Business Car SLSF 2 - "Saint Louis"

Business Car SLSF 2

Business car SLSF 2.

Tacked on to the end of a freight train behind extended or wide vision caboose SLSF 1264.

Slide is dated February 1969, and was taken somewhere in Kansas.

 

Heavyweight business car "Saint Louis".

Photographs from the Western Historical Manuscript Collection.

 

Three recent editions to my collection.

All three photographs of business car SLSF 2 taken Springfield, MO.

First photograph is credited to someone with the initials RF, and was taken at the Springfield passenger depot sometime in 1966.

The second photograph in Pullman green paint is dated 4/12/1975.

The third photograph in Mandarin orange and white is dated 2/25/1978.

In both of these photographs, you can see the B end of business car SLSF 1 on the left side of the image.

The second and third photographs are credited to Jim Wilson.

Paul

 

Here are a few more recent additions.

A few post BN merger photographs of business car SLSF 2.

On the BN it became BNA 9, "Meramec River".

This car is currently on display at the BNSF headquarters in Ft. Worth, TX, with the name "James J. Hill".

First photograph taken in Springfield, MO in June 1981 outside the paint shop.

This shows the B end of the car, and is the earliest photograph I have ever come across of the car in BN paint.

Photograph by Andre Menard.

Second photograph of the car taken in 1983. Location unknown.

Photograph by Don Heiberger.

Third photograph taken under the train shed at St. Louis Union Station depot, St. Louis, MO in June 1986.

Photograph by Michael Caramanna.

Paul

Edit 6/3/2024: First photograph was taken at the business car track, Springfield Yard, Springfield, MO.

The business car track was between the West Shops power house and the Springfield Diesel Shop, to the north of the receiving and departure (R&D) / running North Long Track 5.

In the photograph to the east or right is the west end of the Springfield Diesel Shop.
MKD

 

Thanks Chris,

I am actually getting ready to scratch build a model of this car, in N-scale no less, so I have been collecting information about it for a while.

In addition to the 7 slides I have scanned in and posted here, I have collected a couple of photograph prints from various dealers at shows and a couple of photographs from various online sources. Included are a few on the Springfield-Green County Library's site and from the Missouri Depots web site. They have been very useful.

Marre and Sommers' book Frisco in Color contains a photograph of business car SLSF 2 in green paint, along with one prior to loosing its name, "Saint Louis".

In other words, the photographs of "Saint Louis" in this thread below may very well be of the car posted above. I have not been able to find evidence there were two business cars named Saint Louis, but I also have not found any evidence that says there was only one.

http://www.frisco.org/shipit/index.php?threads/business-car-st-louis.846/

There is also a photograph in the caboose section that Roger Taylor posted which contains most of the side of business car SLSF 2 not pictured in this thread yet. Please see the following link.

http://www.frisco.org/vb/showpost.php?p=9562&postcount=6 )

Another good reference for modeling purposes is Robert Del Grosso's book 1992 Burlington Northern Annual. It contains general arrangement drawings of the car in the BN era.

This let me get the car's length and bolster spacings correct.

Paul

 

Wow 5 minutes ago I was looking at the photographs of business car SLSF 1 in the mandarin orange and white, and asked myself if any of those cars got a BN paint job.

Well this answered my question.

Ship it on the Frisco!

Murphy Millican

 

It looks nice in BN, fortunately it is not the Hockey Stick version of the scheme!

 

Unfortunately, "looked good" is in the past tense.

I was at BNSF headquarters a couple of weeks ago and the "Saint Louis", sorry, but that is its proper name, never mind SLSF 2 or "Meramec River" or whatever it is now, is stuffed and mounted along with three other office cars, two GN or NP and one ATSF.

All with interiors greatly modified, outside the main entrance and are used for meetings or special occasions involving a meal, etc.. All are painted solid silver. It is nice that BNSF pays homage to its railroad heritage, but too bad that it has to involve permanently incapacitating these four cars.

Incidentally, there is also a former California Zephyr dome-observation-sleeper mounted in a courtyard there with a hole cut in the side that serves as a fast-food café for employees. On the other hand, the main lobby is a veritable museum with many interesting artifacts and displays.

I guess you take the good with the bad.

Gordon

 

This may be wrong, but I lived in Kansas City when the Republicans had convention to re-nominate Gerald Ford at the Kemper Auditorium, just west of the then Frisco 19th Street Yards.

Kemper is surrounded by tracks unless I was drunk that night and the railroad executive trains were well represented. I believe I saw a train made up of Frisco cars that night.

Would this car have been one of them?

I do not recall the make up of train, how many cars, nor locomotives.

This is also a point for rail watchers if you have a Presidential Convention in your city.

These executive trains will be there in force, well waxed and maintained, representing the remaining power of the Railroad Industry.

Thanks for question,

Rick

 

The "named" business cars by 1976 had been renumbered.

The Frisco only had three business cars left then, SLSF 1, the former "Missouri", SLSF 2, the former "Saint Louis" in the pictures, and SLSF 3, t former "Springfield".

Tom

 

Would that have been perhaps their last big get together or did they get one more convention?

Ricky

 

Probably so, by the next campaign in 1980 the Frisco was about to become the BN!

Tom