Emporia, KS: Grain Elevators, a fatality, and Santa Fe Roundhouse & Depot

Bunge Oilseed Processing (Satellite)
F & F Feeds: (Satellite)
Cargill Pet Products: (Satellite) Cargill also has a distribution center nearby
MFA/AgChoice/Irsik & Doll Feed Services: (Satellite)

Roundhouse: (Satellite)

Depot, labeled: (Satellite)

Depot, actual: (Satellite, topo map and aerial photo agree that it was a block further east.)

Freight House: (Satellite)

Bob Summers posted two photos with the comment: "Bunge Corp elevator and soybean processing plant in Emporia Kansas."
Richard Risley My father-in-law Robert Wise worked at this facility from 1951 until he retired in 1991. He was a grain buyer, salesman & traffic manager. He began working for John Vanier's - Kansas Soya Products. During a span of a few years - ADM purchased Vanier's operations but couldn't keep this operation. It was sold to Ross Industries which in turn was sold to Cargill. Cargill couldn't keep it & sold it to Bunge Corp. ADM & Cargill were kept from owning it due to Government trade restrictions. My FIL had changed employers 5 times & never moved his desk. The North concrete annex was added in the very early 1960s. I remember watching the slip forms moving upward as the tanks were poured.

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Bob Summers posted two photos with the comment: "Elevator and Feedmill in Emporia Kansas - in the flinthills, known for excellent pasture for cattle."

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David Budka "Bluestem Feed Mills. Pulp Red Feeds?" Whatever, I love it!
Bob Summers Do not know the history but made out a barely legible sign on the elevator as "Bluestem Feeds" but following up on your post googled "Pulp Red Feeds" and found "F & F Feeds"
David Budka I was looking at another set of pictures, and did a little research. I think they are advertising the Ful-O-Pep brand of feeds. It was a Quaker Oats brand. They recently painted over the Scolar and West-Central Grain Company signs on the old workhouse along I-480 in Omaha, Nebraska. I love grain elevator advertising!
Dennis DeBruler Bluestem still has a retail store:
https://www.google.com/.../data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4...
Google Maps labels this F & F Feeds:
https://www.google.com/.../data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4...

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Bob Summers posted two photos with the comment: "Not a surprise that Cargill is also serving the Flint Hills cattlemen with this feedmill in Emporia Kansas. Square concrete and steel elevators are common with feedmills in our region."
Matt Letts The old Safeway dog food plant, looks like they have added on to it since I lived there.

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Bob Summers posted two photos with the comment: "MFA acquired the former Irsik & Doll Feed Services elevator and feedmill in Emporia Kansas some years back. This is in the heart of ranch land where cattle are raised on grassland summer pastures before being shipped to the large feedlots to be fattened before slaughter. Nevertheless feed supplements are crucial and provided from facilities like this."

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Kathy Black posted
Emporia KS - Spring 2019
Bob Summers Formerly Irsik & Doll Feed Services based in Cimarron Kansas

Roundhouse

Satellite

Raymond Storey posted three photos with the comment: "EMPORIA KS."

Steve Macey: What side of town was this on ?

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Dennis DeBruler commented on Steve's comment
The east side of the railyard on the south side of town,
 https://maps.app.goo.gl/Fg1nN6Qn77byFHji8.

Raymond Storey posted
KANSAS..LOCATION WAS NOT PROVIDED

Larry Reser commented on Raymond's post
1965

Larry Reser commented on his comment
Turntable 1982, the roundhouse looking in very sad condition.

Robert Marin posted
This is a photo my big brother took from the cab of a locomotive of the round house and turntable in Emporia, KS. sometime in the early 50s. You can see a gas electric motor car in the roundhouse.

Robert Marin posted
Inside the Emporia, Kansas roundhouse in the early 1950s. Photo by my brother Louis.

Charles Smith: Last time I walked thru this roundhouse on a late Sunday evening..it was full of 2-10-2's ..early 1950's.

Scott Krause: WOW! the one that sits at Newton! Amazing

Trenton Fay posted
March 29, 1981 photo from Lance Garrels, Emporia, KS Round House

Marty Bernard posted
2. A Santa Fe Yard in March 1972 in Emporia, KS. Roger Puta photo

Matt Letts: This area is now part of the city dump.

