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Interesting — the one that wasn’t wrecked is a relatively late repaint without black paint on the hardware and with no striping around the reporting marks. But what color is the splash zone below the door?
RG7
My last post was at the beginning of August, and I was continuing with construction of the second turnback (180 degree direction change) module. Then we went on vacation as the end of August approached, and we thought a hurricane might come in so I moved all the components upstairs.
Well, boy howdy, as they say, we got not exactly a hurricane in metro Houston but just fifty inches of rain. We were on the other side of the country, watching those green and orange trains along with a few mountains. We got back to Houston a day later than planned, had no water in the house and hadn’t even ever lost power. But the module construction sort of got deferred.
There was lots of freight car construction in the interim, but now I’m back to getting that first module stood up. I have enough legs in inventory, I’m doing the wiring now, so it should go up tomorrow. The other module is back on the fabrication platform, to do the outer curved sides.
The cabinet-grade birch I use comes from Woodcraft or Rockler. Lately, neither one has had inventory of the 5′ long wood, so I ordered some. I got, shall we say, a lot of comments from the wife when this stuff arrived, 80 lbs worth. But today I cut it up into nominal 6″ panels for module sides, so I’m good to go for awhile.
I bought a property in Wichita in August, closed on it in October, and I’ve had my first meeting with the Wichita zoning board. It backs up on what I would refer to as the Orient, or maybe the Santa Fe, although the present company that operates on it is the K&O. About a mile west of there it becomes former MP Hardtner branch trackage, and it’s a pretty active railroad today although not exactly a main line.
Ron Merrick
OK, good to know.
RG7
That’s in the St. Louis coachyard.
Three clues: the background building that says ‘DIXIE’, the Illinois Central baggage car, and last but not least, the tower of Union Station in the far background.
Something else pretty interesting, is that this is one of the few Geeps I’ve ever seen that was repainted after 1956 with the lettering ‘MISSOURI PACIFIC’ with no ‘LINES’. Lots of F units were repainted this way, but not many Geeps. New Geeps ordered during this period also would not have had the ‘LINES’.
Of course, it’s a passenger Geep.
RG7
I’ll repeat a story I heard from Art Gibson around 1970, who worked for Kansas Gas & Electric for a number of years by then. A set of the Baldwins had come in to Wichita once and one or more of the units had died. Whatever the shop guys had done to try to restart them hadn’t worked, so they ended up calling KG&E to borrow a heavy-duty ammeter to try to diagnose the problem.
RG7
Here’s the 333 in Wichita, January 74. By this time the boiler had been removed, but it had not had the nose chop like many of the 300s ex-passenger units.
Ron Merrick
[attachment=0:ge707449]165-31 Jan 74.tif[/attachment:ge707449]
In the early 70s I used to see Tony occasionally at the long-gone hobby shop at 1318 W. 2nd in west Wichita, I believe it was called Hobby and Train Land.
He would have come in off a run from Durand and talk about how there were all these new GP38-2s on the property but when he showed up for a run there was an old 200 (GP7) on the point again.
RG7
A detail I just noticed —
One of the design principles that seemed to first appear in the mid-60s modernizing of locomotives involved preventing engine crew from passing between units while the train was in motion, by taking out the folding walkways on the ends of hood units, and replacing the chains at the handrail with a solid bar to eliminate the walkway path. This seemed to have been the case on all hood units and switchers by 1970, and probably earlier.
The chain was supposed to be connected across the walkway space normally, to prevent falls, but I believe it was possible to connect the chains from two adjacent units together to prevent falls off the side of the walkway while a crew member was transiting between units. (Like anything else, who knows whether this was ever actually done in practice.) At the same time, the diaphragms were mostly removed from the ends of F units, but that was much more haphazard and I have photos in 1970-74 with an occasional diaphragm still in place.
By contrast, any MP switcher, both existing EMD and new, got full handrails during this time instead of the little hood-mounted handrail that most switchers on any other railroad had.
Here is an ex-RI unit, which like practically all other American railroads had the chains as-delivered, and the chain was not only left in place but painted white. One wonders if those chains were replaced once the units got a formal shopping.
RG7
Most of the KO&G units, if not all, later had a style of spark arrestor similar to the HO Detail Associates 2101. A number of midwest railroads used this type of spark arrestor, including the RI for one. The ones installed by the MP during this time were quite different.
I can only guess that this was an early type, perhaps not successful.
RG7
Not promising anything about the quality of the photos, but let me know which of these you’d like.
