435 Knoche Yard
East Yard
Neff Yard KANSAS CITY 24 E. 12th St.
E. Truman Rd. E. 17th St.
12 Centropolis UP (MP) 78
KCS/BNSF (CRIP/SLSF)
Blue Valley Siding
Blue Valley 40 70 Leeds Pittsburg Sub
Illustration by Otto M. Vondrak. Not all roads, lines and stations shown. Not an offi cial map. ©2015 White River Productions
AMTK - Amtrak BNSF - BNSF Railway CBQ - Chicago, Burlington & Quincy CP - Canadian Pacifi c CRIP - Chicago, Rock Island & Pacifi c ICE - Iowa, Chicago & Eastern (CP) KCS - Kansas City Southern KCT - Kansas City Terminal MILW - Milwaukee Road MP - Missouri Pacifi c SHRX - Belton, Grandview & Kansas City SLSF - St. Louis-San Francisco (“Frisco”) UP - Union Pacifi c
E. 85th ST. Dodson Missey 435 Eastwood Motive Power Retro Belles are the latest, and in Swope Park E R Y BLVD.
Gregory Viaduct
. G E. 86th ST. E. 87th ST.
my view the best, addition to the KCS locomotive inventory. Locomotives dressed in white ruled the rails through the 1970s. The first gray-and-yellow engines started appearing in 1988. Eleven years later the first of 50 GE AC4400CWs began arriving. Also gray and yellow, these 4,400 h.p., distributed power-ready engines began replacing the smaller EMD SD45s, SD40-2s, SD60s, and GP40-2. The first Retro Belle-painted engines
71 W 435 Bryant 435 470
began appearing on the property in 2007. These included EMD SD70ACe and GE ES44AC models. This paint scheme of red, yellow, and Brunswick green (which looks black) is based on the colors of Southern Belle passenger trains running from 1949 to 1969. Unfortunately, many engines you see on the Pittsburg Sub are not Retro Belles.
Operations Ever since the first Powder River 49 BLUE RIDGE BLVD. MAIN ST. Grandview 150
Grandview Siding
150 KANSAS CITY MISSOURI
Basin coal arrived on the Pittsburg Sub in November 1976, the vast majority of these unit trains have been powered by locomotives from Burlington Northern and successor BNSF, as well as Union Pacific. Unit crude oil trains, which began appearing in 2012, as well as frac sand movements, have also tended to run with non-KCS engines from UP and Canadian Pacific. In 2014 and 2015, unit coal movements
Center Point Intermodal Facility
49 0 D MILES 58 West Belton Belton 58 33 1 2 3
headed south from Kansas City toward many on-line and off-line locations. Most common have been train sets for the La Cygne power station just west of Amsterdam, Mo. Although these trains could drop in the future as some plants put more reliance on natural gas, coal traffic remained strong through the summer of 2015. Fortunately manifest, intermodal, and grain movements use KCS power, which
435
Hawthorn Power Plant
24
siding switches controlled by dispatchers at KCS headquarters in Kansas City. South of Grandview is the CenterPoint/ IFG (International Freight Gateway) intermodal facility opened in 2008. It has an 8,448-foot siding, but dispatchers do not use it for meets. Trains do not move very fast on
the Pittsburg Sub. The maximum speed is just 55 m.p.h., and there are some permanent 45 m.p.h. speed restrictions. In addition, a 15-mile-long .5 percent grade from about milepost 8 to Grandview’s Main Street (milepost 23.5) slows down southbounders. Heavy unit trains manage only 15-25 m.p.h. out of Kansas City. There is also a .5 per cent grade from milepost 37 to milepost 29 for northbounders, but since unit trains coming in this direction are empty, the incline is not an obstacle.
BLUE PKWY
BLUE RIDGE BLVD.
E
HOLMES RD.
KCS
UP (MP)
SHRX (SLSF)
PROSPECT AVE.
UP/AMTK (MP)
i
BL
ICE/UP (CRIP/MILW)
Air Line Jct.
U
R
I
D
G
E BLVD.
River
G
E. 63rd ST.
E R
O
KCS
BNSF/NS/UP/AMTK (ATSF/MP)
KCT/AMTK
M i s
s o u
r
UP (MP)
KCS (CBQ)
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