Today my wife went for a drive to explore the QA&P and my roots a little. It was a great day on both counts. We started the day in Quanah at the old QA&P building museum. It's dedicated to the QA&P, a little to the FW&D, to ranching and cowboying, and to the town of Quanah and person of Quanah Parker, noted Comanche war chief. My grandfather worked as a lineman for the QA&P from something like 1941 to 1955. He worked for the Frisco in Springfield, MO, before that. my mom was born in Springfield and they moved to Quanah when she was 11. I didn't find any actual references to granddad, but there is quite a bit of material on the Q. There are numerous large 3 ring binders titled "Memories of the Quanah Acme & Pacific" that contain photographs and records of the railroad. There are other records available, as well. A few photos of framed pictures in the museum are attached. Of interest but not attached were photographs of a set of FA's lettered for the QA&P, and one of the Firefly 4-6-2's also lettered for the QA&P. Both were obviously QA&P advertisements since neither was ever actually lettered for the Q. We spent an hour and a half at the museum. We were going to just drop in because we have no place to leave our Australian Shepherd and she takes drives with us. It was too hot to leave the dog in the car for an extended period of time. The woman who runs the depot told us, "as long as she's on leash, she's welcome", so we stayed quite awhile. Regarding personal history, when the museum curator found out that I had roots in Quanah--both granddad and mom--she did a bunch of research. She had a copy of mom's high school year book from 1948--the year mom graduated from Quanah High School, and we found mom and one of her brothers in the yearbook. After we looked through it, the curator said she had two copies of the 1948 book, so she gave me the one we were looking at!!!! After the museum we headed west and took a look at the old QA&P bridge and the sheet rock plant at Acme. The Georgia Pacific gypsum plant closed last year after over 100 years of operation. One more nail in the coffin of the sagging economy in west central Texas... The bridge could use some help, as well. You can still read Quanah Acme & Pacific, but it's looking pretty rough. After Acme we jogged south on a farm to market road and then west on Highway 104. The terrain is quite rugged--not at all conducive to surveying, building or operating a railroad. The old bridge piers across the Pease River are still there just north (railroad east) of where the tiny town of Swearingen used to be. From the Pease River, the railroad parallels highway 104 (or the other way around) almost all the way to Paducah. You can see the right of way in many places. The old ties are scattered around and most are rotted to a fraction of their original size. At both Paducah and Roaring Springs, the depots are in desperate need of repair restoration. They are in noticeably worse condition than when we looked at them four or five years ago. Between Paducah and Roaring Springs was a cattle loading facility named Narcisso. The attached photo of a gate is what used to be the road to Narcisso. You can't get to Narcisso anymore. It is apparently private property now. Where the right of way crossed highway 70--just after the South Pease River--you can vaguely make out the right of way. Anyway, it was a day of memories, thinking of trains running through that rough country and granddad riding his motorcar working on or installing telegraph poles.
Thanks for posting this stuff Paul. I can't believe its been 7 years now since I was down that way. I will post a few images from those binders in the Q Museum. EB Marsalis took a lot of pictures, he was a proud QA&P Locomotive Engineer. Promoted on steam. Sorry for the poor quality images (my poor skills) The below was the last thru train to handed of to the ATSF at Foydada TX. Seen here headed TT west, at the crew shanty in Quanah changing crews. The same train coming into a stop at Quanah, looks like 4 gleaming GP38's to me. What I remember, was the Frisco seemed to always have enough power, in good shape, and they always seemed to have a couple facing each direction. Headed TT west, GP38's were only rated for 1650 tons between Lazar and Swearingen, (Pease River hill ruling grade) the lowest tonnage rating between Monett and Floydada. So climbing out of the Pease River breaks was a challenge. More to come.
Hard to figure that out Ethan. Whomever wrote on the images had issues. It may be 4-6-76, but I cant be sure of that. I did make out train#437.
I think the following 2 images are of the same train. 2nd image indicates MP 89-15 which does not jive with the miles as indicated in the TT, with Quanah being MP723.3. What I think it means is 89-15 west of Quanah or even the TX-OK state line. Again the captions as written on the images are a bit confusing. Look at all those MT auto-racks.
Rats. I've seen 1972 or 73 given as a date when the routing was changed, but I've never found a hard date. To me, it looks like that last picture you posted is dated 7-73
The following 2 images were taken on the 2 tracks that laid in the street just beside, North of the QA&P depot. The FW&D Main track and siding lay on the other side of the building in the image. Both locos sporting white flags.
Love seeing those early black and yellow high nose hood units on the Q!!!!!!!! It's surprising that the GP-7 in the second photo is still sporting black and yellow at the end of 1969. It's also surprising that it's that clean. That's what diesel locomotives are supposed to look like!!
Don L. Hoffsommer notes in The Quanah Route that the last runs of QLA and CTB occurred during August 1, 1973. The QSF made its last westbound departure during August 30, 1973, and 3310 made the last scheduled “transcontinental” run during August 31, 1973. During mid-October 1973, problems on the Tulsa-Avard line required four lengthy “transcons” to run via the QA&P.
