| Chicago & North Western Railway caboose 10920 at Cotter, Arkansas on July 15, 1986, Kodachrome by Chuck Zeiler. When The UP acquired the MP in 1982, the White River Division running between Carthage Missouri and Dias (Newport) Arkansas was part of the deal. It was rather hilly in the Ozarks and slow running, but hosted a daily unit coal train from Wyoming to the Independence Power Plant at Newark, Arkansas. Under MP management, the division was equipped with welded rail and defect detector apparatus. For a few years after the merger, the UP operated the division much as the MP had, but in the 1990's UP management had a change of heart and decided to run the unit coal down to Little Rock and back up to Dias, and over to the plant, a few hundred extra miles. This allowed the UP to sell the division to the newly-formed M&NA, but not before stripping out the detectors and as much welded rail as could be pulled up and replaced with jointed rail. The last UP train to leave Cotter was a rail train loaded with MP-installed welded rail. After several years hiatus, the unit coal train returned to the White River Division with UP run-through power. |