KCRag Forum

kcdcchef wrote: at that time, 92, i was told it went to the river market with produce.

Well there has always been the paper train and it is exactly as you describe it.  A single small locomotive and a single box car that slowly makes its way through the cross roads.

There are no tracks north of 670 and the only tracks on the north loop is an old trolley line bridge that would not support a heavy locomotive.

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it was the KC Star train.

GRID wrote: Well there has always been the paper train and it is exactly as you describe it.  A single small locomotive and a single box car that slowly makes it way through the cross roads.

There are no tracks north of 670 and the only tracks on the north loop is an old trolley line bridge that would not support a heavy locomotive.

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it was the KC Star train.

maybe they met it at 670 on a truck or something? who knows. seemed odd to me since river market has its own tracks, and then some.

so, that train doesnt do that nightly anymore??

tell ya what, i walked home from the hyatt for 5 years, and when i saw that, that night, i almost shit myself!! been walking across those tracks all those years and never knew of that train. damn.

you have a good holiday man?

kcdcchef wrote: maybe they met it at 670 on a truck or something? who knows. seemed odd to me since river market has its own tracks, and then some.

so, that train doesnt do that nightly anymore??

tell ya what, i walked home from the hyatt for 5 years, and when i saw that, that night, i almost shit myself!! been walking across those tracks all those years and never knew of that train. damn.

you have a good holiday man?

yea, why would you put produce on a train for 10 blocks and then offload it to trucks for another ten blocks?

But it's funny what people will tell you on the streets.

That train also ran in the middle of the day and it was always amusing to watch it cross busy 20th Street and freak people out.

They offloaded the paper rolls to the printing press with fork lifts.

The new press uses smaller rolls that are trucked in, I guess.  Beermo would probably know all about that stuff.

Holidays were good, have not been on the computer much.  Went to St Louis and hung out with the family and just hung out in KC.  Nothing special.

You?

GRID wrote: yea, why would you put produce on a train for 10 blocks and then offload it to trucks for another ten blocks?

But it's funny what people will tell you on the streets.

That train also ran in the middle of the day and it was always amusing to watch it cross busy 20th Street and freak people out.

They offloaded the paper rolls to the printing press with fork lifts.

The new press uses smaller rolls that are trucked in, I guess.  Beermo would probably know all about that stuff.

Holidays were good, have not been on the computer much.  Went to St Louis and hung out with the family and just hung out in KC.  Nothing special.

You?

do you have to put a fucking space in between each line to make it take up the whole damned screen?

we had a great holiday, went to jackie's family, good food, good gifts, GREAT family to hang out with. spent 3 days there, then went to the cincy chiefs game. am debating about putting any pictures up. took lots, but i am not you.

kcdcchef wrote: do you have to put a fucking space in between each line to make it take up the whole damned screen?

we had a great holiday, went to jackie's family, good food, good gifts, GREAT family to hang out with. spent 3 days there, then went to the cincy chiefs game. am debating about putting any pictures up. took lots, but i am not you.

haha, shit, you crack me up.

Cincy, the stadium looked full on TV at least.

Space

Space.

GRID wrote: Space

Space.

Racist.

Oh... and about the train noise...  I use some fans to drown out the noise and I hardly notice the noise anymore.

when i lived at 910 penn, the trains would blow their horns all nite long in the bottoms, like every hour at minimum. and everytime someone "new" would sleep over, they would get woke up by the noise. and i was like, umm, i sleep right through it.

you will get used to it.

kcdcchef wrote: maybe they met it at 670 on a truck or something? who knows. seemed odd to me since river market has its own tracks, and then some.

so, that train doesnt do that nightly anymore??

tell ya what, i walked home from the hyatt for 5 years, and when i saw that, that night, i almost shit myself!! been walking across those tracks all those years and never knew of that train. damn.

you have a good holiday man?

There used to be a few industries jobs downtown that the KCS did until the KCT Terminal Railway took over that I know of. One of which was to spot paper at the KC Star, I think this was one of the last jobs before they quit coming up into downtown.  Another one was to spot a small yard to unload hoppers of plastic in the river market.  Those new apartments they're currently building is where that was.  As for the produce, I'd have to ask my dad. I do know that coming off the ASB bridge heading kinda southeast there are slabs of concrete down there where way back in the day they supposedly would spot cars of produce and you could buy stuff right off the railcar.

Anyways, I'm starting to sound like a foamer. Word.

I've lived next to tracks out here in the sticks for the last 18 years. I've gotten used to the sound. My kids don't even really notice, they have grown up with the sound of trains whistling by. In the last couple of years they've added the quiet zones to two of the three crossings that we hear. It's helped I guess. Mostly it keeps people from going around the crossing arms because they add concrete lane dividers to keep you from risking your life. The loudest noise is actually when the train comes to a stop (or starts up) and all the connectors adjust... sounds like bombs going off.

Pretty cool that there are multiple people who work for the railroad on here...

I assumed that it was all due to regulation, and level crossings, and whatnot, but it doesn't make the noise any less annoying at all hours of the night.

I might be wrong, but I believe the closest level crossing to me is at NW Argosy Parkway, off of 9.  I live on the eastern side of Briarcliff, so that makes it right at 2.2 miles from my house.  It sounds like it's right outside my window.

There's quite a bit of noise here, honestly, since planes fly directly above my house to get to Charles B Wheeler, but honestly they're not nearly as annoying as the occasional train whistle.  The bit about the fan is right, though.  Ever since it's been cold out and I've stopped running the ceiling fan on high, it's been much more noticeable.

The Train from Kansas City... Nothin' I can do can make it turn around.

And so it goes.