Marty Bernard shared

Depot

 

Robert Marin posted
This is the Emporia, Kansas depot in the Early 50s before it was remodeled and a number of windows were bricked in. One of the Santa Fe's new 100 class FTs is passing by. The depot was a landmark in Emporia until it was destroyed by fire on Aug. 9, 1999. The stone building in the center was the original station and the Old English portions were added later. Photo by my brother Louis Marin jr.

Stephen Hopkins posted two photos with the comment: "Emporia KS."

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[Note that the standpipes from the steam era are still standing.]

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Jim Arvites posted

View of an eastbound Santa Fe Railway passenger train making a station stop at Emporia, Kansas in 1962.

(Henry Balinski Photo, LSRHA Collection)

Steve Haynes: That would be No. 4, the eastbound Southern District mail and express train. Looks like the engineer came in pretty hot, lots of brake-shoe smoke. His relief would be waiting on the bench at the east end of train shed.

Bob Helling posted
I miss those days.  Emporia was about an hour and a half drive from my home in Salina.  I knew I wouldn't get skunked.  On trips, I checked out the crew change points over the ATSF system on my route.  Little known spots like Seligman, Marceline, Ft. Madison.  Grips on the platform was a good sign.   An eastbound 901 changes crews at Emporia on September 5, 1981.  The size of grips tell of a short fast run.  Bob Helling Photo.

Chris Faulk: Why did it take so long to get rid of that crew change? Many of the shorter crew changes were eliminated in the early 70s.

I didn't need a topo map to find the roundhouse since we can still see the foundation, but I did need it to find the depot. The freight house is the rectangle just west of West Street, and the depo is the rectangle just west of Neosho Street.

1957/58 Emporia Quad @ 24,000

Note that the fright house has the typical second story office building on the street side.

Mar 30, 1956 @ 17,000; AR1VKI000020145

Fremont, NE: Grain Elevators

Google (fremont+nebraska+grain+elevators) Search Result

Satellite
I included the small yard it has to hold a unit train. I could not find a company locomotive. I wonder if it is parked in the loading shed.

Central Valley AG Co-op must be an equipment supply facility rather than a grain elevator. I could not find any silos or bins at the indicated street address.

Gavilon Group
It also has a private yard to hold a unit train. According to my 1928 RR Atlas, this branch from Blair, NE, used to belong to C&NW. 

Jeff Showers, Sep 2018
The company locomotive reflects the C&NW heritage of this elevator.

Evidently Google marks only the elevators that pay for inclusion in their display because I found some other grain processing facilities while looking at satellite images.

Satellite
At first I didn't think they bought directly from the area farmers given that they did not advertise in Google. But their webpage implies they do buy from farmers.

In fact, looking at the comparable elevator web page, ADM's soy processing pays more than their elevator does for soybeans. The soybean oil plant can pay the farmers more because they don't have to pay extra to transport the soybeans to where they will be used since they will use them right their.

Month	Futures	Elevator	Processing
Sep 2019	8.83	7.93	-
Oct 2019	8.83	7.93	8.03
Nov 2019	8.83	7.93	8.18
Dec 2019	8.97	8.23	8.27.5
Jan 2020	8.97	8.23	8.32.5
Feb 2020	9.10	8.30	8.45
Mar 2020	9.10	-	8.45
Oct-Nov 2020	9.40	-	8.65.5

Since Ardent Mills makes flour, they would buy wheat. That is probably why ADM Grain doesn't have wheat in their price list because wheat farmers would come to this elevator instead.

Satellite
The north tracks are UP and the south tracks are BNSF/CB&Q.

Satellite,  Debruce Grain Co.

The motivation for researching the grain handling facilities in this town was the following post:

KLKN (source)   Sunday, 9-22-2019
Over 25 rescue personnel are working to recover a male trapped in this grain bin in Fremont. He has been trapped since around 2:30 p.m. today.
[He did not survive]

This elevator with an accident wasn't any of the above elevators. It was the following that is north of town.

Satellite

Rescue personnel were told that the worker had entered the concrete grain elevator to break up a crust on the grain. He reportedly fell through the crust. The name of the man, Zane Fecht, 32, of Bellevue, was released Monday. Central Valley Ag Cooperative provided a rescue team and grain vacuums to aid in the removal of grain from the elevator and the recovery efforts, the Sheriff's Office said. Fecht's body was removed from the grain elevator about 9:10 p.m. Sunday. The investigation into the incident is continuing. [omaha.com]

First responders confirmed just before 8 p.m. Sunday that a rescue mission at Interstate Commodities grain elevator, just outside Fremont, NE, became a recovery mission, reports KFMT Fremont.
Fremont Fire Department, Dodge County Sheriff’s office and at least two other rescue crews from nearby agencies worked for nearly five hours to save a man who became trapped in the grain bin around 2:30 p.m. Sunday.
Rope teams were on the scene, as was a crew from Central Valley Ag, attempting rescue from both the top and the bottom of the elevator.
[FeedAndGrain]

None of the reports that I found mentioned whether or not the worker was wearing a safety harness that was attached to a rope.

