Help the non railfan understand

[Anonymous]

I live in Salina, KS and I've noticed that we have 19 UP Locomotives in town. There are also tons of everytype of coal hoppers and covered hoppers loaded and empty. I'm also seeing tons of box cars mostly MP, railbox, CSX and others.
Everything from 50' to 86' High cubes.

Why would UP dump so much equipment here in town? We have a small maintenance area in fact the diesel tanks would even fill half of these locos up.

In case your wondering they are GP-38's, C44-AC, C60-AC and SD40's

The numbers are 3486, 3778, 6526, 4892,3342, 2430, 9325, 3312, 7516, 6787, 7256, 6825, 6416, 6710, 7250 6390, 2538, 2584, 2568.

The town has several grain elevators and some small manufacturers that ship mainly by truck. In fact the Graves truck line was based here until they were bought out. Also there isn't a power plant here that uses coal for power so I'm wondering why there is a coal consist on the tracks for a week.

We don't normally have more than 3 or 4 locomotives in town. So did the UP close down it's tracks west of here or what?

thanks,

DT

PS I like the model trains because small mechanical things interest me in fact if I doesn't have 5 moving parts I'm not interested.

[Anonymous]

They may be storing engines, but I don't know for sure. The AC44s and AC6000s probably disqualify this entry.

[Anonymous]

Maybe your town's a hub for storing equiptment. Do you ever see them move? If not then dougal's probably right, only who store an AC6000??

[dave9999]

Ask this over on the TRAINS forum. There is a lot of knowledgeable people over there. Dave


P.S. Not that the people here are dumb.[8D]

[johncolley]

Everything responds to the one basic law...Supply and Demand. Through the summer and fall there will be a demand in the east for Wyoming coal, Montana oil and Dakota grain. Those trains will move! Kansas is the hub. You are well situated. johncolley tholcapn sailnrail Port Townsend, WA

[dehusman]

Maintenance curfews and weather problems near KC.
Frozen coal in the trains or plant maintenance slows down the unloading process and the power plants back up. Salina is a holding point for the coal trains out of Colorado (DRGW) going to the Gulf Coast and Mississippi valley.

Dave H.

[Anonymous]

Dear DT1967,
For a non-railfan you sure know a lot about railroads [:)][:D]! But to answer your questions:

1.) Kansas City has become second only to Chicago as the major railroad hub of North America, where all the lines connect. Additionally, it seems to be on the way from Great Plains coal mines to Kansas City. Many companies learned long ago that it was cheaper to store products in the cars they were being shipped in than to construct storage facilities. Or there might just have been a mechanical failure of some sort.

2.) These locomotives might have been stored there temporarily for some special serivice, or were on the way to shops for major repairs.

Other than that, there's not much else I can tell you.

I hope I have helped,
Daniel

[Anonymous]

I'm learning about railroads so I can answer questions from three boys aged 5,4(in month) and 2 1/2.

Of course having worked for a company that reapired turbos for GE, Alco and EMD engines I picked up a bit.

KC is second largest rail hub in North America huh? Jeez we hardly got any business out of there. Most rail sales came from Kentucky (VMV), Iowa (BNSF keeping other suppliers honest) and the Gulf coast.

Also I am a Mechanical Engineer so I hate seeing stuff and not understanding it.

I can use the internet to find what the rail rosters are but I can tell a GP from SD by counting wheels[:D]