VELO DOOM wrote: There used to be a few industries jobs downtown that the KCS did until the KCT Terminal Railway took over that I know of. One of which was to spot paper at the KC Star, I think this was one of the last jobs before they quit coming up into downtown.  Another one was to spot a small yard to unload hoppers of plastic in the river market.  Those new apartments they're currently building is where that was.  As for the produce, I'd have to ask my dad. I do know that coming off the ASB bridge heading kinda southeast there are slabs of concrete down there where way back in the day they supposedly would spot cars of produce and you could buy stuff right off the railcar.

Anyways, I'm starting to sound like a foamer. Word.

You can still occassionally see a similar 1 car paper train serving the Journal World in Lawrence - most people never even notice that there are tracks downtown, but occasionally you can spot that single car putzing accross the main drags. 

GRID wrote: yea, why would you put produce on a train for 10 blocks and then offload it to trucks for another ten blocks?

But it's funny what people will tell you on the streets.

That train also ran in the middle of the day and it was always amusing to watch it cross busy 20th Street and freak people out.

They offloaded the paper rolls to the printing press with fork lifts.

The new press uses smaller rolls that are trucked in, I guess.  Beermo would probably know all about that stuff.

Holidays were good, have not been on the computer much.  Went to St Louis and hung out with the family and just hung out in KC.  Nothing special.

You?

the train never went farther than the star warehouse which is now a rental storage place on grand next to valero. the owner of the cashew had a beef with these trains to the star and vowed and promised that when the trains stopped he would build a full kitchen for his bar. has he done it yet? every time an article mentioned the cashew and it's lack of a full kitchen the owner always made a point to bash the star and the trains they used for the reason he couldn't get one in.

they offloaded the paper to the warehouse using clamp trucks. the paper then sat in the warehouse until needed then was loaded on the conveyor chains for the trip under grand at the sub-basement level to the dock at the sub-basement level of the main star building across the street. the rolls were then stripped of their cardboard wrapper on the dock, pushed onto dolly's and then pushed to the press it was needed at by the guys who worked in the white paper department. the paper would then be loaded by hand by the pressman that was working that reel stand and when the arms came around the pressman would make a flying paster on the roll using brown tape and glue to ready it to fire for the next paster cycle.

at the new building on mcgee the paper is trucked in from the metro warehouse caves to the north dock (btw, the star desperately wanted a site with a spur, but had to abandon the idea and go with 52' semi's because of knight-ridder corporate wanting to build downtown), unloaded using clamps trucks, sent into the hi-bay storage, (which you can see for yourself if you go to the windows on the northeast end of the building) when a certain roll size along with the mill and the type of paper is needed for press runs the paper is automatically retrieved from the hi-bay and sent to the roll prep stations where 1 or 2 guys are working and they strip off the cardboard wrappers, lay down a single strip of very expensive metallic backed 2 sided paster tape (which alleviates the need for timing marks) and then it's sent into the intermediate storage were it is retrieved automatically by the 2 cranes when needed, dropped at the correct reelstand and then loaded automatically in the reel when the time comes.

the rolls used in the new presses are actually larger in circumference than the ones used in the old presses, by at least a quarter. the real difference is that the rolls are not as long due to the size of the new version of the newspaper. we often use paper butts and balances that are just sitting around on the floor next to the reels and sometimes it's hard to tell exactly what size they are without a tape measure. we use 1/2 rolls, 5/8's, 3/4's, 7/8's and fulls and we can measure the roll just by using today's paper by laying it out page to page, side by side without a tape measure. if you lay out your paper like this, 4 pages across is the width of a full roll. a brand new roll, sitting on the floor will come to up the middle of my chest. so i am guessing that they are about 4 feet tall laying on their side, give or take.

the paper conveyor system in the old buildings tunnel.



the main dock in the sub basement of the old building.



rolls lined up to be used on a run on press 5 in the old building.



the paper roll dolly's sitting on a bridge on press 5 in the old building.



reelstand 15 on press 1 with no paper in it. old bldg.



looking thru an empty reelstand to one that has paper in it. notice the belts on top that spin the roll and the glue paster on the roll. you can also see red smears on the roll. those red smears are ink drips from the press unit that's above your head. ink drips were always an occupational hazard in the old building. i've scrubbed ink off every part of my body at one time or another.





conveyor chain going back up to ground level at the warehouse on west side of grand.



one of the many roll storage rooms in the warehouse west side of grand. ceiling is over 30 feet high.



another paper storage room in the sub basement.



you can see pics of the new pressroom here.
http://newpressroom.com/

cool. thanks for sharing!

I kinda like hearing the whistles echoing up from the west bottoms.

"We really got a deal on this house.  In fact, I'm probably the best negotiator in the world.  They practically gave us this place!"

TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTTTTTT!!!!!!!  TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTT!!!!

You get what you pay for.

Jake Blues: How often does the train go by?

Elwood Blues: So often you don't even notice it.

I lived in the east bay of SF, actually under the BART tracks.  The previous tenants had been a deaf couple.  It's amazing what your brain will block out after 6 months.

grovester wrote: I lived in the east bay of SF, actually under the BART tracks.  The previous tenants had been a deaf couple.  It's amazing what your brain will block out after 6 months.

yup. my pad in dc was right next to 9th precinct off of 16th and u. every nite, about every 30 minutes on average, cops would tear out of there, sirens whaling, and after a few months, it never woke me up once. seriously, didnt even hear it anymore.

Our house is miles from the track but on quiet nights one can hear the horns blowing in Martin City, then at Red Bridge Road, then at 103rd and 435, and then occasionally at old Bannister Road.  And in-between the horn blasts hear the train running fast on the tracks.