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Kansas City Southern Lines
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Come with us on a tour of the Kansas City Southern, which is the last independent railroad of its size still operating as it was before the last megamerger of the late 1990s. The Kansas City Southern we will look at covers both present day operations as well as a look at the railroad before acqusition of the MidSouth Railroad. The Southern Belle is now ready to receive passengers at Track 8, KC Union Station.

Profile of the Kansas City Southern Railway

Employees: 2711
Route Miles: 3130
Locomotives: 434
Freight cars: 14,733
The mileage includes the addition of the former Midsouth Railway,which was largely Illinois Central in name and operation.

The following is the 1962 Diesel Roster of KCS Lines:

EMD E6A 2000 hp 21,22,24 3 units
EMD E8A 2240 hp 20,23,25-29 7 units
EMD F3A-B 3000 hp 30AB-33AB 8 units
EMD F7A 6000 hp 50abcd-59abcd 40 units
EMD F3abc 4500 hp 60abc-62abc 9 units
EMD F7abc 4500 hp 70Abc-71abc 6 units
EMD F7abcde, 4500 hp 72abcd-76abcd 20 units
EMD F7bc 3000 hp 77bc-78bc 4 units
EMD F7B 1500 hp 79B 1 unit
EMD GP7 1500 hp 150-163 14 units
EMD GP9 1750 hp 163-165 3 units
EMD GP30 2250 hp 100-109 10 units



COMPOSITION OF THE FREIGHT CAR FLEET



The freight car fleet now in service on the Kansas City Southern Railway reflects the typical traffic mix of the railroad and consists of the following car types:

Covered hoppers 4151
Tank (company service) 39
Gondola 772
Box 7254
Flat 2014
Open Top Hopper 1013
Refrigerator 14
Total Freight cars: 15,244 does not include Tex Mex, TFM. The following is the freight traffic mix of KCS:



1.Automotive and Intermodal, 10.5% of 2002 revenues
2.Agricultural and Minerals, 19.7% of 2002 revenues
3.Coal, 19.4% of 2002 revenues
4.Chemicals and Petroleum Products, 24.9% 2002 revenues
5.Paper and Forest Products, 25.5% of 2002 revenues
It is planned to present a few sample schedules of trains handling this traffic on a day to day basis as an example of typical freight operations on the Kansas City Southern Lines. The railroad's intermodal service serves the following ports on the system, including those formerly served by the MidSouth Railroad:

Texas Misssissippi Alabama
Beaumont Gulfport Mobile
Corpus Christi Vicksburg
Port Arthur Columbus
Missouri Louisiana
Kansas City Lake Charles
St. Louis Baton Rouge
New Orleans

On a typical day, Kansas City Southern has a total of 27,262 freight cars of all types on its system, of which 7209 are system cars,4464 are foreign road cars, and 15,589 are privately owned cars. These are broken down by car type as follows:

Boxcars,4598
Covered hoppers,7814
Gondolas,1594
Intermodal,545
Multilevels,245
Open top hoppers,2546
tank,7180
Other,2472
Of these car types, manifest trains handle the greatest variety of car types of the types of freight trains operated on KCS lines. Multilevel autorack cars and intermodal cars operate both on manifest trains and solid,dedicated trains devoted exclusively to automotive and/or intermodal traffic. In addition, Kansas City Southern operates a fair number of unit coal and unit grain train,many of them having export traffic moving toward any of the ports served by the railroad for transloading for overseas shipment. This is particularly true of grain. The major terminals of Kansas City,Mo,Beaumont,TX, Shreveport,LA, and Jackson,MS support the freight service of the railroad on its two divisions: The Transcontinental and the Gulf Divisions. As we go along, we shall also take a look at the long departed passenger operations ended November 3,1969, despite Bill Deramus's best efforts to save the trains. Sample freight and passenger schedules will be shown in the Supporting material section. Kansas City Southernn operates about 30 to 35 road trains a day, plus numerous local service runs the railroad calls "dodgers' that are operated throughout the system. All operations on KCS are controlled by the system operations center located in Doremus Yard in Shreveport,Louisiana. Doremus Yard has 31 classification tracks and eight storage tracks and switches 1500 to 2000 cars a day and sometimes does 2500 cars a day. 19 switch jobs are used to work Doremus Yard,usually six or seven per shift. Sample schedules,symbolling,and additional roster information will be shown in the Supporting Text section.

