French's, the company famous for their mustard, has a plant in Springfield MO that was once serviced by the Frisco. When I was there a few years ago, I saw a covered hopper with their logo on it. The style of the Atlas model, with the build date of 7-64, suggests that they were leasing covered hoppers back in the Frisco era. Rich
I do not know when the Mustard plant went in, (late 60's maybe) but it was one of the top employers for a long time. Frisco RR, Lilly Tulip (A cup factory) Paul Mullers (Stainless Steel Tanks) Zenith (TV) AG (Associated Grocer) and Kraft Foods were among the top in pay. FTC, Campbell 66 were also good. Some of the cars for MFA, may have come off Mopac. They ran from Aurora to Springfield on the SLSF Main. (As you Know) William Jackson
They made not only mustard, but they processed a wide variety of pepper and spices as well. I remeber watchiing EE's using a scientific-type scale and weighing out vanilla beans (I think) by the ounce and placed in very small (and tall) jars. I thought it was weird since the stuff came in 100 pound sacks.
Those of you who model an earlier era, but still want a MRS car or two for your Frisco layout, Bowser Stewart makes a nice MRS 50 ft double door box car, kit #55411, in box car red, and, from an even earlier era, Proto 2000 did a Mather 40 ft wood o/b box car in pullman green, kit #30874. I'm sure these both found their way down the Frisco from the A-B brewery more than once! Yes, I have them both. And, Atlas did a VERY nice Alco S-2 in the beautiful MRS colors. I recall looking at one at TinkerTown for several weeks until, you guessed it, it was gone. Should have grabbed that one! Atlas S-2's and S-4's are very nice, but hard to find. Ken
A few years ago (When??) there was a really cool photo of a two dome M-F-A Oil Co. tank car in RMC. I clipped the photo and it doesn't have a date. TG
[I have a wonderful slide that I took on the east side of Springfield about 1980 that caught an SW1500 with two French cars switching, just like the Atlas model. If I modeled "modern" Frisco, that would be a first priority for me. Ken McElreath
Just a bit more about Anheuser-Busch and MRS. Frisco is more likely to have picked up beer cars with the SLRX (St. Louis Refrigerator Car Co.) reporting marks from MRS. My "Centennial History" shows letterhead example with Alco S-4 211 pulling a car with this marking. The caption suggests this letterhead was in use from "mid-1950's to 1985." Presumably SLRX on a white insulated box car or refrigerator car was the prevailing reporting mark. A letterhead example dated February 27, 1953 showed S-2 208 with a St. Louis and O'Fallon hopper sandwiched between the locomotive and refrigerator car. The color scheme and reporting marks for the beer cars shown in the link in my post below was said to be "...[the] current paint scheme" at the 1987 publication of the booklet. George
Attached is a Springfield news paper photo from May 1974. It gives a little more information on the purpose of the cars than we usually get. John Sanders Springfield MO
Bumping back a topic that has been dormant for over three 1/2 years... Does anyone have Frisco customers to add to the list that supplied their own rolling stock? I have been going over my cars and thinking of new possibilities. Charlie
On the subject of St Louis Refrigerator Car Company cars (STRX) the Mid Continent Region had Accurail do a custom run of these cars. As far as I know they still have some available. Other than that you only option is the two version Sunshine did, if you can find them. Brad Slone
Brad, I have one of those Sunshine reefer kits unbuilt upstairs. Marty sold it to me at one of the Howard Zane shows in Baltimore many years ago. I should probably sell it since the club layout is overflowing with cars and I doubt I'll ever build a home layout.
I am curious about this topic. Do you have a list to shippers in Missouri and Arkansas for the Frisco by chance? Always liked seeing shipper owned cars and would really like to add a few.
