Dardanelle & Russellville #8, masquerading as St. Louis Midland #8 / MPHS Collection

First of all, DD&R #8 is not a Missouri Pacific engine as such, but was about as closely related as equipment could get without having MP actually painted on the side. Below are the details of this interesting relationship.

After sitting inactive at North Dardanelle since 1933, the locomotive was "discovered" by mvie-makers Fox (with some help from D&R official A.P. Rudowsky) and was leased for use in the 1939 film "Jesse James." Ê

The locomotive was heavily rebuilt at the North Little Rock shops, and appeared in several photos in MP Magazines of that era. The locomotive was a celebrity of sorts, and crowds turned out along the route (Central Division NLR-Van Buren, Frisco to Fayetteville, Bentonville, AR, and SW Missouri) to see the locomotive and movie train (D&R passenger cars) pass through en route to filming. After the filming, the locomotive returned to the D&R, where it eventually lost its movie additions but saw a number of years of additional service pulling the D&R's daily passenger train to Russellville and back.

This locomotive has on numerous occasions (including once in the MP Magazine) been (mis)identified as "former StLIM&S" but an exhaustive search of D&R records and a review of Iron Mountain rosters turned up no evidence of prior Iron Mountain (or MP) ownership. Ê(See the book "Dardanelle & Russellville Railroad" for the full details - http://www.mopac.org/rev.D&R.H&P.asp )

(Thanks to Bill Pollard and Jim Ogden for providing the details on this photo)