does any one have any info or pictures of the kansas city clinton springfield railroad? i have some passenger cars in HO and i would like to find out some more info on them. i think they use to call this railroad the leaky roof?
I suspect I'm just the first of several folks who respond to this one! In a nutshell: The KCC&S was a subsidiary of the KC Fort Scott & Memphis that ran from Olathe, Kansas, to Ash Grove, Missouri. It used trackage rights on its corporate parent to reach KC and Springfield. It was built ca. 1884-1885 to tap a coal field in Henry County, Mo., and associated industries such as the Dickey Clay pipe factory at Deepwater, Mo. Because the Dickey Clay factory was the largest shipper on the line, and its products were essentially waterproof, worn-out boxcars with leaking roofs were frequently sent to the KCC&S for loading. Of course, some of these "leaky roof" boxcars got shunted to other industries, such as flour mills, grain elevators, etc., whose product was considerably less water-resistant. According to local legend, a local flour mill foreman looked out one morning, saw a line of battered boxcars waiting on the loading track, and promptly ordered his men "don't load any flour today - they've sent us a bunch of those leaky-roof cars," or words to that effect. Thus the nickname. (No precise date or documentation for this story seems to exist, but it's often repeated. I've also found references to the railroad having to reimburse the Post Office for mail damaged by leaking roofs on the passenger trains on at least one occasion.) The KCC&S did reasonably well from 1884 until 1898, when the Frisco bought the KC Osceola and Southern, which paralleled the northern half of the KCC&S, and extended it to connect with an existing branchline from Springfield to Bolivar. This gave the Frisco a line from Springfield to Kansas City which paralleled the KCC&S at a distance of only a few miles. This is the line that was later known as the Frisco's "High Line", or Clinton Subdivision. When the Frisco took over the KCC&S's corporate parent the KCFS&M in 1901, the state of Missouri objected to the fact that the Frisco now controlled all three railroad lines between Springfield and KC. The Frisco responded by making the KCC&S nominally independent, although it retained ownership of the line's stock. The line struggled on for a couple of decades handling mostly local traffic, but in the 1920s the Frisco found that the legal and political situation had become less restrictive, and formally took it over. The Frisco then promptly built a cutoff line from Brownington to Deepwater, so that Clinton Subdivision trains could serve the Deepwater factory, and started abandoning parts of the KCC&S that could be bypassed by rerouting trains over the Clinton Sub. The last large segments of the line were abandoned, against substantial local protest, in 1934. (TV trivia: There are folks around Humansville, Mo., childhood home of the actor who played "Uncle Joe" on Petticoat Junction, who think the KCC&S's long demise may have partly inspired the fictional "Hooterville Cannonball." I do not confirm this, but merely repeat it....) For further reading, I would suggest the Railroads of Henry County website, run by Mike Good, webmaster of the public library in Clinton, Mo. http://tacnet.missouri.org/history/railroads/index.html There's also a short book on the KCC&S, titled "The Leaky Roof : The Story of a Railroad", which was written and published by Mahlon Neill White, a Clinton newspaper editor. It's out of print but can be found in some Missouri libraries and occasionally shows up on secondhand bookselling websites and eBay. If you search around the www.frisco.org website, you'll find several other postings discussing the KCC&S/"Leaky Roof". I don't have time to track them down right now, since I'm using a library computer and the library is closing. But I'll keep an eye on this thread. I'd like to know what others have to say. (My avatar, by the way, is a reduced version of an old photo, found in a local history book, depicting KCC&S 4-4-0 # 208, with side-door caboose #8, fresh from the paint shop sometime in the 19th century.) Bradley A. Scott P.S. I suspect the passenger cars you have may be the ones sold by the Show Me Model Railroad Company, as shown here: http://www.showmelines.com/10-3Prototypes.html . I think they're an interesting "what-if" model, although they're far from prototypical, since the real KCC&S only owned wooden passenger and mail/baggage cars. The cars used by Show Me are 60' Harriman-style steel cars. I suppose in some parallel universe, if E.H. Harriman, boss of the UP, had somehow taken over the line around 1900, when he is known to have been looking for a southerly line out of KC to receive Gulf-bound traffic off the UP's Kansas and Omaha lines, then "Harriman-style" steel cars could plausibly have existed. It's an entertaining fantasy, although it didn't really happen that way!
thanks for the info, but what kind of engines did they use? i think those are the type of cars i have but i would have to dig them out of the storage boxes i have them in they were my dads he has a lot of older frisco items from the late 70's thru the early 90's steam and diesel both with alot of the red and gold engines (i cant remember what types i havent looked at them in a while but will when i get them to tx.)|-|
The KCC&S owned twelve 4-4-0 type steam locomotives built by the Manchester Locomotive Works in 1884. According to a 1903 Frisco equipment roster currently in the Missouri State University archives, they were numbered 201-212 before the Frisco takeover of the KCFS&M, and were subsequently renumbered 79-90. (There is some disagreement among Frisco steam historians about the numbers assigned to these engines; the preceding is my conclusion based on Frisco company records and the available photographs.) I've attached a copy of a photo which was previously published in All Aboard, the magazine of the now-defunct Frisco Museum. It shows KCC&S #86 and one of the line's side-door cabooses awaiting departure from the Clinton yard, probably sometime in the 1900s. Some of the Frisco's 4-4-0s and small tenwheelers in the 500 series were used on the line in later years, after it was merged into the Frisco. The KCC&S's light 56-pound rails and light bridges would have made it very unwise to operate heavier locomotives. Frisco gas-electric "doodlebugs" operated on the line in the 1920s and early 1930s. At least one original KCC&S 4-4-0, #79, lasted long enough to be photographed in 1932 sitting on a "dead line" of soon-to-scrapped inactive locomotives in Springfield. Because it was merged into the Frisco in the 1920s and was mostly scrapped in 1934, it seems very unlikely that diesels ever operated on the line. But, as I said before, you can always invent your own "alternate universe" in which the KCC&S prospered under different management. That's one of the fun aspects of model railroading. You're allowed to tweak reality if you want to. It sounds like your dad was quite a fan of the Frisco and its related roads. I bet you'll find all kind of interesting stuff once you start going through those boxes!
A further thought: the Show Me Lines company also advertised the availability of MDC/Roundhouse "old timer" cabooses and steam locomotives (a 2-6-0 or a 2-8-0) lettered for the KCC&S. Although they might not be precisely prototypical, they would definitely be interesting model curiosities if they showed up in one of those boxes!
Data taken from Frisco locomotive diagram sheet. The primary power for the KCCS were 12, 1882 Manchester-built 4-4-0's. They were numbered 75-86 (SL-SF) They were 53'-11" long Engine wheelbase: 22'-11" Tender wheelbase: 15'-10" Engine and Tender Wheelbase: 46'-3" Top of stack: 13'-2" Cyl: 17"x24" BP: 135lbs Grate Area: 17.65ft^2 Heating Surf 1129.78ft^2 DD 61" Eng Wt:79200lbs Tender Wt: 58100 TE: 13000lbs Tender: 8 tons coal; 3300 gals I have these retirement dates 79 2/4/33 81 12/23/24 82 9/30/25 83 6/29/16 During the latter years of the Osceola Sub(Leaky Roof) 500 and 600 class 4-6-0 were common. I have also seen a picture of one the 148 class 4-4-0's handling the Leaky Roof psgr local
thanks for the info as soon as i get a chance to go through the boxes ill let you know whats in them and post photos
