THIS MONTH’S TOP NEWS STORIES AND PHOTOS
Metra’s Highliners Sent Out to Pasture
Against the dramatic backdrop of the Chicago city skyline, Metra SW1500 No. 9 (ex-Cotton Belt No. 2590) shoves eight retired “Highliner” electric multiple-unit cars around the bend at Canal Street to gain access to the St. Charles Air Line and the former Rock Island line. The oldest Highliners were built by St. Louis Car Co. in 1971 to replace the 1920s-era equipment then in use on the Illinois Central. These cars were pulled from storage at Roundout, Ill., for their fi nal run to a South Side scrapper on January 18, 2015. PHOTO BY KEVIN SADOWSKI
BNSF RAILWAY SAYRE KOS
In December 2014, BNSF added Train M-WQMBAR
Operations (Manifest,
West Quincy,
Mo.-Barstow, Calif.) to its service plan. The train, which operates via Brookfield, Mo., and the former Chicago, Burlington & Quincy to Kansas City, Mo., and on to Barstow, Calif., over the former Santa Fe, departs West Quin- cy at 4:00 a.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, arriving in Barstow 70 hours and 15 minutes later. On Tuesday, Thursday, Satur- day, and Sunday, Train M-WQMKCK runs only as far as Argentine Yard in Kansas City, Kan., on a ten-hour, 40-minute schedule. These West Quincy originators operate off a new, daily M-GALWQM (Manifest, Gales- burg, Ill.-West Quincy) that operates in addi- tion to an existing H-GALKCK (High Priority Manifest, Galesburg-Argentine Yard) sched- ule on the Brookfield Subdivision. In an effort to route traffic around Kansas City, BNSF operated several extra manifest symbols in November and December. Illus- trating this strategy, Train M-HUTBAR4-08 (Manifest, Hutchinson, Kan.-Barstow) de- parted Hutchinson on November 11, 2014, and ran east to Newton, Kan., then south to Wellington, Kan., and west via the for- mer Santa Fe Transcon. The train consisted of mostly tank cars of liquefied petroleum
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RAILFAN.COM
(LP) gas for multiple California destina- tions, as well as some grain and salt loads for West Coast terminals. Further, multiple M-NEWSPM (Manifest, Newton-Springfield, Mo.) trains have operated south to Welling- ton, then west to Avard, Okla., and over the new wye there to Enid and Tulsa, Okla., to access Springfield. On the subject of Kansas City, BNSF tran- sitioned the last intermodal volumes from its new Logistics Park-Kansas City to its new fa- cility west of Gardner, Kan. The last traffic out of the Sunflower Lift near Argentine Yard was volume bound for northern California. Further to the drawdown at Sunflower Lift comes news that BNSF closed its intermod- al facility at Fresno, Calif., on December 8, adding to a growing list of closed BNSF inter- modal facilities in California, including Bar- stow, Modesto, Richmond, Bakersfield, and San Diego. With the closure of Fresno also comes the abolishment of Train Q-RICWSP (Guaranteed Service Intermodal, Richmond, Calif.-Willow Springs, Ill.). The refrigerator cars that moved on Q-RICWSP will be shift- ed to Z-STOWSP7 trains (Priority UPS-LTL Intermodal, Stockton, Calif.-Willow Springs). Railcars will still be loaded at Fresno; howev- er, trailers that were loaded here will move via highway to Stockton for loading onto rail- cars there.
The weekly McKay Cold Transport reefer
trains have not operated despite westbound symbols U-LPCCNJ9 (Logistics Park, Joliet,
Ill.-Conejo, Calif.) and eastbound symbols U-CNJLPC9 (Conejo-Logistics Park) being considered active in the service plan. Instead, this traffic has been moved piecemeal in oth- er trains, in stark contrast to the dedicated trains of 30 Super Reefers (sometimes only half of those loaded to protect the service). Typically, the trains operated with loads of milk westbound, and eastbound with fruits and vegetables.
Locomotive News
During November 2014, BNSF received from General Electric new ES44C4s 8157-8159, 8162-8165, 8177, 8183, and 8185-8199. This last batch of new GEs completes the 2014 or- der of ES44C4s. In 2015, BNSF has on tap 330 new locomotives, including 6500-6504 (which arrived on property in November 2014) and 6505 and 6506 (which arrived on property in December 2014). All the 330 units scheduled for 2015 delivery are believed to be GE products since Electro-Motive is behind in getting its new Tier 4 emissions units into production. BNSF also received the remainder of its 20-unit SD70ACe-P4 purchase from Prog- ress Rail at Mayfield, Ky., in November 2014, which included the 8514, 8515, and 8518. During November, BNSF received two GP39-3R rebuilts from Relco in Albia, Iowa. BNSF 2628 started its career as Atchison,
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