Editor's note: The following story appeared in the Hutchinson News, July 22, 2001. It details plans by the Kansas & Oklahoma Railroad to upgrade its track and service.


The operations of Central Kansas Railroad are now officially under the name of Kansas & Oklahoma Railroad, as Pittsburg-based railroad operator Watco Companies took ownership June 30.

Ed McKechnie, director of governmental and public affairs for Watco and a former state legislator, said the company plans to re-establish as much of CKR's old business contacts as possible and refurbish much of the 920 miles of track, much in danger of abandonment. "We're learning a lot about our customers," he said. "We know this first year is going to be a learning process."

The K&O extends as far north as Osborne, as far south as Protection, as far west as Towner, Colo., and has a major hub in Wichita. It was sold by OmniTrax, a Denver-based firm that chose to divest its railway properties in the Midwest and concentrate on its real estate holdings and railway operations in Canada.

Combined with the Southeast Kansas Railroad and South Kansas Oklahoma Railroad, which run through Pittsburg and southwest Missouri and the Stillwater Central Railroad, which runs through Tulsa, Okla., Watco owns enough track to perhaps establish a major 20-mph railway system
throughout the region.

McKechnie said work is under way with local authorities to create a port authority in Pittsburg, but the railroads will be kept separate for now.

"Whenever you take over 920 miles of track, you want to concentrate on making that work, first," he said.

The largest single customer of K&O will be Wichita-based Vulcan Chemical, but 60 percent of its customer base will be agricultural products, particularly grain and feed, McKechnie said. Public meetings in several ag centers throughout Kansas are in the planning stages, he said.

Charlie Swayze, manager of six grain elevators in central Kansas, runs four that are on the K&O line -- Zenda, Nashville, Isabel and Sawyer. He said he's been impressed with the way Watco's doing business so far, compared with OmniTrax, which seemed to be more interested in letting tracks downgrade and filing for abandonment.

"I'm really glad OmniTrax is gone," Swayze said. "I used to be lucky to get two trains in a month. Now I'm getting one a week, and sometimes one and a half times a week."

A train car can hold roughly 3 1/2 times that of a semi trailer, Swayze said. Trucks can go many places trains can't, he said, but trains are still the most economical way of getting the most grain from one place to another.

Grain inspectors also will give an entire carload of grain one grade at the co-op, Swayze said, and that grade will stay until it's unloaded. Not so with trucks, he said -- other inspectors might downgrade a truckload of grain once it reaches its destination, and the co-op has to eat the discount after paying the freight.

"And who do you think hurts from that discount?" he said. "The farmers. I have to pass that on to them."

Swayze said he's in favor of any tax breaks or other economic support the state can give Watco for the operation of the K&O. McKechnie said Watco wants to spend $50 million in the first 10 years on improvements.

A $10 million 20-year tax abatement bill passed the Kansas House last session and will appear in the Senate Taxation committee this coming session, McKechnie said.

The first major rehab projects will be the line from Wichita to Kingman, which could begin within a month, McKechnie said. The next will be the line from Wichita to Great Bend, which should begin this fall. After that, it'll be upgrading the Yaggy Field staging area northwest of Hutchinson, which McKechnie said will be a major staging area for the K&O.