Railfanning and an Oil well

The weather has been especially nice for winter in Kansas and provided the opportunity to get out and about and do a bit of rail fanning in the area.

I read on the Kansas rail fan web page that a number of four axle BNSF GP units have been put into storage on the east side of Newton Kansas. They fill up two sidings and are easy to get to for photographs so we drove up to check them out. Some appear to have fresh paint.

Most are GP-38-2's but there are a few GP39-2's and one GP28-2.  

 

A trip to the SKO rail yard in Winfield gave the chance to see the various Diesel locomotives they have ready for service.

I'm building a model of this particular engine and have quite a few photos for reference

Decades ago when the Santa Fe railroad moved from steam engines to diesels they donated examples of various engines to cities for display in their parks and museums. Two of these have been cosmetically refurbished and I wanted to check them out.

Arkansas City has ALCO #2542 2-8-0 on display in their park.

Bartlesville, Oklahoma is the home to a Santa Fe #940 2-10-2 steam engine and several period correct rail cars. This is located next to the former depot in Bartlesville. This display is next to the city park which has the first oil well on display as well as a former Santa Fe depot.

The City Park includes the Nellie Johnstone NO. 1 oil well and documentation telling the history.

I thought this tiny Santa Fe Depot had good lines and was architecturally interesting

Some folks in a beautifully restored 1967 Dodge Coronet convertible were out enjoying the day 

It is always interesting to watch for interesting treatments of brick and brick colors. This is helpful when painting bricks on scale models. The brick on this building is noteworthy for variety.

No trip to Bartlesville is complete without checking out the sun dial at the Frank Lloyd Wright Price Tower.

It was nice to get some rail fanning in before winter weather arrives in force.