Ice, snow, and railroading in St. Louis, December 2006, part II

On December 2, 2006, St. Louis, Missouri, and much of the surrounding areas were still covered in ice and snow from a winter storm. The previous day I finished up by taking photographs along the Jefferson City Subdivision in Maplewood, Missouri, so I decided to head back there. When I arrived at Maplewood, I found the subdivision was a parking lot due to the double-track subdivision being reduced to a single-track subdivision between Webster Groves, Missouri, and Pacific, Missouri. A distance of about twenty-five miles. 

UP 6066 passing a late Kansas City Mule

At Maplewood, I found Amtrak's Kansas City Mule, train 311, and Union Pacific train MASNP. Both trains stopped on Track 1, with the KC Mule only a few hundred feet behind MASNP. The block signal for Track 2 at CPD007 in Maplewood was clear for an eastbound train on Track 2, so I set up to capture the train as it came east past the K.C. Mule. 

UP 6606 leads a coal train east on Track 2, past a stopped KC Mule at Big Bend Blvd. 

Soon, UP 6066 led a loaded coal train east on Track 2 of the Jefferson City Subdivision, passing the K.C. Mule. UP 5635, working as a DP unit, brought up the rear of the coal train as it headed east along Greenwood Blvd. As UP 5635 cleared the curve, I spotted another UP train in the distance stopped at CP D007.

UP 5635 is the DP unit on the eastbound coal train. In the distance another westbound train waits.

UP 9552 leading MASNP

After the coal train cleared Maplewood, I headed a short distance west to Webster Groves to catch MASNP. I set up at the curve on the Jefferson City Subdivision at Oakwood Avenue. MASNP came around the curve surrounded by ice-covered trees. MASNP is a manifest freight train that originates at Alton and Southern's Gateway Yard in East St. Louis, Illinois, and travels to Union Pacific's Bailey Yard in North Platte, Nebraska. 

UP 9552 leads train MASNP west on Track 1, at Oakwood Avenue in Webster Groves, MO.

AMTK 34 and the Kansas City Mule

After train MASNP cleared out of Maplewood and Webster Groves, Amtrak's Kansas City Mule finally started to move west on its journey to Kansas City, Missouri. I first caught the KC Mule near Marshall Avenue in Webster Groves. Marshall Avenue is just over half of a mile to the northeast of Oakwood Avenue.

AMTK 34 leads the KC Mule west at Marshall Avenue on the Jefferson City Subdivision.

With the KC Mule moving slowly, I went further west to try and catch it again on the western edge of Webster Groves. I made it just in time to capture the train as it crossed over West Lockwood Avenue along Crofton Avenue. 

AMTK 34 and the KC Mule cross over W. Lockwood Ave. at Crofton Ave.