CNW 8666 (C44-9W) and an unidentifiable SP B30-7 or B36-7 sit on the former Cotton Belt main line at Brinkley, AR. As I recall the train had no crew (or the crew had tied down their train and gone to lunch). The track leading to the right is the north leg of a wye leading to the former RI Choctaw line west of Memphis. Several blocks behind me here that line now ended at the SSW mainline and provided Union Pacific trains operating on the former SSW access to Memphis. Only an empty RI roadbed continued west from here. This was during the period when Union Pacific was having operating issues in absorbing all the new lines it had added in taking over both C&NW and SP (and SSW and DRGW) during 1996. The bridge in the distance carries I 40 over the SSW.

Photographed by Warren Beckwith, November, 1997.
Added to the photo archive by Warren Beckwith, October 14, 2021.
Railroad: Union Pacific.

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