Passenger Rail Service in Barton County

The Trans-Kansas Eagle (May 18, 2003)

1906 railroad map of Barton County

Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe

Shown in red on this map

Original Santa Fe Main Line

The original line of the Santa Fe followed the curve of the Arkansas River. On the map above, you can trace its route from Alden in the southeast corner of the map to Raymond, Ellinwood, Great Bend, Dundee, Pawnee Rock to Larned and then southwest (still following the river). Later, a shortcut was built from Hutchinson to Kinsley and many of the through long-distance trains took this shortcut, reducing service to Great Bend. You can trace this development by looking at timetables for this line for the following dates:

Florence to Ellinwood

On the map, you can see another red line going straight east out of Ellinwood. This line went to Chase, Lyons, McPherson and continued to Florence where it connected with the Main Line (which had gone south to Hutchinson and Newton en route to Florence). In later years on this run, the train is shown as “motor” which generally referred to what passengers called a “doodlebug”, a self-propelled motorized car with flanged wheels (to run on the track), but costing less to run that a traditional steam engine. You can trace the evolution of this line by looking at timetables for the following dates:

Little River to Holyrood to Galatia

In the northeast corner of the map above, you'll see a red line coming through Lorraine and Holyrood and stopping at the Barton County line. A few years after this map was drawn (in 1906), the line continued straight west to Millard and Galatia but it went no further. The line to Galatia provided passenger (or at least mixed service) for many decades. The east end of this line was Little River where it connected with the Ellinwood to Florence line. In the early years, there was a smooth connection at Little River for eastbound travelers and then another smooth connection at Florence for those heading to Topeka, Kansas City, or Chicago. However, by 1943, these schedules were not well coordinated, so a traveler making the same trip would have had an 18 hour layover in Little River!!! You can see for yourself as you check these timetables for that line:

Great Bend to Scott City

The red line heading northwest from Great Bend to Albert and beyond went to Scott City. The line eventually went south from Scott City to Garden City where it connected again with the Main Line. It, too, once had passenger rail service as you can see on these timetables for that line:

Larned to Jetmore

The red line heading southwest from Larned along the river was the original main line which connected at Kinsley with the shortcut that ran via St. John. However, there's another red line heading almost due west out of Larned. That's the branch line that went to Jetmore. It, too, once had passenger rail service as you can see on these timetables for that line:

Missouri Pacific

Shown in very dark blue (almost black) on this map

Kansas City to Pueblo, Colorado

The Missouri Pacific's main “Main Line” went from St. Louis southwest to Texas, but they also had long-distance service from St. Louis to Kansas City to Pueblo where they connected with lines going to the rest of Colorado and on to Utah and California. Hoisington was a division point on this line where crews and clocks were changed. Eastbound trains from Hoisington were on Central Time, but westbound trains were on Mountain Time. You can see service on this line for the following dates:

Hoisington to Great Bend

This line was simply a spur from the MoPac's Colorado line in Hoisington to the bigger city of Great Bend. There was passenger service between the two. Sometimes, this service was simply shown on the main Colorado line schedule. Sometimes, though, they showed it as a separate (but very small) timetable:

Geneseo to Wichita

The KC-Pueblo line of the MoPac had another, much longer, spur — to Wichita. Passengers from Wichita could take this train from Wichita to Geneseo, where they could switch to a Colorado-bound train. Eventually, the eastbound and westbound KC-Pueblo trains were coordinated to meet in Geneseo. (Since it was single track, they'd have to pass somewhere.) The train from Wichita was then coordinated with the two KC-Pueblo trains, allowing passengers from Wichita (and intermediate points) to connect to either eastbound or westbound trains. It made for a relatively roundabout way of getting from Wichita to Kansas City, but it could be done. You can see Wichita-Geneseo timetables for the following dates:

St. Louis and San Francisco (Frisco Lines)

Shown in orange on this map

line to Ellsworth

This wasn't quite a Barton County railroad line, but it's close enough to show on this map, so I'll include it. The Frisco's home base was Springfield, Misouri. Their two main lines formed an X crossing at Springfield. One line went from St. Louis to Springfield to Tulsa. The other went from Kansas City to Springfield toward Birmingham, Alabama. They did have a few lines in Kansas and one of them came through Lyons to Frederick to Lorraine to Ellsworth. It is interesting to note that the little town of Frederick once had passenger rail service from two different railroads! You can see a few schedules from the Frisco's line to Ellsworth for the following dates: This space is provided, free of charge, by midks.com to those who have momentos of local history that they wish to share. If you have photographs or documents that pertain to trains in Kansas and are willing to share them freely, you should contact the webmaster.