JACKSONVILLE, Ill. — With officials from both KCS and Canadian Pacific reportedly aboard, Kansas City Southern’s Southern Belle business train visited the Bartlett Grain facility in Jacksonville on Wednesday, Oct. 26.
KCS No. 1 led the A-B-A set of FP9 from Kansas City, Mo., to Roodhouse, Ill., then north to the Bartlett facility’s loop on the south side of Jacksonville.
Jeff Hymas, communications director for Bartlett Grain/a Savage Company, said the company was hosting the business train as part of a customer appreciation trip. Bartlett’s Jacksonville, Illinois grain facility opened in 2013. It includes a 100-railcar loop track and can store up to 8 million bushels of corn. The company, KCS’s largest grain customer, is one of the leading exporters of U.S. grain to Mexico.
The train rolled through the loading shed but stopped short because the dome car in the 12-car consist does not clear loading equipment. The locomotives cut off, ran light around the loop, and coupled to the rear observation car for a return run to Roodhouse, where the power was wyed to put the KCS 1 back on the point for the train’s return trip to Kansas City.
CP and KCS have been conducting joint inspection trips recently, with both railroads’ business trains recently in Kansas City.
