Glad to hear some of you are looking forward to the book, but remember, the majority of the photos included came from our archive. What you are getting is the photos now presented in book form with (I hope) correct identifying captions. I know MSB does a good job with photo reproduction, so I am confident the book will hold up well. Thanks to all who contributed their time, knowledge and encouragement throughout the process of assembling this volume. I hope you enjoy it. GS
Greg, Thank You for publishing the book, I like the idea of printing photos from the Archives. Another book idea would be to publish "Workshop Wednesday", it has a lot of photos, videos and verbiage that would be interesting in a book form. The thread has 27 pages starting November 15, 2017 with 533 posts. Joe
Received my book Monday. Nicely done. I haven't read many of the captions yet, but the photos are very well reproduced. Congratulations to Greg and thanks for his efforts on another good Frisco book. Ken
Received my copy yesterday, I love it. I love the picture of the author holding the wee kitty cat too! Robert
Ok, so I am finally reading through my copy of the book and I keep coming across a pretty glaring error... the merger date of BN/Frisco is listed as September 21,1980. Shouldn’t that be November 21st 1980? This isn’t the first time a Morning Sun book has made an error on this date. One of the BN books ( I would need to search a bit to find it ) lists the merger date as being in April 1980
"A date that shall live in infamy." (With apologies to FDR.) The day the Frisco died. It was with sadness I watched the green malignancy slowly spread and infest the Frisco's Fort Smith region, and its impact upon the railroading thereof: Business being run off, crews cut, services cut, "consolidation" requiring men to move their families, etc. Sad times. It didn't take long and Whirlpool loathed the BN. (All the way to Whirlpool's demise at Fort Smith.) Whirlpool NEVER, EVER, shipped another appliance by railroad car after the BN's dealings with them. In fact, they only (begrudgingly) received what they HAD to by rail in order to make their products. Sad times indeed. Andre
Ken, I believe that was You are There. It was narrated by Missourian, Walter Cronkite. I remember the 16mm films that we saw in school. At the end of the movie the words in Walter Cronkite's voice still are clear in my memory, "A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times... all things are as they were then, and you were there!" I was very intent student of history and Walter Cronkite's baritone voice was nearly mesmerizing.
I noticed that too but it depends on which date you consider...off the top of head without checking the merger was approved by the ICC in April 1980 effective May 13(?), Katy filed a lawsuit & a federal judge issued an injunction... Appeals court lifted the injunction on 11/21/80 & BN filed the paperwork which in effect made the merger complete... Katy again appealed to the Supreme Court which I think either refused hear the case or ruled against Katy about a week later around Dec.1...That's it in a nutshell, one thing is for sure BN didn't take control of Frisco until the afternoon of 11/21/80...Roger
Thanks Roger. That could explain the April 1980 date ( date of ICC approval ) in the BN book. Perhaps Greg can shed some light on where the September date came from. Incidentally, there is at least one caption in the book ( page 82, bottom photo ) that refers to the right date, but all the rest I have read so far refer to September.
Paul, I have no idea, as far as I know in Sept. the merger was still tied up in courts...I did see some captions mentioning it was BN train when clearly that was not true...Next week I'll have a little time maybe I can put together a 1980 timeline but for now I can positively tell you the merger occurred Nov.21, 1980, I remember that Friday well...Roger
September 21 date came from Frisco Diesel Power, by Lou Marre and John Baskin Harper, p. 12, second to last line, last paragraph. As Lou is generally recognized as expert on most things Frisco I went with that date. As one might imagine, my focus was not on researching and verifying a merger date (not the point of the book), it was on the images and the accompanying captions. GS
Hmmm interesting, I hadn’t noticed that error in Frisco Diesel Power. Interestingly, that error is not repeated in the introduction to Marre and Sommer’s Frisco in Color. It just says “end of 1980” ( page 6, last paragraph ). I think it more surprised me given your participation here. The right date is even in the “Brief Introduction to the Frisco” link on the main forum page. ( http://www.frisco.org/shipit/index.php?pages/about/ ). Paul
Great show!!! Looked up "You are There" on Wikipedia and they said there are five seasons, 147 episodes that was broadcast between February 1, 1953 to June 9, 1957. I remember seeing it but they were reruns because I was born in 1956. It was in the early 60's when I saw them, always looked forward to seeing every week. We lived in Neosho and they had the early stages of cable TV. Joe
This date was on a Friday. I was a member of the Big Bend O scale model railroad club located in the Webster Groves train station. We met on Tuesday nights to work on the layout and on that night we had every member jammed into the station to wonder and discuss on what is the future of the club now that the Frisco was absorbed by Burlington Northern. We all heard the railroad crossing bells go on the crossing gates go down and everyone went outside and watched a freight train heading east toward Lindenwood yard. We all where wondering how long it will be till we see the green/black paint scheme on the head end power.