On Thursday, June 17, 2010, UP 1982, the Missouri Pacific Heritage unit, headed a detouring train from Houston to Kansas City via Little Rock, Arkansas, then west on the Van Buren Sub. The reason for the detour: A UP bridge in Kansas between Caldwell and Wellington, located on the Rock Island's Texas main (Kansas City-Fort Worth) had a pier washed away from recent floods in the area on June 15 so many UP trains are detouring because of this damaged bridge. According to Steve Grabman, "the Enid Sub Service Interruption indirectly caused this detour.  MHOKC normally runs via McAlester and Coffeyville but due to the extra grain and ethanol traffic running that way because the OKT is shutdown and 12 hour curfews everyday between Fort Worth and Durant due to tie gangs, UP decided to send it via Little Rock."

The train was stopped near the Arkansas State Capitol and UP maintenance was looking at a problem with 1982's horn. It stayed at South UD (at Milepost 347 near Union Station) for about an hour from around 5:45 p.m. until 6:50 p.m. June 17 waiting until the locomotive was deemed ready to go. It was 96 degrees and humid.


UP 1982 sits on UP Main 1 at MP 347, commonly called South UD by crew, at 6:13 p.m. Union Station is to my right a few hundred feet.




I'm standing at the edge of the Arkansas State Capitol parking lot. Photography is discouraged here, especially during the day with thousands of Arkansas State employees filling the parking lots and in some cases the legislature can also be in session. But the main reason it's not wise to be here: the Capitol Police! They will usually tell you to leave because of being so near the state capitol plus the fact that UP's tracks are so close that over the years they've had numerous people get too close to these mainline tracks.


Zoomed in on 1982.

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