"FLOOD TIME RAILROADING, 1951 (By Howard D. Killam)---
"Getting rain in Kansas is like getting catsup out of a bottle: for a long time you don't get any, then
all at once you get too damn much."
Old timers in Kansas believed that rain would come if a snake were killed and hung belly up over a
fence. Thus was many a harmless garter or bull snake sacrificed in days of yore, but in May to July
1951 the serpents had their revenge, for it rained in Kansas--pouring, drenching cloudbursts of
rain that turned dry washes and sluggish prairie creeks into raging brown torrents, and the larger
rivers floated driftwood and trash as they crept up toward the bankfull mark.
And still the rains came.
On June 30th the Kansas (Kaw) River rose again against its dikes (levees) for the twentieth time since
they were built after the 1908 flood, then receeded again to gather strength for the final onslaught.
And yet were the windows of heaven opened. Noah would have felt at home.
SANTA FE shopmen at Topeka returned from their vacations July 10, and on July 11 SANTA FE
tracks west of Tecumseh (a tiny station 4.3 miles east of Topeka) were reported under water from
the bankfull Kaw and swollen Shunganunga Creek. Another torrential rain had fallen on the Kaw's
watershed and the weatherman warned apprehensive Topekans to get ready for the worst flood in
recent history.
All of eastern Kansas was oozing water like a saturated sponge. Roadbeds of all railroads were soft
and treacherous, and on July 11 it was reported that at Hillsdale, near Paola on FRISCO'S double
track main No. 117. the "Firefly", took the ditch, and back in Topeka the swollen Shunganunga
Creek was threatening a MISSOURI PACIFIC bridge as the road's forces prepared to brace it. On
the SANTA FE'S Atchison District (branch line to St. Joseph, Mo.) the daily-except-Sunday motor
(doodle-bug M-119) had to back up to St. Joseph from Meridan, Kan., 11.1 miles northeast of
Topeka.
SANTA FE officials ordered the Atchison District bridge over the Kaw in Topeka anchored with
"held-for-disposition" steam engines parked in the shop yards. Accordingly, 2-8-2 3165 tender
4085 went to the north end of the bridge to be followed successively by 4036 tender 4084, 4071 tender
4071, 3270 tender 3270, 1035 tender 1055*, 3167 tender 4083*, 4076 tender 4076*, 1083 tender 1028,
3163 tender 4072, and 3164 tender 3280 (* star indicates lost in river). (Engines 1035 and 1083 were
2-6-2 or Prairie types, the rest were 2-8-2 or Mikado types.)
* Not all engines on the bridge had the original tenders which belonged to them, due to changes made
in engine-tender relationships shortly before the flood. 2-6-2 1083's rear tender truck fell into the
water leaving that part of the tank hanging off the broken end of the bridge.
ROCK ISLAND had no engines available in Topeka with which to weight their bridge, so they loaded
available Gondolas and box cars with capacity loads of rock and placed these on the bridge, which
carries the tracks of the southwestern main line across the Kaw.
About 5 p.m. July 11 came the last train through Topeka before the flood. SANTA FE's line from
Kansas City lies almost down to the river level, and was completely out of commission so No. 123,
the northern section of the "Grand Canyon" came in on UNION PACIFIC tracks and left for Denver
via Marysville, Kansas on the U.P., barely beating the flood out of town. A UNION PACIFIC freight
was at the West Topeka coal chute and was caught in the flood.
All night long the sky was overcast and rain drizzled down as radio stations suspended regular
programs and played music interspersed with announcements that all residents of North Topeka
were to evacuate at once. Volunteer workers fought a hopeless battle with sandbags through the
night at the dike on the north side of the river near UNION PACIFIC's west yard switch, and at
1:15 AM July 12 the sullen, muttering river broke through and a torrent of water began to rush down
the low place inside the dike and headed straight for UNION PACIFIC's yards and for all of North
Topeka's business and residential districts. At the same time the order went out for the
evacuation of the low-lying north part of the Oakland district which is near SANTA FE's freight
car shops.
At 9 AM I was called home to take my family to a place of safety as the evacuation of all Oakland
had been ordered. The entire SANTA FE shops were closed about 2 P.M. In the afternoon I was
in volunteer work sandbagging doors and moving goods around SANTA FE and ROCK ISLAND yards
in the lower Kansas Avenue industrial district. The water continued to rise about the journal boxes
of freight cars as we shoveled sand, filled bags and heaved merchandise from trucks into box
cars. ROCK ISLAND backed diesel switcher 535 to the uphill end of an industry spur between
Kansas Avenue and Quincy Street and hoped the water wouldn't get to it. (It didn't.) A few blocks
further west the water crept over ROCK ISLAND's main line, yards and enginehouse. All engines
had been removed--none were there but switchers and light power used on the freight-only
St. Joseph line.
It was said that 30 or 35 persons were marooned in the "Rock Island" station without food or water
and were rescued by motor launches. (ROCK ISLAND uses UNION PACIFIC's passenger station in
North Topeka.)
ROCK ISLAND'S plush extra fare "Golden State" was detoured on the Denver line via Omaha only
to be halted by a washout near Jennings, Kansas.