ACROSS THE FIELDS. The mountain passes are behind us, and the Southwest Chief is on the home stretch on July 6. I'm up and about as the train is leaving Lawrence, a few minutes off schedule. The approach to Kansas City is slow, as the freight railroads are about their business exchanging cars. It's a good time for breakfast, much of the time spent making a stop that's included in the employee timetable at the fuel racks. Arrival at Kansas City 7:56:42 Central Daylight Time, again this is an approximate time. A small Southern Pacific 2-8-2, No. 745, and some cars of the Louisiana Steam Train Association are west of the station.

The Western Auto sign is a sure identifier of a Kansas City picture.


On the adjacent track is the consist of the afternoon St. Louis Mule, which provides the rail connection to Missouri River towns as far east as St. Louis. The Ann Rutledge for those towns as well as Alton, Springfield, and Chicago leaves at 7:30, a few minutes before the Chief's scheduled arrival. That's not quite as bad a gaffe as Amtrak's initial schedule, in which the National Limited for St. Louis, Indianapolis, Columbus, Pittsburgh, and New York left a few minutes ahead of the Chief, and there was no corridor train later in the day. But Amtrak and the railroads could do more for their credibility by scheduling trains to connect, and enforcing the discipline to make the connections more reliably. (Amtrak will not guarantee a connection with less than two hours between trains in Chicago. Although the Europeans pin Vienna to London in a day on six minutes in Cologne, there has to be a better solution. Send the Rutledge twenty minutes after the Chief arrives and make sure the connection stands up. There's an hour layover in St. Louis. There are neither border crossing formalities nor the Missouri Pacific handing off a train to the Alton. Come off it.)


A number of sleeping car passengers disembarked here, as did a sizeable troop of Scouts from Philmont. Departure from Kansas City at 8:16:32, 31'32" down.

Some steam servicing facilities remain at Marceline, Walt Disney's home town and supposedly the prototype for the Main Street portion of Disney theme parks.


La Plata 10:18:43 - 10:21:09. (The engineer reported his times as "sixteen-eighteen.")

The final stretch stop before Chicago is Ft. Madison, which is still a major terminal on Santa Fe.


Fort Madison 11:28:02 - 11:35:00. East of the station, one of the Santa Fe's big 4-8-4s, No. 2913, is preserved.

The last call for lunch comes out of Ft. Madison. The on-train service was exemplary. Special recognition to sleeping car attendant Sharon, who kept cheerful despite a bad cold, and to lounge car attendant Teresa, whose "I'm going on break so stock up now" and "I'm back from break and getting lonely" were helpful. Those positions are probably the most difficult to do well as the car attendants might be subject to call at any hour and the lounge car is open from 6:30 to 10:30 with short meal breaks.

Near Wyanet on Burlington tracks is the Hennepin Canal overpass.


This canal was an early application of concrete casting technologies later applied on the Panama Canal. Unfortunately, the Hennepin was built bigger than the old Illinois and Michigan canal and smaller than the Mississippi or Illinois River locks, rendering it uneconomic. It's a good linear park, with a towpath suitable for hiking or leisurely bike riding. You might want tires a bit more robust than those on a commuter bike and you'd probably have trouble training for a triathlon on it. (Perhaps a Hennepin photo study some day as it's practically in my back yard.)

The train was about 30 minutes late out of Galesburg, Princeton, Mendota, and Naperville, but there's a recovery margin from Naperville into Chicago.

The Sears Tower guards the south approach to Union Station.


Arrival Chicago about 3:16, four minutes to the good.