ten occur on slow traffic days, Monday and Tuesday, while congestion-relat- ed detours happen on busy days, Fri- day, Saturday, and Sunday. Tie and rail replacement projects often begin in the spring and last into the sum- mer. It is impossible, however, to pre- dict reroutes due to derailments or bad weather.
Getting the detours to come at the right time can be a problem. Often I have seen a westbound fleet in the morning and eastbounds in the afternoon, all of them therefore coming out of the sun, which makes for bad pictures. On the other hand, the north-south stretch of the line through Topeka is a great place to capture morning westbounds, and in winter afternoons, eastbounds have good sun angle passing through the Lawrence north-south stretch near 2nd Street and Burcham Park.
Overhead photo locations are scarce, but grade-level spots are numerous. Goodell Road just northwest of Tecum- seh is a good place to wait for trains, while nearby the Route 4 overpass is al- so scenic but highway traffic
is too
heavy for lingering. I can no longer en- dorse getting shots from the U.S. 75 overpass south of Topeka because its interstate-level traffic makes such a move dangerous.
Wyandotte Street in De Soto can work for eastbounds on a weekend
morning, but only if you position your- self awkwardly in the railing adjacent to the narrow roadway. Ground level locations on the Topeka Sub are too nu- merous to mention, but I will list a few. Grain elevators at Pauline and Scran- ton provide a backdrop for morning westbounds.
If Amtrak No. 4 is late enough, one can get photos on or next to the historic Lawrence and Topeka depots. The Lawrence Amtrak station is particular- ly attractive thanks to major 2011 work that
installed a new platform and
lights. Such stations are also decent places to photograph freights. The semaphores are now gone, but as of July 2013, one classic Santa Fe can- tilever signal at Eudora (MP 19) is still standing.
On days with no reroutes, the Topeka Sub reminds me of the line as it was in the 1970s and 1980s. After Amtrak No. 4 goes east to Holliday, the Lawrence switcher will sometimes take cars from the small yard to an industrial park a few miles west of town. A six-day-a- week westbound manifest, the M-KCK- EMP, which since 2008 has replaced Local 31, might be working the Topeka yard before heading to Emporia, where its crew will lay over and return east the next day as M-EMPKCK. Several days a week the KPL train power may be setting out loads or pick-
ing up empties at Westar Energy plants in Lawrence or Tecumseh, then heading to Emporia and eventually re- turning to the western coal fields. In the afternoon the Topeka switcher will service customers near the Forbes Field facility that once hosted Topeka Railroad Days. For most of the line, rails may be silent for hours except for a passing track inspector or signal maintainer.
Ever Changing Challenge At any moment the traffic situation
can change. Such was the case on Octo- ber 9, 2006, when DS104 informed a maintenance-of-way worker that the track weld would have to wait. “545 West has left Holliday with two more at the fuel pad. It looks as if the whole world’s coming this way.” The excur- sions and the manned helpers are gone, but the locals, coal train, and Amtrak continue to share the rails with diver- sions on the Topeka Sub, a line that has gone through many phases and which is still worthy of attention.
Some of the information for this story came from David Berner, Dennis Gar- rett, Russell Honey, Keel Middleton, Austin Seely, and
Trainorders.com fo- rum users. They are blameless for any errors which might exist in this article.
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