Does anyone have pics of anything with Kansas City, Memphis, & Birmingham logos? I have one logo I found on a website about the Amory Railroad Festival. That's the only KCM&B image I have.
There are a few builders' photos of KCM&B rolling stock in this 1890s-era catalog of the St. Charles Car Company, which has been scanned and put on line by the St. Charles District Library (near St. Louis.) http://www.win.org/library/services/lhgen/SCcarco/ Art Griffin, who makes decals for HO scale modelers of the 1880s-1930s, has a "Kansas City Memphis & Brownsville" set in his catalog, which I suspect is actually KC Memphis & Birmingham. (The decal says only KCM&B). He also offers for sale copies of the photographs that the decals are patterned from. http://www.greatdecals.com/Griffin.htm It appears from these photos and pics that the KCM&B's rolling stock paint schemes were very similar to those of its corporate relatives the KC Fort Scott & Memphis and the KC Clinton & Springfield. (I've never seen a photo or diagram of a Current River RR car or locomotive in which a logo was visible, so I can't tell you anything about the fourth member of that corporate family. Would love to see one if it's out there....) Reprints of the 1893 and 1901 Official Guides list the KCM&B's schedules on the same pages as the KCFS&M and its other affiliates, with no separate logo shown. I have also seen 1890s-era KCFS&M passes which have the KCM&B, KCC&S and CR listed in small print on the back, apparently as subsidiary lines. All of this suggests that corporate image was pretty well coordinated between the parts of the KCFS&M system. For further research one might want to check special collections at the U. Missouri St. Louis libraries, Missouri State University, etc., examine local histories of towns and counties that the KCM&B ran through, or keep an eye out for old KCM&B paper through internet auction sites and ephemera/antique dealers. Bradley A. Scott
