Guys, I found a picture, at the URL below, of Frisco diesel power in Quanah. Behind the power, you can see the top of the QA&P depot/office building along with another building (what was it? - it does not exist anymore). You can also see GP7 520 with caboose 1104. http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/rwy/id/1798/rec/16 http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/rwy/id/1795/rec/13 The following picture shows GP7 506 with caboose 11?7 in Quanah but I can't quite tell exactly where this picture was taken.... Tom H. do you know? http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/rwy/id/1807/rec/9 Lots of neat Frisco pictures at this site. Thanks, Mike
Wow Mike these are great finds on the old "Q" The building your talking about was just west of the Depot with that oval roof was a freight/RR storage bldg. And the pic with the geep and cab was sitting across from the Depot and looking north west. You can see the FW&D line poles in the back ground. That one photo shows a lot of power sitting in Quanah huh? Great to see these treasures come out. The way he documented his work I bet there is more out there. Great job Mike!!!
Do you all know if caboose 1104 was assigned to the QA&P? It shows up in these photos as well as the Hofsommer book (page 182).
Hi Mike No Sir, that I cannot say. I know that at the time "The end of QA&P times" that there were stencils applied to reflect same on some equipment. Now having said that, it was not uncommon to have cabooses assigned to a specific local or territory. Rolling stock of any kind is not subject to the same FRA inspection criteria that locomotives are.
Hi Tom, Thank you for the information. Have another question for you or anyone else. Did 6 axle power make it to Floydada? I am guessing it did, but I sure have never seen a picture of 6 axle power on the QA&P. Thank you, Mike
Mike - I dont remember ever seeing an SD40-2/45 ever traverse the QA&P. I think the bridge (weight) restrictions prevented it. I would love to see me proven wrong, lol.
One of my old system timetables verifies 900 class units were authorized to operate "St Louis to Floydada".
This caboose was spotted on the west end of the stock pen pass right up to the day we were all canned in 1982. During my assignment to the nightly switcher I remember using it only one time, and I cannot remember why we used it instead of the pool caboose off 537. 1104 was "customized" by the guys and featured a soft drink dispenser.
I got question Robert. I recall the siding at Swearengin was on the TT South Side of the main line. Is that correct? Also, did they give you guys a bump or opportunity to work somewhere else? I was overseas when all this happened, I was gonna go to work on the Q one day that was what I wanted ever since I was just a little boy. Thanks Tom Holley
Swearingen siding was south of the main. To see if I remembered correctly I checked Google Earth, and the R-O-W with white ballast is still visible. I don't remember what the QA&P people were offered as a result of their jobs being eliminated. At that time, I was an extra board brakeman/switchman in OKC and I simply went back to the City to mark up. When some of us got together for the reunion in Quanah in 2010 Lowery told me he went to work for Georgia Pacific at Acme for a while. The others, I don't know.
Thanks for confirming my memory. I was raised about a 1/2 mile TT South of the Main line just west of Swearengin. Did the hill just West of Swearengin have a name? I remember seeing a train stall on that hill after leaving the siding, must have had power problems as I was always told Pease RV hill was the ruling grade. It was little more than a good train length long, but was stiff for that territory.
Just looked at the 1971 TT for the QA&P and it showed a bridge class restriction of 53, a SD45 showed 53.6. We were gone by 1974, so I bet they updated the bridge class to accept this bigger power. Sure wish I had seen one there, all I ever saw was Geeps, and covered wagons, which was good enough for me
I found a few more Quanah photographs: In these two, you can see more of the Quanah office building: http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/rwy/id/1803/rec/2 http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/rwy/id/1802/rec/1 Here are a couple more http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/rwy/id/1824/rec/6 http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/rwy/id/1829/rec/7
Don't know how I overlooked these original links, Mike, but I'm glad you found more and that this thread was bumped. These are dandies. Always fun to see photos from an area of the Frisco with which I'm not terribly familiar. I'm going to guess that it's 1167, since it also appears with GP7 529 in the last link posted on Sunday. Others? Best Regards,
Concerning SD-45's, I once read that the QLA and QSF trains would run with an SD45-F7B-SD45. I guess the F7 helped separate the heavy locos.
