FL9

I had a request this last weekend to hold off on the new stuff for awhile and dip into the slide boxes again.  I pulled this 24-year-old shot out on the first try and popped it into the scanner.  Back in 1982 I was living in Enid, Oklahoma and working for Motorola selling two-way radios.  Pratt, Kansas was not too far north up highway 281, and the old run-down Rock Island “Golden State Route” from Kansas City, KS to Tucumcari, NM had been purchased by the SSW (Cotton Belt) two years earlier.  SSW was now spending hundreds of millions to upgrade the line to 70 mph standards to connect with the SP at Tucumcari and complete a high-speed intermodal route between Kansas City and El Paso.

The little town of Cullison, KS is just west of Pratt, and it is there I caught this eastbound manifest freight on July 10th in 1982 powered by SP GP9E #3336 and three GP35’s.  The big power and fast trains had not arrived yet in force, so this slow freight did not have much to contend with in the way of opposing meets.  Check out the bright red nose and the full mars light package, something we sorely miss today.