BN 1898 on Bolivar Missouri local

Running northbound at milepost 170 on the Bolivar Missouri branch north of Springfield, BN 1898 takes a handful of cars to the end of the line at Bolivar on March 11, 1992. At this point, the branch was operated as-needed and the old GP9s were rare on this run with GP38-2 and GP15-1s the norm.

This line was formerly the Frisco Clinton Subdivision that ran between Kansas City and Springfield at one point.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• BN
• GP9
• Bolivar
• Missouri

[garywayne1966]

@MegaFred55 The Frisco sold the stretch of the highline from just south of Maurine to a point just south of Osceola to the U S Army Corps of Engineers in '78 and was stripped before Truman Lake was completed. The rest of the line from East Lynne and Bolivar was abandoned and stripped shortly afterwards. BN ran on the northern end of the Highline from Dodson Jct to East Lynne until '88, and that stretch was no better than this one.

[MegaFred55]

Wow. Never expected to see this. BN on that track? Amazing. Thought Frisco closed it off when they owned it.

[mikelandislive]

Looks like he has the headlight on in the video post from Karlin, MO

[mikelandislive]

I wonder why they're running with the headlight off?

[mikelandislive]

Absolutely amazing footage! I grew up in Ash Grove, on the BN mainline, and west of Willard on this Highline/Bolivar Branch. In all of my years growing up (1979- ) I never once saw a train on the tracks through Willard. Thanks for this great video! At least we can still enjoy this corridor by walking or biking it.

[montecarloLS2003]

I was sad to see this go, however, service changes, and cuts like this were necessary so the railroads could sustain themselves, scences like this are from the past, unit trains and long freight hauls are the future of the railroads

[mtskidmark]

very nice...

[JDeereGP]

It don't get any better than this!!! Thanks

[garywayne1966]

Today, a portion of the line from Grandview, MO, near where the Frisco had ducked under the KCS main line, to Belton, where it parallells along US 71 Hwy at 179th street (Cambridge Rd.) is the only remanant of the Blair Line.

[garywayne1966]

From Kansas City, trains ran to Clinton, then returned to KC. That portion of the line was cut back to East Lynne in 1977 when a trestle north of Blairstown burned. The Springfield to Clinton handled service to Blairstown when needed until 1978 when another trestle south of Balirstown also burned.