This wonderful photo was recently given to the Fort Smith Trolley Museum with no identifying information. My guess is Rogers, AR, and that it is train #4 on the right and the connecting local to Bentonville and beyond on the left. Can anyone confirm or make an alternate suggestion?
Love that diminutive locomotive on the left. Looks just like Jim James' model of no. 151! Pat Moreland, Union Mo.
That does look like the Rogers depot roof outline. What a neat little local for Bentonville over to Grove, OK. John Chambers
Where to even begin with this one? There's a ton of detail: the gravel road w/timber grade crossings, the boxcars in the background, the train order signal (or, I presume it's the train order board - interesting placement that far from the depot), and the water spout in action. Do you think the train crews knew that they were being photographed? Can anyone positively identify the locomotive number and type on the left? I'd guess a 4-4-0. Thanks very much for sharing, Gordon. Best Regards,
Looks like Rogers to me also. The 1054 is by no means a big engine, but the way it dwarfs the little guy reminds me of a photo I saw of a Maine 2' engine sitting next to a MC 4-6-0. That 4-4-0 must be tiny.
Tried to blow it up and look at the numberplate on the front of the little engine but just not enough detail to see what the number is. I did look at the boxcars in the background and they are marked Arkansas Oklahoma and Western. Now that's a rare find to see rolling stock for that little pike. John Chambers
The Arkansas, Oklahoma & Western boxcars behind the depot are an additional clue, and interesting in their own right. Rogers was an interchange point between the Frisco and this short-lived shortline, which supports the suggestion that Rogers is the location. The two railroads also connected, briefly, near Fayetteville, and perhaps at Lowell thanks to the AO&W's post-1911 combination with the Monte Ne Railway. The AO&W's abbreviated history also helps narrow down the date of the photo to a range of 1908-1918. According to Wikipedia the AO&W was successor to the Rogers & Southwestern, which was built from Rogers AR to Springtown AR in 1906, reorganized as the AO&W, and completed to Siloam Springs, where it connected with the KCS, on January 1st of 1908. It was nicknamed the "Fruit Belt Line" after the fruit traffic it collected from local farmers. In 1911, the AO&W combined with the nearby Monte Ne Railway to become the grandly-named Kansas City & Memphis Railway. At some point (Wiki is unclear on the subject) new construction linked the two. This construction included a concrete underpass under the Frisco near Lowell which reportedly still exists. (I do not know whether freight traffic coming off the Monte Ne continued to be interchanged to the Frisco after the construction of the link to the AO&W and, through it, the KCS.) A branch from Cave Springs (about 5-10 miles southwest of Rogers) to Fayetteville was also constructed. Most of the freight traffic which the KC&M sought to haul to Siloam Springs and hand off to the KCS would otherwise have moved by the Frisco, and the two railroads had bitter disputes about switching and interchange issues, particularly at Fayetteville. When the US Railway Administration nationalized the railroads during World War I, it decreed that freight traffic must move by the most direct routing, ignoring shipper preferences and any special deals that shippers had negotiated with less direct railroads. This meant that much of the traffic the KC&M was trying to siphon off promptly went back to the Frisco. The KC&M entered receivership in 1914 and was abandoned in 1918. (This issue of the newsletter of the Arkansas-Boston Mountains Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society contains an interesting account of the demise of the KC&M, for those interested.) The 1911 Official Railway Equipment Register shows that the KC&M owned 15 boxcars, numbered 1000 to 1014, which were lettered for the AO&W and presumably were the former property of that road. All were 36 footers of 60000 lb capacity. The photo shows two of them... or, by a different calculation, 13% of the railroad's entire freight roster. The 1915 ORER shows the same 15 cars, which reportedly were still lettered for the AO&W despite the new corporate name. One might guess that money for paint and stencils was in short supply.
Found a photo of the Rogers depot on Mike Condren's web site (there don't appear to be any others readily accessible). Based on that image, the depot in the original post to this thread is definitely Rogers. I am guessing it dates from circa 1920 judging from the outfits some of the men are wearing GS
Narrowing things down a bit further: Joe Collias's chart of Frisco pacific types on p. 126 of "Frisco Power" says that the 1040-1059 were built by Schenectady in 1912. So the date range of the photo narrows to 1912-1918. A further thought: your suggestion that the stubby 2-car train is the Bentonville/Grove local does seem like the most likely identification, but if this is the Rogers depot, there is an outside chance it could be a KC&M train. Given the hostile attitude that the Frisco seems to have had toward the KC&M in its latter years, it seems unlikely that they'd cooperate to the extent of allowing use of their yard or any kind of trackage rights, but I mention it as a possible alternate identification. The coonskin numberplate on the smaller locomotive is a Frisco hallmark, but the Monte Ne Railway (which became part of the KC&M) is said to have had at least one ex-Frisco locomotive. A 1912-1918 timetable which showed that the Frisco's Tr. 4 and the Frisco branch local were scheduled to be in Rogers at the same time would add weight to your original hypothesis. And then there's that mysterious "shorty" clerestory roof just visible over the top of the longer passenger train and adjacent to the depot. Perhaps that's the KC&M's "varnish" making its connection with Tr. 4?
This is like a forensic study of this photo. It blows me away how many nuggets of knowledge can come to light thanks to you fine folks. It's like an archeological find being studied by experts. (The 4-4-0 is still my favorite part)
A 2008 image post on this thread: http://www.frisco.org/vb/showthread.php?997-Frisco-Depot-Rogers-Ar&p=15026#post15026 no doubt, seals the location. The same photo appears in in a 1914 news clip on post 1 of that thread. "The above reproduction represents the oldest and newest type of engine in use on the Frisco lines. Engine 31, on train 754, on the Bentonville Branch, and engine 1054 on train No. 4 - Both engines were standing at the Union Station, Rogers, Ark., when the above picture was taken." It's amazing how useful the search engine is on this site! Those people all knew they were having their picture taken. TOC, photography was still an event.
My question is...what are those unusual looking "things" mounted to the roof seemingly attached to the clerestories of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th cars???? Optical illusion or? RanchoBob
They are clerestory air scoops according to John H. White in The American Railroad Passenger Car, part 2. They look similar to Thomas H. Garland's Ventilator; Car Builder's Cyclopedia, 1928, figures 2094 and 2095.
The overpass does still exist and is easily seen from the parallel highway. Also, a considerable part of the current road between Cave Springs and the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport utilizes the right-of-way of the KC&M. It is very easy to see where, near the airport, the road leaves the railroad as it suddenly is no longer flat and relatively straight. Also, 1054 was built in February 1912, so that further narrows down the date on which the photo was taken.
THe AO & W underpass at Lowell, AR was completed in the summer of 1910 enabling the AO & W to route virtually all of its outgoing traffic to the friendly Kansas City Southern at Siloam Springs, AR. This great image was used in the November 1914 issue of the Frisco Employees Magazine. For at least the first 14 years of Frisco ownership one important Bentonville Branch locomotive was No. 31, a tiny Hinkley 4-6-0 locomotive that dated to 1871. The November 1914 Frisco Man Magazine shows a picture of No. 31 at Rogers, Arkansas at the head of a passenger train. The Bentonville Branch engine was next to a modern steam engine. No. 31 looked like an amusement park engine. The article reported No. 31 was the oldest locomotive on the 5,000-mile Frisco system. Engine No. 31 went to the scrap heap in 1916.
