U30B 833 at Kansas City, Kansas in September 1978 (Michael Wise).

This photograph was taken in Armourdale Yard of the Union Pacific (UP) Railroad. This yard is in the Kansas River bottomland, 1.5 miles south of the city’s downtown. Their engine service facilities were near the middle of the yard, south of the railroad’s modern freight house. Beyond the nose of the subject locomotive is a GP30 of the host railroad.

Above the UP engine, in the distance on the river bluff, is the top of an onion shaped church spire. This is the “Old” Holy Trinity Orthodox Church, founded in 1917, at 557 Lowell Avenue. The church is in the historic Russian Hill section of the larger Strawberry Hill neighborhood.

To the right of the locomotive in the tree and pole line is the northwestern branch of the Kansas City Terminal (KCT) Railway’s elevated High Line. Its north end ascends from North Cypress Junction, south of James Street. This branch continues south, east of and parallel to Interstate 70, west of the Kansas River. As seen in this view it is just before crossing over Armourdale Yard.

South of the yard it then joins its western branch ascending from Terminal Junction, under the Seventh Street overpass. These routes join at High Line Junction. The junction is over Berger Avenue, just west of its intersection with Adams Street. The two lines then continue in a generally southerly direction, cross the Kansas River on a double deck, 4 track (2 each level), hydraulic lift bridge.

Continuing on the route passes over the Kansas/Missouri state line. Just beyond, at State Line Junction, the lines split again. One branch turns northeast descending toward Kansas City Union Station (KCUS). The other line diverts to the southwest, passes closely to the west of the KCT roundhouse and descends to 29th Street Interlocking.

The view is looking north.

Special thanks to Mark Davidson.