A rarity on any railroad, Alco RSC-2 1288 rests near the cottonwoods in Ellis, Kansas, between runs on the nearby 124-mile Salina-Colby-Oakley branch. Developed out of an design for U.S. Army, the 1955-built 1500-hp road switcher rides on A-1-A trucks -- the center axle is unpowered -- which spread the engine’s weight on light rail. U.S. roads bought only 74 of the model; another 17 were exported, and five decades after this October, 1965, view, a handful would remain active in Portugal. But Kansas weather has taken its toll on the faded 1288, which by 1969 will be traded in to EMD. By then, Ellis, once the crew-change point between UP’s Colorado and Kansas Divisions, will lose its roundhouse, and the railroad shops where once auto magnate Walter P. Chrysler learned the mechanic’s trade, will be abandoned.
