Historic images of the QA&P (Quanah)

Discussion in 'Quanah, Acme, & Pacific (QA&P)' started by gjslsffan, Jul 9, 2020.

  1. gjslsffan

    gjslsffan Staff Member Staff Member

    If you study this image you will note, no less than 4 "Y"s in Quanah. Look closely and you will see 3 different connections or (Xings at grade) in Quanah with the FW&D, and this all within the city limits. Note the trackage on the North side of the "Shanty" that shows the newer main track from OK connecting and going Westward, along with a siding there too. The main yard beside the cotton oil industry, then look straight south via a 90deg Xing at grade to a small yard extending Southward. Also yet another Y going towards the QA&P depot, and spot tracks east of the xing paralleling the FW&D. When I say the QA&P begs to be modeled, you can see what I refer to in this image. What RR infrastructure for a town of ~3500 people.
    As others have said. What a little giant of a RR was the QA&P.

    QA&P circa 1970's.png
     
    Robleese, qaprr, Sirfoldalot and 5 others like this.
  2. Jim James

    Jim James Staff Member Staff Member

    Looks like some “urban” modeling possibilities between 3rd St. and the radio tower. I wonder if there’s any remnants of the tracks today?
     
    Sirfoldalot likes this.
  3. gjslsffan

    gjslsffan Staff Member Staff Member

    Hi Jim,
    Thanks, I need to do a better job of splainin some of this trackage. I am gonna try to add some more info to the image to explain a bit better.
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2020
  4. gjslsffan

    gjslsffan Staff Member Staff Member

    Please see the attached with some additional info in red. As you can see the QA&P and FW&D had parallel trackage in Quanah. Man there was a lot of trackage, interlockings at grade and switches in that little town. Also the image shows the lot layouts, but a bunch of those lots didn't have much of anything on them. I don't remember much of anything about the small QA&P yard South of the FW&D main line, I do remember the tracks by the QA&P depot. I don't know what arrangement the QA&P and FWD had for switching the Cotton oil company and the elevator at the east end of the FW&D yard. I don't remember ever seeing a FW&D switch engine assigned to Quanah. The QA&P had at least 1 switch engine assigned to Quanah as many as 3 at one time to switch Quanah and Acme just a few miles West of Quanah. I have images of Acme which I hope to post soon. These yards are small relative to RR yards as a whole, I think I counted like 45, 40' cars on the longest track.
    Please if any questions, corrections or comments please post.

    Edit: The red circle with QA&P interlocking should read "interlockings"

    QA&P circa pre 1970's.png
     
    Last edited: Jul 10, 2020
  5. rjthomas909

    rjthomas909 Member Frisco.org Supporter

    Quanah TX postcard, dated 1908. Posted by Dan Whatley in Texas Railroad History Facebook Group (retrieved 28 Aug 2022)

    89B2E941-9F0F-4DB6-8FE1-627E91E84A27.jpeg
     
  6. fredpavey

    fredpavey Member

    Very interesting. Thanks for sharing!
     
  7. Robleese

    Robleese Member

    Using 1982 as a reference, the right-of-way for the tracks that used to extend due south and crossed the FW&D could not be seen...aerial images usually bring out traces of old routes, but not in this case.
    Here is a postcard image of the depot which was located on that trackage: slsf_quanah depot.jpg

    1982 was the last year I worked in Quanah as a QA&P brakeman, so I cannot say what tracks remain today, but I believe the wye near Cemetery Road is still there as well as the connections to the FW&D. We used the south leg of that wye to deliver cars to the Denver: pull the entire train onto the FW&D (looking toward Vernon) and shove back into Elevator 1 and 2. One of the Elevator tracks was reconfigured to tie into the track which ran by the QA&P depot and headquarters and on to the cotton compress tracks and former engine facilities. The curvature of the south leg was extremely sharp and subject to string-line derailments. That reconfiguration eliminated the diamond crossing of the FW&D near Nelson Street. The other diamond crossing at Acme was also eliminated...the original QA&P mainline ended at the location of the searchlight signal just beyond the Georgia Pacific switch. There was plenty of track to allow us to drop cars into GP without running the engine off the track. To make runs to Paducah and westward we had to build our trains backward and shove onto the FW&D using the south leg of the wye, then run northward to Acme to a switch which tied the Denver mainline back into the QA&P mainline.
     

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