North Platte or Bust - The Series

This was quite an ambitious, yet nearly "off the cuff" railfan adventure started when Charles "The Fiddler" Kadyk wondered if I might be interested in a railfan trip to Kansas City in August.  This was in April while we were on one of our usual tours of Altoona.  It seems he had a wedding to go to in KCK and he might as well drive as fly.  An idea was born.  Since I'm a huge fan of Kansas City, have friends there and personal history there, it didn't take any convincing. 

The following are 12 "episodes" covering that adventure.  They are broken down into smaller chunks to spread things out a bit.  As of Sept. 3rd all are filled in with some commentary.  I tried out the new caption feature on many photos but the new Blogger format takes some practice.  Errors can still be found.  It was a long trip for me beginning on August 2 and ending on August 20.  It has been another long trip writing about it and arranging photos in "AWYSIWYG" computer formatting. 

Charles and I will have "war stories" about this trip for decades.  

Here are the links:
Part 1, "Getting There".....................................Poughkeepsie Bridge, Dennison Depot, Marion
Part 2, "Marion, Bellevue and Fostoria"..........New parks and infrastructure in the works
Part 3, "Lima to Homewood"...........................Mid-west odds and ends plus Chicago commuter
Part 4, "Joliet and Rochelle".............................Busy locations
Part 5, "Mississippi River"...............................IL, IA and MO locations
Part 6, "Kansas City"........................................KC "Bottoms"
Part 7, "Nebraska"............................................Following the transcontinental route.
Part 8, "North Platte"........................................Bailey Yard, Cody Park and some BNSF
Part 9, "Steam".................................................UP 844 and the KP
Part 10, "Goodbye Mid-West"..........................Pacific, MO and assorted IL
Part 11, "La Grange, KY .................................Street running in KY
Part 12, "Finale"...........................................Landgraff, Bluefield, WV, Roanoke, Ellicott City, MD


I figured having one page to start with rather than linking all to one another would be the easiest to read or ignore.  Of course you could use the August 2012 link to the right to get the same thing.

BC