F7A SLSF 18 Frisco F7A SLSF 18. Location presumed to be in Kansas. Photographer unknown. Slide is dated August 1968. Edit 3/6/2024: Location is Sapulpa, OK. Train is westbound on the Oklahoma Subdivision. The engineer is about to pick up orders from the train order stand. Note the orders hanging on the upper Y fork hoop. Below it are copies of the orders for the conductor in the caboose. Note the orders hanging on the lower Y fork hoop. The agent operator is on the platform to perform a ground inspection of the passing train. If nothing unusual is noted he will give the crew on the rear end a high ball wave. In the distance beyond the depot platform is the main line of the Creek Subdivision that turns south to Francis, OK and ultimately Texas . Added photograph narrative and location. MKD
I think the photographs posted by Paul Bender above might more likely be somewhere in Oklahoma rather than Kansas. The double track in the photograph of F7A SLSF 5033 and the junction in the photograph of F7A SLSF 18 look like the area around Sapulpa, OK to me. Please comment if I am incorrect.
Ken you are right. The picture Paul posted of engine F7A SLSF 18 is a picture of the train going by the depot in Sapulpa, Oklahoma toward Oklahoma City. The other picture could be north of Sapulpa with the train about to start under I-44, the Turner Turnpike.
I have a feeling that Paul Bender's photographs were taken in Augusta, KS although I could be wrong. The thing that makes me think that is the depot in the background, being of the same design of the Augusta, KS depot, and the warehouse on the left is actually the old Ed's IGA. I think now its called the Apple Market. The final distinction is the semaphore to the immediate right of the last engine. I have been documenting the line from Columbus, KS to Ellsworth, KS for MSTS.
There is a F7A unit at Oklahoma City numbered 814. Edit 3/6/2024: The locomotive referred to by Murphy is a F9A. It is owned by the Oklahoma Railway Museum (ORM). The locomotive is painted in a faux black and yellow Frisco paint scheme. It was originally a Northern Pacific (NP) Railway locomotive. The locomotive was originally numbered NP 7003-D. The NP merged and the new owner renumbered the unit. It retains its second owner number BN 814. Please see the following link. https://oklahomarailwaymuseum.org/exhibits/okrx-814-emd-f9a/ Added information concerning the referenced locomotive and a link to the museum's web site. MKD
That is Sapulpa, OK on the north side of town where the line from Cherokee Yard in Tulsa, OK splits and goes to Oklahoma City, OK or Okmulgee, OK.
F7A SLSF 18. Locomotive in black with yellow nose bow wake scheme. Coupled to the locomotive is F7B SLSF 119. Service tracks at Springfield / Kansas Avenue / West Yard, Springfield, MO. On a trip back to Frisco territory, in August, 1972. Enjoy! Bob Finan
That is not so bad. The worst looking Frisco F-unit I have ever seen was one with no cigar-band striping whatsoever. I saw a picture of this diesel at an FMIG convention in Eureka Springs in 1987.
Amen to that! Never been a bad looking Frisco diesel. Although, those beautiful Frisco E7A (EA7) and E8A red and gold famous horses ("racehorse" or "redbirds", whatever you want to call them) done up in the Mandarin orange & white livery came very close to the definition of just plain bad ugly. Ken
For me, it was not so much the Mandarin orange and white paint on the E units that was the problem. It was the awkwardly placed "FRISCO" lettering on the side that screamed that the scheme on these units was a sad afterthought. It just did not work, and it was brutally obvious.
According to the book Frisco Diesel Power, by Louis A. Marre and John Baskin Harper, Interurban Press, 1984, SLSF 18 was sold to Precision National Corporation (PNC) on 8/14/1974. As a result, the photograph in Tulsa's Cherokee Yard was most likely before this date in 1974. An interesting note about SLSF 18 (former 5018) is that is was the Frisco's first F7A, shipped 3/1949 and received 3/8/1949. Hope this helps. Thanks! Mark
Number 18 in black? Did you know that unit 18 was in all black for a time? Amazing and true. I met Jim Christenberry (sp?) back in the 1990s and we went through his slides in my basement one night for hours and hours. He was a locomotive engineer on the Central Division and had taken some great slides over the years. One 35mm slide in particular drew my attention. It was F unit number 18 in all black. The only yellow was the Frisco letters. No yellow stripes, no cigar band, no sir. Jim had a story that went like this . . . In the early 70s, two sets of F unit power were sitting on the same track at Ft. Smith with their engineers in the cabs. The man on the ground radioed, "Bring 'em back John." Unfortunately, both engineers were named John and they backed their power into each other. The result was some damage to unit 18's nose. Undaunted the Ft. Smith shop forces straightened out the nose and shot it in all black. Jim did not know why they did not reapply the cigar band so 18 ran around the system in black for at least a short time. I ran across a slide of 18 in all black a few years ago and I can't remember if it came from John Sanders, Charlie Dischinger or someone else. It clearly shows 18's nose in all black. Hard to believe but back then photos didn't lie (as much). So if you have an F7 shell wanting an EASY paint job and you are running in the 70-74 timeframe, you may want to put an all black 18 on your layout. Ship IT on the Frisco! Rick
OK, all right. News to my ears/eyes. I have a stripped F7A in black sitting on the shelf in front of me. Maybe I will just number it SLSF 18.
My only reason for dating this shot of F7A SLSF 18 as "circa 1976" is that was about the time I was most actively taking pictures. It could have been anywhere between 1974 and 1979. Hence "about 1976". Glenn in Tulsa
I saw a slide of the F7A SLSF 18, all in black, at an FMIG meeting in Eureka Springs in 1987. Charlie Dischinger was showing that slide. I am glad someone else saw it. I do not feel like I have been telling tales out of school. As for Jim Christenberry, I have not seen or heard from him in a long time. He was the guy that gave me my first cab ride, on GP15-1 SLSF 100 on the Ft. Smith North Switcher. Last I heard, he was working for Kansas City Southern (KCS). Heck of a nice guy. Man, I miss the old Ft. Smith crowd.
Hi: Just an update, Jim Christenberry is one of my longest time friends, and one of my best friends. I put Jim and Dave MacDonald on the same strata. Jim and I met in 1974 or 1975. I still talk to him weekly via the telephone. Jim was a ground crewman worked as brakeman, conductor, switch foreman, etc. for the Frisco from about late 1971 or 1972 through their morph into the BN, and then a short time following. In the early 1980s Jim hired out as a conductor for the Kansas City Southern (KCS) out of Heavener, AR and became a certified engineer for the KCS in early 1990s. He is retired now on account of a back disability following a train/truck collision. He still misses railroading as it was, not as it is. I am trying to talk him into letting me get permission from the A&M to take him with me in the cab during one of the upcoming winter passenger runs I will be covering. If so, I intend to give Jim a good old dose of what I call "retro-railroading", A&M style. Trust me, no other railroad does "retro-railroading" like the A&M!
