The American prairie is a vast, flat expanse. Heading east across these plains under a cloudless azure sky is a Missouri Pacific freight train, led by SD40-2s 6025 and 3202. The train is about to split the signals at milepost 694.5, just shy of two and a half miles from Modoc, Kansas, the towering grain elevators of which can be seen in the far distance in this August 22nd, 1980, morning.