FORT WORTH, Texas – BNSF Railway has reached a major milestone: The completion of the remaining section of double track on its Southern Transcon in Kansas.
“Monday was a big day for BNSF’s Emporia Subdivision! The last 3.5 of approximately 51 miles of new doubletrack were cut over, about halfway across our Southern Transcon route,” the railway said in a LinkedIn post today.
A high-priority Z-train was the first to roll over the trackage between Rose Hill and Mulvane, Kan.
Only two short pieces of single track are left on the 2,200-mile former Santa Fe main line between Los Angeles and Chicago, both involving bridges: About 1.5 miles at Sibley, Mo., where BNSF crosses the Missouri River, and about 3 miles at Alva, Okla., the crossing of the Salt Fork River.
The Kansas double-tracking project began in 2019 and continued the legacy of the Santa Fe, which in 1992 committed to adding a second main all the way from Los Angeles to Chicago.
Does anyone know if there are currently any plans to replace or augment these two remaining single-tracked bridges?