257-08 Sep-75 Texarkana MP MP 12405
276-15 Feb-76 San Antonio MP MP 12466
086-02 May-71 en route MP MP 12546 cab
202-38 Nov-74 Wich MP MP 13008
130-02 Dec-72 Wich MP MP 13009 CAB
201-33 Nov-74 Wich MP MP 13013
201-34 Nov-74 Wich MP MP 13013
201-35 Nov-74 Wich MP MP 13013
162-19 Sep-73 Wich MP MP 13058 CAB
162-20 Sep-73 Wich MP MP 13058 CAB
231-14 May-75 Navasota MP MP 13252 CAB
171-03 Mar-74 Kirkwood MP MP 13256 CAB
171-05 Mar-74 Kirkwood MP MP 13256 CAB
238-18 Jun-75 FtW TP MP 13272 CAB
261-05 Oct-75 FtW MP MP 13316
046-32 Apr-70 Wich MP MP 13336 cab
244-27 Jul-75 en route MP 13360
184-02 Aug-74 Conway MP MP 13366 CAB
072-09 Jan-71 Wich MP MP 13384 cab
284-08 Jun-76 Odem MP MP 13394
070-07 Jan-71 en route MP MP 13396 cab
074-18 Apr-71 Wich MP MP 13406 cab
199-01 Oct-74 Wich MP MP 13408 cab
199-02 Oct-74 Wich MP MP 13408 cab
199-03 Oct-74 Wich MP MP 13408 cab
199-04 Oct-74 Wich MP MP 13408 cab
072-24 Jan-71 Wich MP MP 13431 cab
232-28 May-75 Pal MP MP 13438 CAB
138-08 Apr-73 en route MP MP 13445 CAB
248-11 Aug-75 Dal DUT MP 13456 CAB
267-37 Dec-75 Wich MP MP 13480 CAB
270-14 Dec-75 Wich MP MP 13516 EXV CAB
170-38 Mar-74 Kirkwood MP MP 13564 CAB
141-18 May-73 Wich MP MP 13569 CAB
231-23 May-75 Navasota MP MP 13584 EV CAB
176-35 Mar-74 FtW TP MP 13627 CAB
176-36 Mar-74 FtW TP MP 13627 CAB
185-16 Aug-74 Wich MP MP 13642 CAB
232-02 May-75 en route MP MP 13650 EXV CAB
183-11 Jul-74 Wich MP MP 13654 CAB
309-26 Jan-77 Wich MP MP 13711
182-02 Jun-74 KCMo MP MP 13914 XFER CAB
028-24 Dec-69 KCMo KCT MP 13916 xfer cabRegards,
RG7
These are PS-2 cars were bought new from Pullman-Standard by the Lehigh & New England for cement service, which was a major and apparently their almost only source of on-line revenue. The L&NE shut down within a couple of years, and this group of cement cars were sold to MP. Other LNE cement cars were sold to UP. I don’t have access to a roster right now to cite specific car numbers, but they were placed into a number block after the original MP cars since they arrived after the renumbering.
MoPac repainted the cars, but over time the large black LNE logo started to show through the paint, so they were pretty recognizable by the late sixties into the seventies.
MoPac’s own cement cars built around that same time were actually built by DeSoto shops using major components furnished by P-S but with slightly different assembly details, principally at the ends just below the roofline and in the detail of roof to side attachment.
Ron Merrick
Now there are a few more MP decals on the Tichy website. The stock car and the early ACF covered hopper decal sets are available, as well as one for an early composite gon (Intermountain kit) in the 50’s DeSoto lettering. There is also a set for the LNE PS-2 covered hoppers that the MP bought to go with their homebuilt ones. There is also a set for a double-sheathed boxcar noted as ‘built 1913’ but the number is in the series of 500 USRA boxcars. Specifically, this is the car number in an early (as-built?) shot and then shot again by Charlie Winters thirty years later in Wichita.
Diagrams for this boxcar should be shown in the Society publication ‘Freight Car Diagrams 1900-1951’ but I don’t have it with me.
All these decals have the Desoto lettering styles accurately captured.
RG7
August 4, 2017 at 12:34 am in reply to: Photo of the Week 7/31/17 – EB Orleanean at Beaumont, TX #8429A few more specifics:
This is probably Gilbert St., with the train just leaving the station and heading for the bridge. Physical orientation is northeast. There are four or five blocks of street running, from just west of the station where the interchange is, just up to the lift bridge over the Neches River. This station too is long gone.
Ron Merrick
August 4, 2017 at 12:04 am in reply to: Photo of the Week 7/31/17 – EB Orleanean at Beaumont, TX #8428Bingo.
This train is the eastbound 304, the Orleanean, due in Beaumont at 11.25 am.
Other photos show the train, during the mid-sixties, as having a geep for power. The consist is plausible. In 1960 the train was listed as having a cafe-coach.
I’m not that familiar with Beaumont, except to note that the MoPac kind of went around the downtown area, while the SP ran arrow-straight through the center of town as if it owned the place. After “consolidation”, there was a tiny concrete building meant to be a passenger station for the MP and UP to share. I did see that station in the last stages of vandalism, but that’s after the period of this photo. The street running made me suspect Beaumont, but I can’t be any more specific as to location.
Another interesting item is the baggage car, which still has its skirting around the end sill steps, but does not seem to have a white stripe.
Ron Merrick
August 2, 2017 at 5:02 pm in reply to: Photo of the Week 7/31/17 – EB Orleanean at Beaumont, TX #8426Sorry, it’s not a combine, it’s an RPO-baggage.
RG7
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