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The Oklahoma Sub Division - Prototype The Oklahoma Sub Division in 1989 was a part of the Kansas Division. The mainline extended from Arkansas City Kansas to Gainesville Texas, passing through Oklahoma City about half way. This was modern railroad all the way, CTC dispatched, a lot of traffic, including grain and other agricultural products, chemicals, petroleum products, automobile and automobile parts traffic, and intermodal. The sub formed a link between Kansas City and the Texas gulf coast. Important stations besides Oklahoma City included: Ponca City, home of Continental Refining (Conoco), carbon black plants, grain products, and other petroleum products. Red Rock receives many coal trains for the Oklahoma Gas & Electric power plant. Guthrie has manufacturing plants. Britton and Edmond which are suburban Oklahoma City towns with various industries. Norman which also has a lot of industry. The Oklahoma Sub Division also was home to the Enid District which ran from Guthrie northwest through Enid to Kiowa Kansas where the line connected with the mainline from Kansas City to California. This line was originally built as the Denver, Enid and Gulf Railroad. It was later purchased by the Santa Fe. The branch could be rather inactive at times, but during wheat harvest time, it became a very busy place with unit grain trains coming in to unload at the massive terminal grain elevators, and also grain trains going primarily to the gulf coast, originating at Enid. The big elevator company in Enid in 1989 was Union Equity COOP, which sold to Farmland Industries. Other elevators included Continental Grain, Mid America Grain, W. B. Johnston, and others. A large ADM flour mill (formerly Pillsbury) was also located there. In older days, the town was served by the Frisco (SLSF), becoming BN, and Rock Island (CRIP) which was taken over by the MKT and finally the UP. Enid was also home to the Champlin Refinery, which later sold to various oil companies finally being purchased by Sun Oil, which eventually dismantled the refinery and shipped it to a new location. The towns on the Enid District, east and west, were primarily very small farm communities, each with grain elevators, which generated little rail traffic in 1989. One major industry on the Enid District was just east of Enid at Fairmont, and was a Farmland Ammonia plant making fertilizer. The Oklahoma Sub Division also had two minor branch lines in 1989, one serving Pawnee and Stillwater Oklahoma, using trackage rights over the BN, and the Shawnee branch serving Shawnee Oklahoma over UP trackage rights from Oklahoma City. |
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