MP 366 and passenger train

[kenris]

Does anyone have information on location or the photographer?

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=875194425869248&set=gm.869334853121875&type=1

Dick Ryker

[kenris]

Jim Ogden replied on the MoPac Yahoo group that this is Monroe, LA.

“Monroe, Louisiana. Southbound. Today the store at the far right of the image is still there. This is south of the passenger station.

Jim Ogden”

Dick Ryker

[benjamintickell53]

MP 366 with passenger train.

[benjamintickell53]

Full exchanges from Yahoo Group (July 2015) about the image: MP366 and psgr train

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Monroe, Louisiana. Southbound. Today the store at the far right of the image is still there. This is south of the passenger station.
Jim Ogden

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So, Jim, given the mid-day sun, would this be 821/822?
Dick Ryker

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That’s my hunch. I understand there was a guy (now deceased) in Monroe who took railroad pictures. I think he worked at or had a camera shop in Monroe. I have seen a number of ALCo black and white photos. Another suspect is Lee Estes who worked for the A&LM Railway. I need to ask Don Smith if he has any idea.
Jim Ogden

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Would be nice if we could date the picture. I know this same picture was used either here or on the LRMRG yahoo group and was identified by consist as 131 the Little Rock to Lake Charles Train.

If 821/822 would be prior to 1956 as my Official Guide from that year has 821/822 not operating south of El Dorado, Arkansas. In 1954 train still went to Monroe, LA. If someone could identify the cars in the train by type the presence or absence of Pullman would tell which train as 821/822 would not have a Pullman while 131 would have.
George W. Simmons
Dry Prong, LA

[Editorial note: 821-822 discontinued between El Dorado and Monroe April 26, 1955.]

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I think the consensus was that it was 131 to Lake Charles rather than 821 because of its longer consist.
Jim Ogden

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From the window spacing the last car would appear to me to be a lightweight Pullman, most likely a 14-4.
Gordon Mott
Jacksonville, FL

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Gordon,
I would agree with your assessment. The last car car is not a heavyweight. The photo matches, exactly, the 1956 consist information for #131 – 7 cars from Little Rock to Alexandria:

Storage mail LR-Alex
baggage-express LR-Lake Charles
RPO-bagg-express LR-Alex
Coach (52 seat) LR-Lake Charles
Coach (52 seat) LR-Alex
Grill-coach (28 seat) LR-Alex
14-4 sleeper St Louis to Lake Charles

Dick Ryker

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[benjamintickell53]

Mopac Yahoo Group – January 2015
This thread was originally titled “FAs on Passenger Trains” but deals with the same image of MP 366 and passenger train.

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I have seen few images of MP FA’s on passenger trains. The Plug commuter train from Pacific to STL is one, but few if any other that I can remember at the moment.

This surfaced the other day on a O Gauge train discussion list and I thought it interesting, a pair of FA’s on what looks like a regular passenger run. No date or location or who took image. I thought the FA’s did not have steam generators. Regulating them to fill in for warm weather.
Dan

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I believe this photo has been published before. IIRC it’s northbound (westbound) at Van Buren, on the LR-KC train.

I don’t have the exact details at hand, but a number of the later FAs did have boilers. I believe they’re even visible in this photo. However, I believe they only held down secondary trains at best, like the boiler-equipped F units. To my knowledge, these units were primarily operated on the lines out of NLR when they got passenger assignments. They were probably the first units rendered surplus for passenger operations, but perhaps they operated as late as the passenger cutbacks of 1960.
Ron Merrick

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MoPac had FA2s (FPA2) with steam generators which along with GP7s and F- units with steam generators tied down secondary trains. All wore freight colors.
Jim Ogden

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M.P. had 19 FA-2 (actually FPA-2) locomotives with steam generators of
1,200-gallon water capacity as follows.
361-372, built 1/52
373, built 8/53
387-392, built 3-4/54
Ed Hawkins

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The thoughts that follow are pure speculation on my part.

It is well known that the first passenger diesels were bought for specific trains, and there really were no spares for the Eagle and Colorado Eagle. So it’s likely that the first couple of E units bought in 1945 could have been intended as spare power as much as anything. Then, considering that MoPac was not in a position nor had the desire to throw money at anything, units came on the property a few at a time. This was more than likely intended to prepare for the arrival of the 1948 Eagle trains, and perhaps ended up fitting between order windows alongside the railroads who were buying much larger orders of passenger power. By this time, dieselization was the order of the day, so passenger units more than likely were ordered to fit the MoPac concept of dieselizing entire divisions.

By 1950-51, it would have been apparent that the passenger traffic market was softening, just as the need to finish dieselizing was intensifying. Somewhere along the way, the balance (not of power — I’m not trying to be punny) shifted toward ALCo as the winner of more locomotive orders than EMD. Hence, there were FA2s bought after the last F7s, and PAs after the last E8s. Whether this was because ALCo could offer better delivery and/or lower prices because they were already losing the battle for market share to EMD, or if there were really preferences toward the ALCo product, I can’t say. Probably there is no documentation left to shed any light on this.

