Interchange among MoPac subsidiaries

[David Boeschen]

I’m trying to figure out how much interchange of passenger equipment occurred between the big MoP and the subsidiaries, meaning the Texas lines. How often was, for instance, an I-GN baggage car found in a mail train north of Texarkana?

I suspect a lot of MP-owned equipment ran through on the mainline trains, but I’m interested in whether some random cars might have been captured and stayed in an off-line situation for a long period of time. We have photo documentation for steam locomotives, but much less for passenger equipment that I’ve ever seen.

Note that I’m mostly talking about pre-1956 equipment operations, before they all nominally became one. And, I’m not really talking about lightweights. I’m inclined to guess that the situation didn’t change much after 1956, but I just don’t know.

Ron Merrick

[Richard Ryker]

Ron,

I could only speculate and I doubt that would add to any knowledge base. All I know is that MoPac subs shared equipment for through trains, and head end cars were subject to per diem charges. Mail/express was heavier to the southwest than in reverse.

Any thing else would be conjecture and subject to the amount of bourbon I had consumed before the conversation started.

[Charles Duckworth]

In Doug Brush’s book on the Northern Kansas Division there’s a shot of a MP gas-electric pulling a M-I baggage car. So one has to speculate that this was more of a longterm arrangement than a car on a train from Texas to St. Louis.

On the freight side of this question, I remember working in Texarkana in 1976 and seeing the clerks reporting freight interchange between the TP and MP and thinking how silly was that. You still had freight interchange between the C&EI, TP, M-I and the MP until these roads were finally merged into the Mopac on October 15, 1976.

Just think of all the clerks in Houston, Palestine, Ft. Worth and St. Louis dedicated to reporting inter-company interchange on both passenger and freight equipment the 1956 reorganization would have eliminated these positions.

[Author]

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