Here's a photo I took on August 23, 1996, TWENTY-SIX YEARS AGO, while making my way across the UP Hoisington Subdivision, a former Missouri Pacific property that has either been downgraded to branchline status, is dormant, or is abandoned.

Judging by the numerical sequence numbers on the slide mounts, this photo was taken somewhere between Shields siding (MP 655.6) and Utica (MP 640.3) and is in that sixty-mile segment of line between Healy and McCracken that has been abandoned and ripped up.

The MoPac Pueblo Line had its success tied in with a friendly connection with the D&RGW's line via Royal Gorge and Tennessee Pass. When that line died, this one did too. Mergers can change traffic patterns overnight. After UP took over the WP, SP had a pretty useless line from Roseville, CA to Ogden, UT. That's why they scrambled and quickly formed an alliance with D&RGW.