On the horizon there were prospects of more troop movements in case of another war after Korea, and the MoPac was certainly not alone in buying some freight engines that could be used for passenger service in an emergency. Having engines out on the road, in case the six-axle power in some remote location should become unserviceable (hitting a gasoline truck, in the case of the Wreck Island and some others) or just up and dying in the middle of the night, would have been cheap insurance. So there were the boiler-equipped F units and FPAs, for better secondary trains, and the approximately 40 geeps also equipped with boilers, which seemed to work even more lowly trains in the early to mid 50s. No one suspected at that time that these geeps would be working with E units just ten years later, after having been souped up.

Ron Merrick

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A quick search yielded this shot…
http://rr-fallenflags.org/mp/mp0366kga.jpg
jerry LaBoda

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Not Van Buren, and I am almost certain not train 126. The setting doesn’t look like Van Buren, and to the best of my knowledge there wasn’t a mainline fueling station there. The train also doesn’t look right — it looks like a LW Pullman on the end which only occurred on 125/126 during the fairly brief period when the Wichita-StL car was handled north of Durand. But overall the train is too large for a normal 126.

Pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if the train might be 131/132, the LR-Lake Charles train. The consist is the right size — coaches, grill coach and Pullman. Certainly the FA’s were heavily used in all directions out of Little Rock.
Gordon Mott

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That is a great photo. Is the MP Merchandise box in the background badly faded, or were some ofthem painted gray instead of blue along the top and bottom sides?
Stephen Bartlett

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That’s faded paint.

I have a couple shots of the 353000 series cars, which had full passenger colors, showing the fading. And almost everybody has seen some of the 135 series mail storage 70′ boxcar-style cars with two aluminum doors per side. Lots of those cars didn’t even get painted boxcar red, they just shoved out somewhere to be used as a tool car, and they faded pretty badly. There’s also a shot on passcarphotos of the T&P 1141, coach repainted by NRHS in about 1970, at Hearne or somewhere forty years later. You can barely even tell that color used to be blue.
Ron Merrick

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If I remember correctly, at least some of the 135 series mail storage cars were used as freight cars in hay service (and other?) after their use on passenger trains ended. I have a number of photos of a car in SE Kansas in this service. The next time I saw one it was painted primer red and in Mof W service sitting on the branch at Lake Junction behind my house here in St. Louis.
Bill Hoss

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Sometime in the late 1950s, the ends on Merchandise cars began to be painted the same color blue as the sides.

I will have to look over some old photos, but I think this photo might be the extreme south end of the passenger yard in Monroe, LA. I am going on the shed (a repair in place facility) and the municipal water tower. In the far right in a GP7 and some sort of tower. Monroe’s depot was two storey similar to Poplar Bluff but with a decorative bay window but I’m not seeing it in this photo. It was demolished circa 1976-77.

There was a billboard MISSOURI PACIFIC in script lettering that was at the LCL/TOFC facility but it was added in the late fifties. This matched the cursive script used on trailers from perhaps 1959-1962.
Jim Ogden
Fort Worth, Texas

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Were the Monroe facilities for passengers on the East or West side of the track. If on the East side, then this would most likely be Train 131 (later 31) on the West Side then Train 132 (32). Don’t think if could be either of the night trains that passed through Monroe. Of course, the MOP did have a train between Monroe, LA and Gurdon, AR into the 1950’s also.
George W. Simmons
Dry Prong, LA

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As I stated in another post, if it was Monroe, LA. then if was most likely either train 131 or 132 as they were scheduled during the daylight hours through Louisiana. This was on the line between Little Rock and Lake Charles, LA. via McGehee, Ark, Monroe and Alexandria, LA. There was also a service between Monroe, LA. and Gurdon, Ark. at least as late as 1954. I had ruled out one of the other two trains through Monroe, Trains 103 and 116 thinking that they passed through in the night time hours, but looking at a Public Timetable from 1954, Train 116 departed Monroe at 7:10 AM, so if it was northbound this would be a possibility.
George W. Simmons
Dry Prong, LA

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The consist in the photo exactly matches the basic consist for train 131/132 in 1956.

Storage Mail
Baggage Express
RPO Mail
52 seat coach
52 seat coach
28 seat grill coach
sleeper 14-4

Dick Ryker

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Which would make Monroe, LA a good location as the grill coach ran Little Rock to Alexandria.
George W. Simmons
Dry Prong, LA

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I made a site visit over the weekend and am reasonably sure this is Monroe, LA, south of the depot at maybe 7:30 a.m. The train will depart southerly toward Columbia where it will cross the Ouachita River. I am going on the location of the silver municipal water tower and a store building at the extreme right of the photo that is still there today. It is near the geep on the right. The LCL REA building and depot are out of the field of view.
Jim Ogden

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