wildfire19861987's video: Railfanning at the Topeka Railroad Festival: 8-20-11

Once again I attended the event held at the Great Overland Station. New this year is the "Railroad Park" under construction. Currently it consists of the Santa Fe Welda, KS depot, a UP Ca-3 caboose (they are going to ask Union Pacific for assistance in repainting it to UP colors), Santa Fe baggage and observation cars, and a SF 40' ice bunker reefer (most reefers in Kansas have been detrucked and repainted for use as sheds on farms). All of these items were part of a group that a railfan was using as his house on a farm between Overbrook and Baldwin City, KS. After his death, his railroadiana collection (which included tons of dining car china) was sold off, and 2 of the passenger cars were retained by the family. The rest was donated to the Overland Station, who had to raise the money to move it. The GOS also owns Santa Fe 4-6-4 , which is currently located at the Kansas Expocenter. They would like to move it to the station, but Topeka won't let them haul it across the new Topeka ave. bridge unless it is disasembled. A very costly move. Welda was located along Santa Fe's line from Ottawa, KS to Tulsa, OK. Some restoration was done to the depot, and it's easily one of the best preserved depots i've seen. The interior is 100% original. It even has the train order signal, which will be made operational. While I was there they were giving telegraph demonstrations for people. One side was in the depot, the other in the baggage car. Also new this year were free handcar rides (and yes I tried my hand at it). I managed to catch 4 out of the 6 trains that went by on film. Once again I didn't have my tripod because I didn't want to lug it around.