As we bounced and swayed along in GP40 #4708, which was freshly painted in Rock's bright red and yellow with speed lettering, I was holding onto my "toadstool" seat to keep from being tossed on the floor or out the window. For the 54 miles from El Reno to Rush Springs, because it was welded rail, these two (or one when combined) trains were allowed to actually do the 60mph speed limit on Subdivision 26 everything else had a blanket slow order of 50mph. The previous summer, I had rode by this spot on a #97, a hot Chicago-Texas freight that was often combined with "CTX", another hot one between the same points that was dedicated to TOFC - "piggie" - traffic. By the time I returned for the summer of '73, the mainline to Texas had deteriorated remarkably. No it's not ballast, as much as we'd wish! Meanwhile, during the Autumn following the summer of '72, unusually heavy rains happened in the southern Plains. So they used open top hoppers, as seen here. It not only pounded the track structure into the mud that was taking over the remains of the ballast, it also overwhelmed the supply of covered hoppers and boxcars - yes, "grain boxes" - that Rock had been using to transport grain. Rock Island southbound freight (with grain in open top hoppers on the head end) headed by two GP40, SSW SD45 (388-385-SSW9055.) This was between the two summers that I worked for the Rock, and the grain exports had begun via the Gulf ports to Russia. But power was power, and the Russian export grain movement to the Gulf made it necessary to scrounge up whatever they could find. The Rio Grande Geeps came with no multi-unit receptacles so those had to be installed, and of course the dynamic brakes would see only neglect. I recall an engineer telling me that he took out the planks in a road crossing in one of these things! Rock's penchant for speed and the riding qualities of our mainline made that easy to predict. UNfortunately there was NO standard pilot behind the snowplow, so it stayed on. F9 that had worked its years (probably most its service life) in the Pacific Northwest, and the huge snowplow that had served so well in its former habitat was now an unneeded appendage. and Rio Grande that involved two of the units in this consist. With Rock's power woes getting more and more desperate, some creative ways to obtain other railroads' castoffs were taken. With grain and other loads predominating the southward traffic, more power was needed to go south than to haul the empties north. Rock Island northbound freight #26 rips through a fine Spring evening, headed by an F9, F9b, ex-DRGW GP7, F9b, GP9, GP7, U28b, U25b (4150….230), obviously some power balancing is happening here! As I recall - and I had worked for them the previous summer and would work again the next summer - Train 26 was often a handy way to get much needed power back north.
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