easily change trains next morning, as I was taking Amtrak’s “Southwest Chief” to Chicago and foregoing another day-plus of “old mileage” on the BNSF Circle Trip. I also listened to the K.C. Royals game on the radio, and chatted with friends in the Caritas’s lounge. My first action photo after stopping was this DPU set on an eastbound BNSF train, 5526/6938, at 2:20 p.m., I then stepped off, when the sun came out, to shoot our parked train (photo above).

One unusual move I was able to photograph was this westbound Kansas City Terminal transfer run at 2:45 behind two GP38s, WAMX 3935/3931, belonging to shortline holding company WATCO, which provides KCT’s power. (We remember when KCT owned Alco S2s, then EMD SW1200s.)

Amtrak’s morning “Missouri River Runner” #311 from St. Louis soon arrived, unloaded, and went on west to turn around near the old KCT roundhouse area for its return to St. Louis as #316 at 4 p.m. It is shown at 2:54 pulling back alongside the platform after turning on the wye.

The “Cimarron River” ex-Frisco sleeper is owned by Meteor Rail, the company of St. Louis brothers Tony and Andy Marchiando. Andy lives elsewhere but had just arrived on Amtrak #311 to ride the car the next day; Tony had ridden all 3 days from St. Louis, but would return home on next morning’s “River Runner.’ I caught them conversing behind the Caritas after Andy’s arrival; Andy is the one in the Frisco Cimarron River hat.

Our bus, Heartland Lines #161, showed up around 4:30 or so and we gradually began boarding. The driver had never been to Baldwin City, and there is no direct route to U.S. 56 from I-35 to easily get there, so three of us sitting up front, with maps, helped out the driver. We got off I-35 and went north toward 56 between Gardner and  Edgerton, but went 1 mile too far; the result being that we got a look at BNSF’s new Logistics Park intermodal facility before going south on another back road to 199th St. and then west to 56. As we pulled up at the BNSF “Transcon” grade crossing on 199th, just short of 56, an eastbound intermodal train was passing by at moderate speed. After its last car passed, the gates stayed down a few moments and then … WHOOSH – a westbound intermodal led by 7959 zoomed by. Two for the price of one, and because of our routing error. In the last photo, that’s Rob Mangels, the “mechanical man” hired by IPH for the BNSF Circle Trip, in the green shirt. He, I, and Reg Mitchell teamed to help the bus driver, who was relying on his GPS unit but obviously wasn’t sharp on using the back roads. We arrived Baldwin City around 6 and thanks to folks who knew the town from previous visits, went thru to the town’s west side to find the railroad.

The Midland Railway had just concluded the first of two consecutive “Thomas the Tank Engine” weekends, so portable fencing to guide the horde of families remained in place, which actually helped us get from our bus parked at streetside across from the depot onto the train. The depot is lettered simply “Baldwin,” no “City,” I don’t know why. Our train of 6 cars had a diesel on each end: ex-MKT RS3M 142 (re-engined by EMD for MKT in the 1950s) on the north, 4 cars set up for dining, one with a lunch counter, said to be of IC and/or CN origins, an ex-MILW combine from the “Olympian Hiawatha,” and ex-N&W boxcar serving as a tool and power generator car, and ex-CB&Q/BN NW2 524 on the south end. Normally the “Kansas Belle” runs midday on Sundays as a brunch train, but account “Thomas” was free for our evening charter.

That’s Bruce Eveland helping us board; we ate in “Maple Creek,” third car from the north end. My table-mates were Phil Moser next to me, with Chuck Weinstock and John Arbuckle across from me. John, a frequent rare-mileage-trip rider, drove up from his home in Hutchinson, Kans., just to ride the dinner train with his mileage-collector friends. We had our choice of beef or chicken; both were quite good. A cash bar was available for those who desired. Two waitresses served us, and Bruce Eveland helped out.

We left Baldwin City at 6:33 and arrived at “Ottawa” (Midland’s sign along a runaround siding just north of the Santa Fe main) at 8 p.m., typical dinner-train speed altho Midland has upgraded its track and often runs at 25 mph. The sun, about to set, came out from beneath clouds as we arrived at Ottawa, so some people got off to grab a couple of photos. The three presented here were taken by Neil Lang of Oakland, Calif., and are used with his permission.

We left northbound at 8:10, enjoyed strawberry cheesecake for dessert, arrived back at Baldwin at 9:35, and immediately boarded the bus and departed. Retracing our steps, we went thru Edgerton and turned right on 199th Street, and just as we turned, the gates came down and a westbound intermodal thundered past at high speed, punctuating our outing.

Monday, June 1:

The BNSF Circle Train was scheduled to leave at 8 a.m., and Amtrak #4 “Southwest Chief” was pretty much on-time, scheduled in at 7:25. Our PV car attendants, Rick Sprung and Don Crimmin, had arranged for the gates in the fence separating the PV tracks from the depot platform to be unlocked, and helped Phil Moser, Keith White, and me get over to the platform. A station employee with an electric go-cart was to come fetch our luggage and give me a ride, but without any sign of him, we walked east as far as the stairway up to the station’s walkway.

As soon as we reached that resting point, BNSF 7313 led four units by on an eastbound intermodal train, passing under the old, relocated railroad truss bridge that, its top rung now bedecked with local railroad emblems, has become a pedestrian bridge connecting the parking area and Union Station to the south of the KCT main line with restaurants and other night spots to the north. The station employee showed up, and as he drove us and our bags west to make a U-turn to head back to the east end of the platform, here came P42s 187/20/190 with our 9-car train #4, at 7:17. I took what were the last two significant frames of the trip, and the three of us boarded our sleeper, 32091 “Minnesota,” 4th car behind the engines, for the relatively uneventful trip to the Chicago area. The cart driver’s wave to #4’s engineer will serve as our “farewell salute” to an educational and fun five days.

 

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