10-15-08 On The Road, Part Five

“Tonight’s forecast will be…dark, followed by scattered patches of light come morning.” So said the Hippy Dippy Weatherman many years ago. And about 2 hours later, you can also add “Here Comes The Sun” by The Beatles. What were thick, overcast clouds with them scattered patches of light at sunrise have gone to clear blue skies about 2 hours later this morning in Cozad. As you can see, the local “skyscraper” says it all.


Downtown is on the north side of U.S. Route 30. And many of the buildings don’t seem to have changed much. Nothing over two stories tall. And diagonal parking. On the south side of Route 30 are 2 big grain elevators and plenty of covered hopper cars waiting to be loaded. And for the record, we are 247 miles west of Omaha on the 100th meridian as proclaimed by the big red and black sign that straddles U.S. Route 30.


As I work my way west to North Platte, a history lesson: in the late 1990s, the Union Pacific Railroad bought the Southern Pacific Railroad. With that, the now new Union Pacific Railroad had a bit of a meltdown. When I first visited Nebraska in 1997, it was a common site to see complete trains parked in sidings and tied down because crews had exceeded the federal mandate of 12 hours of service and they stopped when it came time to quit. With the now additional trains running, the railroad effectively slowed down. Over the next year, UP balanced out its crews and started to do major investments and expansions in its infrastructure. The mainline from Gibbon to North Platte was one of them. Where there were only 2 mainline tracks, a new 3rd mainline track was put in place and the work was completed in 2001. As of now, 120-135 trains per day ride these 111 miles of rails. Crossovers are spaced about every 10 miles. These allow the dispatchers in Omaha to run slower trains around faster trains. It’s pretty cool seeing a unit coal train snake thru the crossovers at 40 MPH. Considering what the crews of the UP had to do to upgrade this triple mainline, I must say they did an excellent job.

And one other observation: this is one part of our country that is pretty much unchanged since Nebraska became a state. Mind you the Union Pacific changed a lot and I-80 was built to move travelers faster across the state than traveling on U.S. Route 30. What I love is the vastness of it all. These huge fields full of corn, soybeans, and alfalfa. Herds of beef cattle and dairy cows. That certain hint in the air that curls your nose hairs. And your neighbors are spaced a ½ to a mile apart. These are hard working folks. I would safely say that next to police and firemen, doctors and nurses and teachers, farmers rank right up there. Seeing the size of these farms and the amount of time, money and sweat invested in these farms plus the richness of the soil to support these crops year after year. Add to that the role of energy provider via ethanol. I know I couldn’t do it. The people of Nebraska deserve our thanks.

As I work my way west, I stop in the village of Brady and find quite a surprise. What use to the village’s only grade crossing has been replaced by a highway bridge just up the street and this rust brown pedestrian walkway, which makes quite the place to view trains from overhead.


By early afternoon, I arrived in North Platte and the main event today is visiting Bailey Yard, the largest railroad classification yard in the world. And earlier this year, the Golden Spike Tower opened and you can get to view Bailey Yard from 7 stories up.


You can more about this new landmark: go to www.goldenspiketower.com for more information. Needless to say, the view is quite spectacular.


I met up with Jack, a volunteer tour guide for the tower and a UP railroad engineer with 41 years of service who was currently on medical leave due to replacement knee surgery. He answers my questions and is quite popular with those visitors who have stopped by.

After that, it is out to Sutherland, 12 miles west of North Platte. I always use to see this railroad bridge that crossed Route 30 and could never find it on my DeLorme Mapping System. Come to find out that this bridge carries a spur that brings coal to the Gerald Gentleman Station of the Nebraska Public Power District. The plant consists of two coal-fired generating units, which together have the capability to generate 1,365 megawatts of power.


Quite a huge plant and a big pile of coal in the back. Per Jack of the UP, he said that the plant’s boilers burn 2 hopper cars load of coal per hour in the process of generating electricity. And BTW, here in Sutherland you slowly leave the flatland prairies going west and move into the rolling hills of the prairies. You climb quite a bit to where the power plant is located. Seems Nebraska Educational Telecommunications likes this location, as its KPNE Channel 9 (now with digital transmission) and KPNE 91.7 FM are located on a tall tower about a half a mile from the power plant. And as you head down the road back to Sutherland, you get this magnificent view of these rolling prairie hills and more and more cornfields tucked into just about every square foot of land that is available. Just a spectacular view.

So I finish my day at O’Fallons where the South Morrill Subdivison heads up into the Nebraska panhandle and the Power River Coal Basin of eastern Wyoming and the Sidney Subdivison to Cheyenne. Horizon-to-horizon blue skies and the trains keep rolling by. And the Sutherland power plant’s smokestacks rise above the southern horizon.

Tomorrow we head north thru the wild open spaces to Pierre (as in “pier”), South Dakota, the state capital and a visit with my friend Jenn. We’ll tell you about Wall Drug, the Sioux Indians, and a beautiful spot at the State Capitol.

I’m Philip J Zocco. On The Road. In North Platte, Nebraska.