Highline Rider

My dad - Ralph Metzger - worked for the Frisco from 1949 until the BN merger. He was a GI bill grad of Purdue University and began his Frisco career as a surveyor. We lived in Springfield (3 times), Amory, Miss, St.Louis, Mo and Fort Scott, Ks. So I got a lot of travel around some of the system just hanging out with him when I wasn't in school. He was a civil engineer, trainmaster, trainmaster/roadmaster, and finally, at the time of the take-over, the railroad's chief environmental engineer. At the Frisco's request, in 1969 (twenty years out of school!) he went to Rolla and took the Misssouri State professional engineer exams so he could represent them with the EPA/Coast Guard. I saw all sorts of Frisco work spread out on our kitchen table - the Chrysler Plant auto loadout in St.Louis, many of the "modern" diesel shops and fueling facilities - black locos with reflective 3M tape and paint schemes for locomotives (colored by my sisters crayons - Mandarin Orange) - you name it, we saw it! My favorite trip with him was to ride the Highline from Clinton up through the "green tunnel" to K.C. His printing and hand drawings appear on a lot of Frisco artifacts. My album has a batch of his maps for the Springfield - St Louis route.