Sayonara KCS - 1

Hi, I have been putting off doing the blogs on a ten day trip last April and May due to lack of time. Now I am hoping to catch up.

On the afternoon of April 25 friends Fred Eisen, Bill Kalkman, Jim Kleeman and I departed BWI Airport for Jackson, MS. Targets for the trip were a new shortline called The Rock, which uses heritage paint schemes for their locomotives. and the Kansas City Southern, which would soon disappear as an independent railroad along with, probably, their colorful paint scheme.

Photography began on the morning of April 26 as we made our way from Jackson to Sumner, MS; the headquarters of The Rock. Our route roughly followed the former Illinois Central allowing photos of Amtrak's City of New Orleans (above) and a CN freight with a DPU (two below).

We knew The Rock would not be operating during our visit to Mississippi but we did get some roster photos (above and three below).

When we finished up at Sumner we headed for the Grenada RR in Grenada, MS. While nothing was moving in their yard there we did get late morning (above) and early afternoon (below) roster photos.

We learned while in Grenada that a local was working south of there and we could probably intercept it in Winona, MS, which we did. The train is shown here arriving. The power would run around its train and head north toward Grenada.

We caught the train at Eskridge, MS (above and below)

before the crew went "on the law" at Duck Hill, MS.

Our final photos were of a northbound CN hopper train on former IC track just south of Tchula, MS with a DPU (above and two below).

Thanks for looking.