Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad
Reporting mark | KO |
---|---|
Locale | Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado |
Dates of operation | 2001–Present |
Track gauge | 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
Length | 820 miles (1,320 kilometres)[1] |
Headquarters | Wichita, Kansas |
The Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad (reporting mark KO) is a shortline railroad operating in the midwest United States.
Overview
The tracks Kansas and Oklahoma operate on include the Kansas City-Colorado main line formerly operated by the Missouri Pacific and later Union Pacific railways.
The KO is a subsidiary of the Watco Companies, which took over the operations of the Central Kansas Railway (CKRY) on June 29, 2001. The KO started operating at 12:01 A.M. on June 30, 2001. The CKRY property was purchased from OmniTrax and the KO also assumed operations of CKRY's sister Railroad Kansas Southwestern Railway on the same date.
The KO consists of trackage radiating north and west from their headquarters at Wichita, Kansas. Most of this trackage was originally operated by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, although a few segments were originally operated by the Missouri Pacific.
820 miles of track are owned by KO, and another 84 miles is accounted for in trackage rights.[2]
Subdivisions
As of March 2005, the K&O consisted of the following subdivisions:
- Hutchinson Subdivision (Wichita, Kansas to Hutchinson, Kansas)
- Conway Springs Subdivision (Wichita, Kansas to Kingman, Kansas via Conway Springs, Kansas)
- Kingman Subdivision (Garden Plain, Kansas to Pratt, Kansas)
- Isabel Subdivision (Coats, Kansas to Graham, Kansas)
- Great Bend Subdivision (Hutchinson, Kansas to near Pawnee Rock, Kansas)
- Geneseo Subdivision (Sterling, Kansas to Geneseo, Kansas)
- Scott City Subdivision (Great Bend, Kansas to Scott City, Kansas)
- Hoisington Subdivision (Geneseo, Kansas to McCracken, Kansas and Healy, Kansas to Towner, Colorado)
- Salina Subdivision (Salina, Kansas to Osborne, Kansas)
- McPherson Subdivision (McPherson, Kansas to Conway, Kansas)
- Newton Subdivision (Newton, Kansas to McPherson, Kansas)
See also
- Marion and McPherson Railroad, defunct railroad that connected Ellinwood (west end), Lyons, McPherson, Marion, Florence (east end). K&O currently uses the parts that hasn't been abandoned.
References
- ↑ "Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad full page map" (PDF).
- ↑ "Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad (KO)". Watco. Retrieved 2016-04-18.