BNSF 870 ex-Santa Fe Warbonnet - Cuba Subdivision - Pacific

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BNSF 870 leads a train west on the Cuba Subdivision at Pacific, MO.
BNSF 870

BNSF 870, a patched Santa Fe locomotive in the Warbonnet paint scheme, leads a freight train west on BNSF's Cuba Subdivision, at Pacific, Missouri. BNSF 870 was built as Santa Fe (ATSF) 870 in April of 1993. The locomotive is a General Electric built C40-8W.

Cuba Subdivision

The Cuba Subdivision runs from the western end of BNSF's Lindenwood Yard (milepost 7.2), in St. Louis, Missouri, to Springfield Yard (milepost 239.7), in Springfield, Missouri. The line was formerly owned by the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway, which was merged into the Burlington Northern Railroad. When the Burlington Northern and the Santa Fe railroads merged in 1996, the line became part of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, which is today named the BNSF Railway.

From St. Louis to Springfield, the line runs on a southwesterly directiton, into the Ozark Mountains. It closely follows Interstate 44 between the two cities. Much of the line is hilly and the maximum speed limit on the Cuba Subdivision, at the time the photo was taken, is 50 MPH, however, there are many speed restrictions on the line. At St. Louis, the line is just over 400 feet in elevation, but by the time the Cuba Subdivision gets to Springfield, it has reached an elevation of about 1,400 feet.

At milepost 7.3, at Lindenwood Yard, BNSF's River Subdivision diverges and runs south out of the St. Louis area. At a junction called Teed, in the northeastern area of Springfield, the BNSF's Thayer North Subdivision begins by diverging from the Cuba Subdivision. Teed is milepost 203.2 on the Thayer North Subdivision, and milepost 235.1 on the Cuba Subdivision. The Thayer North Subdivision, along with the Thayer South Subdivision, runs between Springfield, Missouri, and Memphis, Tennessee.

Image details

This image was scanned as a 16 bit NEF file from a Kodak Ektachrome 35mm slide, on a Nikon Coolscan 9000ED film scanner. Post processing was done in Adobe Camera RAW and Photoshop.

Photo taken: early March 2004, at Pacific, Missouri.

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