How would an engine terminal (Springfield, Lindenwood etc.) deal with assigning engines when they had to deal with both coal and oil burners? Did certain runs (Passenger??) always get the oil burners, or did they just assign the next engine to the next run? I've seen photos of both freight and passenger trains with oil burners and occasional photos of passenger trains with coal burners?? Any ideas? Thanks, Tom G.
Tom, I'm not sure if it fully answers the question, but somewhere I'd started compiling a spreadsheet of locomotive assignments by division/subdivision, based off of Fuel Performance Reports in the Old Frisco Employees' Magazines. Over time, it points to some pretty consistent trends: for example, oil-burning Pacifics and the occasional oil-burning 1500-class Mountain seemed to have been the motive power of choice for River Division passenger trains, c. 1930 and afterward, whereas coal-burning 4000-class Mikes were the regulars for the freights. Looking at lines in and around OKC, however, pointed to a lot of oil-powered freight and passenger runs. I'm hoping that I still have that information around here somewhere, albeit in progress. If I can find it, I'll work to post it. One definitely starts to see the same locomotives assigned to the same terminals and trains. Best Regards,
Tom, after re-reading this one, I think I was clear on another subdivision from the question you asked. I should read twice, post once. When it comes to assigning engines, the only critical item I can think of would be the bridge classes for a given subdivision. Additionally, I've seen somewhere here in the past - probably from Don Wirth - that the coal locomotives required more servicing in terms of emptying ashes, banking the fires, filling the tender, etc. Knowing that the Frisco started using run-through motive power on its passenger trains, I would guess that it was only feasible - or at lot easier - to do so with oil burning motive power. However, this might be a "chicken or egg" question: I don't know, offhand, if they started run-through passenger power and then switched to oil burners, or if they started using oil burners on passenger runs and then started running the power through division points? If nothing else, it's gotten me back into reading through the old Frisco Employees Magazines again in the hopes of finding clues. Best Regards,
