Midwest Mexico Express at Dequincy
It's last light on a cool winter day as CPKC I180 enjoys an unobstructed run down the KCS Beaumont Subdivision in Dequincy, Louisiana. The hot Chicago to San Luis Potosi Rack and stack train doesn't give off many hints that this is now CPKC country... Dequincy is home to an immaculately restored KCS station that sits in the crux of the Lake Charles and Beaumont split on the mainline. At one point this was a sleepy gut line to Port Arthur, Texas, by way of Beaumont, but these days the expansionist dreams of the 90s "Nafta Lines" are a daily reality. Most traffic here is bound for the border crossing in Laredo, Texas, three crew districts away. This 180 hotshot will be in Laredo at dawn the next morning readying for a sprint across the high desert of Northern Mexico. Dequincy is the big curve in the CPKC system that sends what have mostly been due southbound trains veering west towards their next crew swap in Beaumont. What used to be near the end for the original Kansas City-Port Arthur mainline is merely the midpoint of a vast rail system that stretches all the way from Lazaro Cardenas, MX, to Vancouver, British Columbia, in the west and Saint John, NB, in the east, by way of Kansas City, Saint Paul, Minot, and Calgary, AB. It's still KCS country in Dequincy, however, and the many KCS locomotives that roll past the venerable old station continue to make it feel that way even a year and some change post merger...
Thanks for looking!
Midwest Mexico Express at Dequincy
It's last light on a cool winter day as CPKC I180 enjoys an unobstructed run down the KCS Beaumont Subdivision in Dequincy, Louisiana. The hot Chicago to San Luis Potosi Rack and stack train doesn't give off many hints that this is now CPKC country... Dequincy is home to an immaculately restored KCS station that sits in the crux of the Lake Charles and Beaumont split on the mainline. At one point this was a sleepy gut line to Port Arthur, Texas, by way of Beaumont, but these days the expansionist dreams of the 90s "Nafta Lines" are a daily reality. Most traffic here is bound for the border crossing in Laredo, Texas, three crew districts away. This 180 hotshot will be in Laredo at dawn the next morning readying for a sprint across the high desert of Northern Mexico. Dequincy is the big curve in the CPKC system that sends what have mostly been due southbound trains veering west towards their next crew swap in Beaumont. What used to be near the end for the original Kansas City-Port Arthur mainline is merely the midpoint of a vast rail system that stretches all the way from Lazaro Cardenas, MX, to Vancouver, British Columbia, in the west and Saint John, NB, in the east, by way of Kansas City, Saint Paul, Minot, and Calgary, AB. It's still KCS country in Dequincy, however, and the many KCS locomotives that roll past the venerable old station continue to make it feel that way even a year and some change post merger...
Thanks for looking!