Justin Mensik posted
Fremont, NE. Elevator still fully functioning. Tho it’s a disaster.
Ryan Stanek: Wasn't there a fire there?
Justin Mensik: Ryan Stanek I’m always told grain explosion. So yeah. The silo or two to the west is where an employee became entrapped and the whole thing was unloaded onto the parking lot to get his body out.

Chicago, IL Depot: Proposed Passenger Stations

There were some proposals to replace Central, Dearborn, LaSalle and Grand Central with a single station.

David Daruszka posted

The Chicago railroad station that never was.

In 1892 Gen. Joseph T. Torrence proposed a massive 14 track train station that would accommodate all the passenger roads entering the city from the south. Located at the corner of 12th and State Streets, his Chicago Elevated Terminal Railway Co. proposed elevation of the grade level tracks of the railroads using the station. The building, designed by noted architect Solon Beman, would include transfer tables for each track so that locomotives could easily be moved out of the station. A pioneer in iron and steel production in Chicago and Indiana, Torrence was also instrumental in the founding of the Chicago and Western Indiana Railroad and the Chicago and Calumet Terminal Rwy.

The project never came to fruition, but it was the impetus for the elevation of railroad tracks in the city.

David Daruszka updated

David Daruszka posted two photos with the comment:

In 1909 the South Parks Commission and the Illinois Central Railroad reached an agreement to build and new "union" station adjacent to the Field Museum. The station would have served the roads using Dearborn, LaSalle and Grand Central stations as well as the IC. This may have coincided with the desire to electrify the railroads within the city limits. Only the IC would achieve that goal, and the advent of "clean" diesel locomotives would end those plans although steam would continue to reign until after World War II. This station was never built.

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Chicago, IL: B&O's 1883 Depot

I've already documented that B&O originally built the Brookdale Spur in 1874 to access IC's tracks for their passenger trains. I knew Michigan Central wanted B&O out of IC's station because they did not want to share it with a direct competitor to the East. That is why B&O was willing to join the railroads that were building Grand Central Station. From the "conversation" below on a post concerning Beverly Junction Tower B, I learned that B&O built their own station on the lakefront in 1883. It used that station until its first passenger train arrived at Grand Central Station on Dec 1, 1891. [Brandon McShane comment on a post]

Bob Lalich commented on a post
This is Tower B, which controlled the B&OCT crossing in the distance.
William Shapotkin This may sound petty -- and yes the above map does say "B&OCT," but it was my understanding that this piece of railroad was actually known as the "B&O Connecting."
Bob Lalich William Shapotkin - you are correct that the short stretch of track between the Rock Island at Beverly Jct and 75th St was built by the B&O Connecting RR. At the time the B&O Connecting was built in 1892, the N-S stem of what was to become the B&OCT, Chicago Central RR, was controlled by the Wisconsin Central, which in turn was controlled by Northern Pacific. This arrangement allowed the B&O to vacate their own downtown station on the IC near what is today the Art Institute in order to become a tenant of newly built Grand Central Station.
Dennis DeBruler Bob Lalich So the B&O shared the IC tracks, but not their station?
Bob Lalich Dennis DeBruler - my documentation states that B&O used IC's station until 1883, when it built its own station on the IC near Monroe.

I found some more details:

B&OCT History

David Daruszka commented on the same post
The B&O Station was to the north of the Interstate Exposition Building (site of the current Art Institute, as seen on this map.

David Daruszka commented on the same post
You can see what appears to be a platform to the right of the building with the chimney.

I added a yellow rectangle to highlight the platform roof:

Image plus Paint

Bob Lalich commented on the same post
Dennis DeBruler - here is an article in an IC company magazine that mentions the B&O station. I haven't had a chance to dig deeper yet.
[Scroll to the bottom of Weldon Yard for more info on the Weldon Shops.]

 

Bob Lalich commented on a share
According to this map, the B&O depot was next to the Exposition Building.

David Daruszka commented on Bob's comment
Close up of the area on the map.