Today's Train of Thought- Amber Cars of Grain; Aug 7, 2010

Today's train of thought takes us to the land of Warren Buffet, the College World Series and lots and lots of agriculture.

Omnitrax, like Rail America or WATCo, operates a number of smaller, disconnected shortline and regional railroads throughout the USA and Canada. Among those is the 550 mile Nebraska Kansas Colorado Railway, which operates three disconnected lines in western Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado. Not surprisingly, much of their traffic base includes corn and wheat- although they also serve the Gerald Gentleman coal-fired power plant just outside of Sutherland, NE (somewhat surprisingly, ethanol apparently isn't a major traffic source- just grain in it's less refined form).

Here, railpictures.net contributor Craig Walker caught Nebraska Kansas Colorado Railway GP30M# 5 heading across a small trestle at Marion, NE on its way to the end of the branch at St. Francis, KS under wide open skies on a sunny May 2008 day. The GP30 started life on the Baltimore & Ohio before being rebuilt and was retired by successor CSX transportation and purchased secondhand by Omnitrax.