Burlington Northern Santa Fe is celebrating recent construction near Emporia, as well as its impact on the railroad areawide and nationally.
BNSF recently finished over 50 miles of work on double-tracking the Southern Transcon for what is called the Emporia Subdivision. Work took place the past several years between Rose Hill and Mulvane.
This is an important step for the railroad because it means the Southern Transcon is almost completely double-tracked, and in some cases there are more than two adjacent main lines on the route. It also follows similar work between Rose Hill and Augusta that went into service last month. All told, BNSF says the Emporia Sub project has been underway in some fashion since 2019.
The Southern Transcon is BNSF’s busiest stretch of rail, running around 2,200 miles from southern California to Chicago, and BNSF says this will shorten the route for eastbound trains by as much as 90 minutes per trip. These parts of double-tracking the Transcon come just before the railroad’s busy holiday shipping season between this upcoming Monday and Christmas.
More work is ahead to fully double-track the Transcon, including about 1.5 miles at Sibley, Missouri; and another three miles of work at Alva, Oklahoma.
Project costs are not being released. How this affects train traffic through Emporia remains to be seen. Emporia typically has 80-120 trains per day and city officials say BNSF has not reached out to them for an update.
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