September 2014 Railfan Trip - 11

Hi, We have reached the end of our trip. On our last day we began our tour of Kansas City on the west side of Argentine Yard in Kansas.

I had wanted to return to Morris to see what had changed since I photographed here in the 1980s.  The old grain elevator was still standing but was at least 1/2 obscured by weeds, brush and trees.  Any way, it would have been a westbound shot.  Also, a new control point, named CP Morris, has been established here.

There were all kinds of trains waiting to come east.  Finally an eastbound stack train worked its way around the waiting trains.

We then moved east, still in Morris, until we found a small yard just south of the track.  By the way the trains in the next four images are on an elevated track.  The multiple tracks in the first image are at ground level on the other side of the fill.  We saw a number of trains here, including this eastbound UP manifest (above and below) and

this BNSF double stack (above and below).

We wandered over to the north side of Argentine Yard where we found this GP40 in Heritage 1 paint waiting out the weekend (above and below) on industrial trackage.

Next we checked out the east end of Argentine Yard.  All of the spots I remembered from past visits were gone.  However, we did find a new spot to shoot from and caught a number of trains here including these two.  The BNSF train will appear again a couple of images down while the UP train is one we photographed on the fill in Morris.

Our next stop was Bluff Road over looking the West Bottoms in Kansas City, MO.  In the background is old Union Depot Tower, now inactive.  The train above is the same one we shot on the east side of Argentine Yard and will be passed shortly by a train of coal empties.

However, first another train of coal empties, which had just come west through the union station area, passed by with number 5952 as the DPU.

Finally, the train of coal empties that would pass the sitting manifest arrived (above and below).

At last the manifest got underway.  At this point we headed over to the KCS yard, found nothing interesting and went to lunch at Bryant's BBQ which Dale swore was the best BBQ in KC.  It was very good.

We began our afternoon on a hill overlooking Union Station.  Our first angle was behind the playing fields in Penn Valley Park (above and Below).

For our second angle we relocated to the parking lot for the World War I Museum, which was higher (above and below).

Dale wanted to photograph the afternoon Missouri River Runner being turned (above and below) which is best done from the West 27th street bridge over BNSF's line to Springfield, MO (former Frisco).  This also is a good spot to view traffic on the Argentine Flyover and the two approaches to the Kaw River Bridge.

While we were on the bridge this train of coal empties came north on the former Frisco route from Springfield, MO.

Dale also wanted photos with the Western Auto Building in the background so our next stop was the Main Street bridge, just east of Union Station (above and Below).

The Broadway Blvd. bridge, just west of Union Station, was our next stop.

We then decided to check out the West Bottoms area again, however, most of the locations were badly shadowed.  While we driving in the area Dale spotted a signal indicating a train was approaching and soon thereafter this Kansas City Terminal transfer came through.

Just behind me from where I shot the KCT train this maintenance of way equipment was spotted (above and below).

We were now out of ideas as to where to go and it was almost 6 PM so we called it a day and headed for our motel.  Thanks for looking.