Arkansas & Ozarks Railroad - 1954 - Ozarka Spring Water Company, Eureka Springs, AR

Wayne MO, MP 51.86.

The tracks are former Frisco Ft. Smith Subdivision, now Arkansas and Missouri (A&M).

View is looking from where the Missouri and Arkansas / Missouri and North Arkansas departed from the Frisco for Neosho, MO, MP 19.70, and ultimately Joplin, MO, MP 0.0.

The road was built on the M&A's former right of way.



The second photograph is looking south thru the former "yard".



Dad and I were cruising in his project 1969 F100 during my Labor Day weekend mini vacation.

Edit 3/10/2024: Added M&A station mile posts.
MKD

 

Thanks to all who posted here.

I recently found the A&O 2 months ago and was intrigued by the beauty of the scenery in Arkansas.

I am considering modeling it in O-scale. In fact I have ready built the A&O 300 caboose.

What industry received all the tank car traffic?

 

Ozarka Spring Water.

Eureka Springs, AR., MP 79.15.

 

Thank you!

 

That is interesting.

How big is the Ozarka facility and how many tank cars did they ship per day?

It is Cynthia's favorite water.

Joe

 

Neat looking switch there.

Have to wonder what rail line used that standard?

I do not think I have a book with that one in it, interesting.

I have seen similar arrangements in books.

 

Photograph 13 of this thread includes an Oil States Tank Car Corp OSKX unit.

I pulled a snippet from a now broken link to a PDF from Sunshine Model kits that says:

"... Corp., whose trade name was DX gasoline. The company also owned Oil States Tank Car Corp., OSKX. There were 1278 cars in 1953. A few years later the company became DX Sunray, SRDX, and progressively the white lettering was simplified. The series 2600-2799 included Type 17 GATC tank cars."

Also included in the listing was "Deep Rock was an Oklahoma based oil producer. It had two tank car fleets: Deep Rock (DRX) and Ozark Car Corp. (OZKX)."

More threads to chase down. Anything that traversed the Ft Smith Subdivision and anything that said Ozark(s) is of interest to me.

One of the pleasures of the hobby for me.

 

Right - it is bottled in Texas now.

I see some Ozarka brand bottled water in my trips throughout Missouri.

Wonder how the brand justified closing their Eureka Springs facility to move to Texas with a name like Ozarka?

 

Interesting.

 

"Ozarka" has been on my potential list of Ozark names for use on a future layout forever.

With my current layout, I was finally able to incorporate the name "Ozarka" in the form of a town, where it is mainly a helper station and small classification yard. Some small industry as well, via the team tracks.

My Ozarka is envisioned as being a small town of less than a 1,000 deep in the heart of the Ozarks. Ozarka pretty much owes its existence to the railroad.

Just a short time ago, after the owners of the Kansas City and Gulf (KC&G) declared bankruptcy, had they been allowed to follow through with their threats and scrap the KC&G, Ozarka would have become yet another dwindling Ozark town of the day.

However, those bad apple owners are gone, and things are slowly looking upward for the bedraggled line.



Now, to get back on topic, here are some pictures of the actual Ozarka Spring Water Company when it was operating out of the depot at Eureka Springs, AR.













Andre

 

I looked at the Ozarka water bottle we have and it came from Texas.

Would not have paid that much attention until Keith said something about it.

Thank you Keith for letting me know.

It is Cynthia's favorite water.

Joe

 

I built this Gould kit and lettered it for Ozarka.

Champ decals maybe.

 

Love the tank car, Karl.

Andre

 

Karl,

The tank car looks fantastic.

It is making me thirsty for a drink of water. LOL

Joe

 

Love the tank cars, thanks for posting.

I have got my custom decal guy working on decals for them in O-scale.

We will see.

 

While I am at it, I will ask my decal guy about the reefers too.

I noticed that the reefers use “Eureka Spring” and “Eureka Springs”, which is correct?

Also, does anyone know what color these reefers were?

Thank you!