Here will be found sample passenger and freight schedules,symbolling instructions, and additional roster information not found in the main body of this eBook.

SYMBOLLING INSTRUCTIONS FOR KCS FREIGHT TRAIN OPERATIONS. In a typical KCS train symbol the first letter by itself indicates the type of train: A-Automotive,G-Grain,C-Coal,I-Intermodal,and M-Manifest, to name a few. This is followed by a pair of two letter origin and destination codes. The first pair of letters indicates the train's origin terminal and the second pair, the train's destination. Here are a couple examples:

I-KCNO=Intermodal train,origin-Kansas City,destination-New Orleans. Number following the destination code indicates the section number if the train is being run in 2 or more sections.M-KCSH is a manifest train originating in Kansas City and whose destination is Shreveport,Louisiana

SAMPLE FREIGHT SCHEDULES
Table1.M-KCBM Kansas City,MO to Beaumont,TX
Kansas City......Lv 1100 Day 0
Oskaloosa,MO.....AR 1630 Day 0
Oskaloosa,MO.....Lv 1730 Day 0
Pittsburg,KS.....Ar 1800 Day 0
Pittsburg,KS.....Lv 1820 Day 0
Heavener,OK......Ar 0250 Day 1
Heavener,OK......Lv 0650 Day 1
DeQueen,Ar.......Ar 1035 Day 1
DeQueen,AR.......Lv 1135 Day 1
Shreveport,LA....Ar 1705 Day 1
Setouts: Oskaloosa and Leesville.Pickups at Oskaloosa.

Table2.M-BMKC 1

Shreveport...Lv..2355...Day 0
DeQueen,AR...Ar..0525...Day 1
DeQueen,AR...Lv..0625...Day 1
Heavener,OK..Ar..1015...Day 1
Heavener,OK..Lv..1415...Day 1 crew change.
Neosho,MO....Ar..2045...Day 1
Neosho,MO....Lv..2145...Day 1
Pittsburg,KS Ar..2340...Day 1 crew change
Pittsburg,KS Lv..0001...Day 2
KansasCity,KS Ar.0600...Destination
Setouts:DeQueen,Heavener and Neosho.Pickups at DeQueen and Heavener.

Table3.M KCSH-1 Kansas City to Shreveport Manifest

Kansas City..........Lv 0600 Day1
Pittsburg,KS.........AR.1500 Day1
Pittsburg,KS.........Lv.1900 Day1 Crew Change
McElhanny,MO.........Ar.2100 Day1
McElhanny,MO.........Lv.2200 Day1
Siloam Springs,AR....Ar 0001 Day2
Siloam Springs,AR....Lv 0130 Day2
Watts,OK.............AR.0200 Day2
Watts,OK.............Lv.0300 Day2
Heavener,OK..........Ar.0630 Day2 Crew Change
Heavener,OK..........Lv.1500 Day2
DeQueen,AR...........Ar.1930 Day2
DeQueen,AR...........Lv.2000 Day2
S.Texarkana,TX.......Ar.2300 Day2
S.Texarkana,TX.......Lv.2345 Day2
Shreveport,LA........Ar 0400 Day3,Destination
Work performed enroute: Setouts and pickups at Oskaloosa,
Pittsburg,Siloam Springs, Heavener,DeQueen,Ashdown, and
South Texarkana.

Table4. M SHKC1 Shreveport to Kansas City Manifest
Shreveport...........Lv.0300 Day1
DeQueen,AR...........Ar.0800 Day1
DeQueen,AR...........Lv.1000 Day1
Heavener,OK..........Ar.1430 Day1
Heavener,OK..........Lv.0001 Day2 Crew Change
Siloam Springs,AR....Ar.0400 Day2
Siloam Springs,AR....Lv.0430 Day2
Pittsburg,KS.........Ar.0900 Day2 Crew Change
Pittsburg,KS.........Lv.1000 Day2
Kansas City,MO.......Ar 1500 Day2 Destination
Setouts and pickups at: DeQueen,Heavener,Pittsburg.