The attached map shows the entire Little Rock & Texas (Mansfield Branch of the Frisco) ca early 1903. The branch was about 16 years old at this time. Jenson - 429.3 Hackett (2nd depot) - 431.0 Trestle 4340 (James Fork of Poteau River) - 434.0 Montreal Depot - 438.6 Williams (Montreal Coal Company) - 439.3 Burma Depot (on spur) - 440.7 Huntington Depot - 445.0 Mansfield Jct. 447.2 At this time all of the coal activity was concentrated between Montreal and Huntington, but there was passenger and general freight service over the entire branch.
southern end of Mansfield Branch ca 1903 This is the lower end of the Mansfield Branch - where all the "action" was in the early 1900's. In fiscal 1906 coal production along the branch included: mp 444.8 (CC&C Mine 2 at Huntington) 63,653 tons mp 444.3 (CC&C Mine 3) 139,989 tons About 55/60% of this 200,000+ ton total was used as locomotive fuel on the Frisco Central Division and the balance sold, mostly shipped to Texas. (CC&C Mine 1 - roughly 1/2 way between #3 and Huntington on the map had been destroyed by flooding.) mp 442.3 (Smokeless Fuel Co. - on spur) 30,273 tons, almost all used as fuel by Frisco The Williams spur 439.3 had been virtually abandoned as the mines there now belonged to the Midland Valley RR.
Mansfield Branch 1906 Timetable traffic on the Mansfield Branch 1906. There were a lot of coal extras at this time which, of course, are not shown on the timetable. It's also interesting to see how much of the scheduled traffic was Rock Island (to Fort Smith/Van Buren).
From 1906 (when this USGS map was produced) until 1922 the Frisco was the primary consumer of the coal mined on its Mansfield Branch. The Midland Valley shown here, but not on the earlier maps, was completed in this area in 1903. It started (mp 0) at Excelsior, Arkansas with branches (B) to Greenwood/Fidelity and (A) to Hartford. The main line of the Midland Valley ran west from Excelsior into Indian Territory/Oklahoma on its way to Kansas. The Midland Valley only crossed the Frisco at Montreal and at Hackett and used Maney Junction (off the map in Oklahoma) to reach Fort Smith (via Frisco trackage rights) while the Rock Island used the Mansfield Branch to reach Fort Smith via Jenson Junction. Another complication at this time was the Missouri and Louisiana (owned by the management of Central Coal & Coke) which ran coal extras (no other service) south from Bonanza over the Frisco's Paris Texas mainline to Poteau Oklahoma for the KCS. The Frisco's tunnel in Backbone Mountain was located in Indian Territory/Oklahoma between Bonanza and Jenson. The amount of rail traffic through it in this first decade of the 20th Century must have been amazing.
Re: Mansfield Branch 1906 In reality the non-acomodation passenger train service noted on the 1906 timetable was Rock Island passenger trains (Western Mail and Memphis Mail) that operated between Fort Smith, Little Rock and Memphis using trackage rights on the Frisco's Mansfield Branch. The Frisco was controlled by the Rock Island from 1903 to 1909.The purpose was to compete with the MP (St Louis ,Iron Mountain & Southern) service between Fort Smith (the second largest city in Arkansas), Little Rock and Memphis. Employee Timetable No 20 (June 1909) showed a daily except Sunday Third Class freight train on the Mansfield Branch.
