Hi, my name is Mike Stangel and an engineer for the UP. I am close to retiring and am looking foreward to doing a lot more research on old rail lines that no longer exist in Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. I do not model trains, but like to gather historical information to keep in my personal archives for future use for hopefully writing some articles of interest, and exchanging ideas and information on old branch lines and main lines of the Frisco as well as other railroads. I plan to research the line from Monnet Mo. to Ellsworth Kansas first, then to the branch line from Springfield Mo. to Chadwick Mo. I am looking for photos and structure information that was at Beaumont Kansas, such as roundhouse, depot, and other buildings, what all type of operating equipment was there. I have spent 4 years researching on old UP branch line that went to my home town of Concordia Kansas. I have really enjoyed meeting a lot of helpful people in the railroad hobby. I am looking foreward to meeting new rail people and have a lot of fun in the process. Sincerely Mike Stangel
Welcome to Frisco.org Mike! If you click on "Search", on the blue bar, at the top, you can type in the subject of your choice, and you will see all of the different threads that have been posted. I typed in "Beaumont", and also "Ellsworth", and the search revealed a bunch of different threads for those subjects. I've seen a wealth of photographs and information, from this web-site, about this particular line on the Frisco. We hope you'll enjoy the site and please write some posts with further questions or if you have new information, pics, etc., to share. By the way, have you seen our information on the Second Annual Frisco Convention? It will be held, just about three hours east of you, here in Lenexa, Kansas - September 11th and 12th. I know there will be some folks attending who would be very happy to share information with you. You'll see the various posts about this, on this web-site. Hope to see you there! Bob McKeighan Lenexa, KS
I've been researching the Monett - Ellsworth line for my model rr. Feel free to PM me with any questions, and I'll see if I can help.
I wrote two books on your subjects of interest: "Ghost Railroads of Kansas" (original & update) and "Kansas Train Tales." Let me know if you'd like to see them: rlckansas@cox.net. Even with these books, I know there's lots out there that hasn't been researched. I know there's plenty of branches in Kansas needing attention, and I'll bet you could write books on Oklahoma and Missouri. Good luck with your research!
Hello, thanks so much for the reply. The mainline I run on from Salina Ks to Denver, crossed the Frisco at Ellsworth when I first hired out in 1977. The depot was right north of the diamond. But I never saw a train on it when I first worked the UP line as a brakeman. All these years, I never knew where the tracks came from until last year when I purchased a few public timetables of the Frisco on e-bay. The oldest one I have is 1918. But it isn't an employee timetable so some information isn't there that I would like. Do you know what ever happened to the Frisco Museum in Springfield Mo? I heard it closed up. We go there 3 times a year on vacaton so was hoping to get there to do research. Let me know what you might know where there is a Frisco Museum to hopefully look up some things or know of anyone that has a nice old timetable collection and photo collection on the Frisco. I finally made it to Beaumont 2 months ago and got entrigued with that town. So I wanted to start there with building photos, train photos and depot photos. Let me know if you or anyone you know would have archive information. Is there a headquarters building in St. Louis or somewhere that might have old files on operations? You will have to fill me in on the details of your model layout sometime. I don't have time to get into modeling, but do enjoy sharing historical details with anyone. Thanks for your time. sincerely Mike
Hey thanks again for the reply and advice. It sounds like this web site has a lot of information I can use. I lady that works at the Springfield Library gave me a link to their online copies of the original Frisco Man Magazine. I just started reading some of them. Pretty interesting. I will stay in touch to share information and hopefully I can learn quite a bit from guys like you who have been working with this line for a long time. Thanks Sincerely Mike Stangel
Mike, a few of the local modelers from KC went on a "Walk in the Weeds" in Salina the day after Thanksgiving Day last year. We had a nice compendium of rail activities (maps, etc) prior to the end of steam that we referred to. Mark Davidson (mark) may have the information in digital form that we could share.
Welcome to the forum, Mike! The Chadwick Branch is one of my favorite railroad lines to nowhere. The tracks still run as far as the power plant, but much of the Right-of-Way is still visible. The neatest part is the last few miles from Sparta to Chadwick. I like to ride the motorcycle down 125 just to see the old roadbed and read the marker at Chadwick. It is amazing how much of the RoW is still intact after all these years. Here is the Chadwick Marker: - James
