Couple Of Oklahoma Train Questions...(Might be good questions for Karl Brand)

First--There's a Richard Kindig photo in the Frisco Archive:



of a train headed by 4-8-2 1521. Anyone know what this train was? I would have thought "The Will Rogers," but the "Will" pulled sleeping cars in those days??
Secondly--I was looking at a 1946 public timetable and there was a train (Nos. 15 & 16) running only between Oklahoma City and Tulsa. My question(s): What kind of train was #15 & #16 and could this be the train in Kindig's photo?

Thanks, Tom G.

PS: Sorry this link doesn't work, anyway this is a neat little train, five cars (RPO-baggage, baggage, baggage-coach combine, coach, diner-lounge, no sleepers) pulled by 1521.

 

I did a little more timetable research and answered one part of my own question. The eastbound Will Rogers (tr. 4) didn't carry sleepers between Oklahoma City and Springfield. The train in the photo is at Spencer OK, the first stop east of Oklahoma City. Tr. 10 left later and pulled the sleepers bound for St. Louis and Chicago, tr. 4 only pulled the Springfield-St. Louis Pullman. So I believe the train in the picture with no sleeping cars is #4. I'm still wondering about trains 15 and 16??

TG

 

This photograph appears on page 30 of McCall's and Schultz's Frisco Southwest. The caption dates the photo as March 17, 1946 and calls the train the Oil Fields Special. If the date is correct, then it is not the Oil Fields Special. Tom, I think that you are correct; this is number 4. It looks like cafe-lounge 1507 is on the rear.

Trains 15 and 16 were inaugurated to replace service lost between OKC and Tulsa when the Firefly became the Texas Flash. I don't have a PTT from 1946 so I don't know what equipment was used on these trains. I do have an ETT; train 16 left OKC at 8:45 AM and arrived in Tulsa at 11:59 AM. Number 16 had scheduled stops at Chandler, Davenport, Stroud, Bristow, and Sapulpa. Sixteen could be flagged at Spencer, Jones, Luther, Wellston, Warwick, Milfay, Depew, and Kellyville. Train 15 left Tulsa for the return trip at 6:30 PM, and it arrived in OKC at 9:05 PM. The return trip allowed one scheduled stop at Bristow, and flags at Sapulpa, Stroud, and Chandler. When the the Firefly returned to OKC, trains 15 and 16 were discontinued.

 

Thats a cool pic. My son and I rode the "Eastern Flyer" along that route from OKC to Sapulpa a couple months ago. It was a railfan type trip, line is owned by the state. A lot of tight curves made the trip slow with a 30 mph limit. Very likely there will be no more trips because the the state is probably going to sell the line to BNSF.

 

Thanks Karl.

Tom G.

 

The curves are not all that tight... At the time that this image was taken, on the Oklahoma Sub where psgr trains had a max speed of 70 MPH, only one curve was limited to 45 MPH. All the other restricted-curves, were limited to 55 MPH and 60 MPH. Just shows what reduced maintenance, lower elevations, and shorter spirals will do to speed limits. Looking through the curve charts, I see that curves that once had 6" of elevation, were reduced to 4-1/2".

 

Thanks, Karl, for confirming something that I had been thinking during all of the discussion here in Oklahoma about the viability of returning passenger service to the Oklahoma Sub. I was sure I had heard the old heads talk about higher speeds when the Frisco ran passenger trains between Tulsa or OKC. The discussion here is high speed versus conventional passenger service. The high speed alternative may indeed be too expensive as new right of way would need to be found (how about along the Turner Turnpike row?), but that conventional passenger service would be too slow to be utilized. The Eastern Flyer which ran from Sapulpa to Del City on three weekends in Feb. sold out all 900 tickets very quickly far surpassing the sponsor's goal of 300. I believe the BNSF wants this line to quash any passenger service because the pressure to extend the service into Tulsa from Sapulpa on BNSF track would be very difficult to ignore if it was restored to Sapulpa. I find it particularly interesting that the BN sold this line to the state and now the BNSF is bidding to buy it back. Without guarantees of preserving the whole sub, I can see that the BNSF could abandon that portion west of the oil train unloading facility (I can't remember where it was built) that is handling the North Dakota oil bound for the Cushing storage depot.

On a side note of historical interest, even though the maximum authorized speed was 70mph, I can assure you that engineers would exceed that where they knew they could if they needed to pick up some time. There were a lot of tricks the old heads (and the pepsi cola engineers as the ohs called the young engineers) would use even into the 1970s to get over the road as quickly as possible.

I would love to see passenger service restored on this sub, but I don't realistically expect it with the political climate we have in Oklahoma right now. The state is determined to sell the line, even though the Stillwater Central (the current lessor) has improved the track condition over the years thus raising the speed accordingly.

Terry

 

In the immediate postwar era, the METEOR was a huge train, often the longest to call at SLUS, where it frequently was assigned two platforms. Others, like the GENERAL WOOD, the MEMPHIAN, St. Louis section of the SUNNYLAND, the FIREFLY, BLACK GOLD, Wichita section of the WILL ROGERS, Monett-Paris, Texas, trains, etc., were relatively short and would make good trains for a model railroad layout.

GS

 

In a response to Terry's comment, don't those folks remember what DID run after 911? Just my 2 cents.
Dan



"I would love to see passenger service restored on this sub, but I don't realistically expect it with the political climate we have in Oklahoma right now. The state is determined to sell the line, even though the Stillwater Central (the current lessor) has improved the track condition over the years thus raising the speed accordingly. "

 

I just saw a news report that the State of Oklahoma sold this line (Sapulpa to Oklahoma City) to WATCO for $75 million. I assumed BNSF would be the buyer since they were looking at the line also, and they are a much bigger player of course. Congrtats to WATCO but I am a bit surprised at the purchase price considering that last year the gross revenue on the line to WATCO was about $4 million. Perhaps they will be getting a piece of the oil trains now.....who knows but it will be interesting to see any traffic changes.