The heart of the Wylie Intermodal Terminal, a $65-million facility located alongside KCS’s existing yard, is a pair of 5,000-foot strip tracks capable of handling more than 300,000 annual lifts. That is a huge improvement over Zacha Junction, a Santa Fe-era name for the Dallas site, where KCS was limited to less than 170,000 lifts each year.
Additionally, the 92-acre terminal, which began operations on July 13 after a year of construction, can be easily expanded since it adjoins 270 undeveloped acres. Also planned is 250-acre industrial park.
“We feel that this terminal brings, literally, a gateway to the world to the city of Wylie and Collin County,” KCS President Patrick J. Ottensmeyer, the company’s president since February, during yesterday’s dedication ceremony. “It creates the opportunity for planned economic growth and development in the region. It makes this area, we feel, even more competitive to shippers and manufacturing companies looking to operate and move to new facilities in this market.”
The timing could not have been better. KCS has had a slow year so far in intermodal, Ottensmeyer said in a July earnings presentation, mainly due to service and equipment issues. “The punch line here is that we expect this … facility will provide a platform for growth in our key Meridian Speedway routes between Dallas and the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic markets for many years to come,” he said.
Now, KCS only runs a handful of daily intermodal trains over these lines, which stretch east to Shreveport, La., and west to a connection with BNSF Railway near Denton. That may change, however, with Wylie’s debut in the growing Texas business climate.
As for Zacha, that Santa Fe vestige will remain open, but only for non-intermodal business.
I have noticed the absence of train activity at the Dallas Intermodal facility. I miss it. I have watched many of trains come and go on the line between Dallas and Wylie. I would like to go up and see the Wylie facility soon. One other observation like one of the others noticed, I frequently wondered why NS was on the point and if not the only locomotives on trains running that track when it belongs to KCS. There were KCS trains and a mix of NS power. Sometimes I would see UP and BNSF power that came down from Wylie to the Dallas Intermodal Yard. I will miss all that activity. There is still a short line that serves Garland, Texas that came to that yard. I wonder if it will make the trip to Dallas or Wylie now. That short line intercepts the KCS main line in Garland.
Well, like I said at the end of the story, Zacha ain't dead yet, so KCS is keeping the ghosts at bay for now. Who would've guessed 20 years ago KCS would be the last Class I operating a yard of any significance in Big D? I know I'd have said, "KC-who?"
Can't wait to see it. I've spent many an afternoon, and a few all-nighters, watching them switch the Zacha Junction site, creating trains, then heading out to the Meridian Speedway, eastbound. It always seemed far too small and cramped for a city the size of Dallas. This seems much more reasonable, though Wylie is not exactly "Dallas." It's a good 20 miles out, but Dallas has shaken off its railroading past and most of the rail activity has moved to the surrounding countryside and small towns, where real-estate is cheap for large switching yards, and the danger of being surrounded by Dallas growth is at least ten years away.
That leaves Dallas as a "railroad ghost-yard," where one who knows where all the tracks were can still find bits of abandoned trackage hiding from the bulldozers, builders and pavers. But that just makes the challenge all that more enjoyable, piecing together bits of Dallas's railroading past through pictures, Google Earth, stories, and any other sources that one can find. Even the railroad museum has moved to far-outlying Frisco, a 30 minute drive from Dallas when the traffic permits.
KCS is our only big railroad in East Dallas, while UP and BNSF operate north, south, and west. Norfolk Southern apparently has a deal worked out with KCS for access to Dallas on the Meridian Speedway, as more than half the locomotives I've seen pulling intermodal trains in and out on the east side are NS. I'm beginning to wonder how much operational differences exist between the Big Five US railroads, and if the difference between them amounts to more than a few microns of paint on the engines.
But good to see that the investment continues, that with all the loss of our area railroads, growth is still at large, and good, positive change can be reported.
Shooshie
This is the longest sentence fragment I've seen in newswire: "The facility, located in the far northeast suburbs of Dallas, that more than doubles the lift capacity of the cramped Dallas ramp built in the 1950s."