Hello all! In this long and hard quarantine lingering above us all, I have taken up a hobby. My friend made a map of the entire USA for a paint program we use on our computers. Fueled by my love of geography and railroading, I have been whipping up maps of many railroad proposals and fictional lines. Alongside a few division maps of real life lines. One subject that has always peaked my interest was the "Yoakum Dream". I'm sure most of you know about it, the construction of many disconnected divisions and takeovers planned to all link up and make the Frisco a serious competitor in the mid-south. I started a massive "what if" map, which includes all of the proposed extensions and acquisitions. One problem, Memphis - Baton Rouge. One pivotal part of Mr. Yoakum's dream was to constructed a water-level route from St. Louis to Baton Rouge and on to the Big Easy via a C&EI connection at Chaffee, MO which would open up a through route from the Windy City. The paper company the Frisco used to build this part of the dream was the St. Louis, Memphis & Southeastern. The line was extended to Memphis but never made it to Baton Rouge. There is very little information on the route the railroad would've taken between those cities. I assumed it would've continued the west bank of the mighty Mississippi, since they also chartered a railroad to run from Hope, Arkansas, to a connection somewhere in eastern Arkansas to the StLM&SE. But I want to make sure with you guys first since I want this map to be historically accurate. Note: There is one map I found from 1910, at the height of the Yoakum era, that shows a line from Memphis to Baton Rouge following the west bank of the big river. But it looks eerily similar to the MoPac's line down the delta, which reached McGeehee, AR by 1910. Plus that part of the map isn't labeled as a part of the SLSF. Not to mention the map is a condensed part of a larger map of Texas, so I can't make out the shanteytowns the line would've served en-route. Any info on this proposed missing link would be very helpful.
See the bottom of page 9.... https://thelibrary.org/lochist/frisco/magazines/fm_1911_07/fm_1911_07_11.pdf The 1040 class engines we’re meant to power the new California and New Orleans business. See http://www.frisco.org/shipit/index.php?threads/joint-atsf-sl-sf-ptt-nov-1911.4954/#post-35575 See http://www.frisco.org/shipit/index.php?threads/joint-atsf-sl-sf-ptt-nov-1911.4954/#post-35575 Much of the route was achieved via trackage rights. A few microfiche copies....
I recently published a book on the Missouri Pacific line between Helena and McGehee, Arkansas. I found a few statements and reports about the Frisco and its proposed route through the same area. Here is a bit of that from the book. "About the same time that the Memphis, Helena & Louisiana [Missouri Pacific] was being built, the Memphis & New Orleans Railroad was being planned by the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad (Frisco). The two railroads would essentially have paralleled each other through east Arkansas. During early 1903, A. L. Phillips, chief engineer of the Frisco, arrived at Arkansas City on the Kate Adams [Mississippi River steamboat] to check on the eight groups of engineers surveying the line. A month later, surveying stopped. Apparently the two railroads realized that it was crazy to build two railroads along the route as a few months later, Russell Harding, General Manager of Missouri Pacific, stated that their line would also be used by the Frisco, although that never happened."
