Headin' to Marysville!

[kskcsfan]

Via Hiawatha...
Back on May 31st, 2013 I found myself, along with a pair of fans some of you may have heard of, Lance Garrels and Luke Lohrmeyer chasing trains around Kansas City, my duo of friends had done this the day before, and ended up chasing a coal train to Marysville, via Hiawatha Lukes first success at chasing over the Hiawatha and Falls City Subs, so we decided to let history repeat itself, so after fanning around Argentine, we headed north, first on the Missouri side of the Missouri River, and then we crossed over at Atchison, KS. with word in hand of an approaching manifest. The chase was on, and as most of these shots tell, the late supper at Pizza Hut was very welcome!
1) We find our manifest, the MFWNP-30 behind a trio of GEs, we had saw this train in Kansas City but didn't know it was heading up here, so it was a welcome treat. Never the less, C44AC heads down and up southeast of Shannon with an SPatch in the consist.

2&3) We then get on US-73 and head for Lancaster, just west of town our manifest heads down a small grade and on towards Hiawatha, UP 6546 is the DPU.

 

[kskcsfan]

We caught word of a second train being on the way, intermodal train KMNOA-30 we headed back into Atchison to catch it, we wouldn't be able to shoot it there as it snuck up on us while we were shooting...
4) HLCX 3844 tied down awaiting local assignments and...

5) KCS 4028 awaiting the loading of a grain train, or perhaps the power of this weeks MATKC/MKCAT, between here and Kansas City.

6) After the intermodal train snuck up on us just after these shots, we headed back to Shannon, more in town this time, for our first shots of this train, with UP 5414 as the leader.

Now you can put on your seat belts, there's no following trains imminent so this is our hot ticket to Marysville, I promise!

 

[kskcsfan]

7&8) Getting back on US-73, we weren't able to beat the train to Lancaster, but we did get ahead of them before reaching Huron, no not the famous one, Huron, KS. I'm gonna take a side not her to point out that the clouds in the background are in a line of thunderstorms that contained a record breaking 2.6 mile wide EF3 (damage wise, wind wise it was an EF5) tornado that killed famous storm chasers Tim Samaras, his son Paul, and Carl Young.


9) We get back on US-73 and use the fact it's a busy enough highway to permit an overpass over the Falls City Sub at Willis, which is exactly where this shot was taken, just after some high thin clouds covered the sun.

10) Heading up 73 a few more miles we catch them again at Hiawatha, where they'll hang a left for Marysville the trains crossing the main drag through downtown

 

[kskcsfan]

US-36 is now our highway of choice for catching the train, but with the Hiawatha Sub being over 8 miles away at times it was decided to stick to towns closer than 4 miles from the highway. And so, without much more of a story than this, I'll just tell you the locations for the next few shots (plus, I have to leave soon )
11) Seneca, KS from US-36 proper.

12) Axtell, KS. for those with a telephoto lens this is a KILLER spot with a nice S curve.

13) Already posted, but what the heck, it fits the thread. UP 5414 is now in the yard at Marysville about to duck under US-77 at the east end of the yard, the cut of cars at right will be become the MMVSF, bound for Memphis, TN.

All for now, I'll try and get the pre-supper shots up soon.
Thanks for viewing! Hope you enjoyed them.
Lucas

 

[Bill Anderson]

Thanks for posting. I enjoyed the shots of the countryside.

 

[brad_in_omaha]

Nice work! I like number 10 in Hiawatha.

 

[kskcsfan]

Thanks for the comments!

 

[Trainfanne54]

Good shots kskcsfan.