Mansfield Branch Coal Train - Extra 5032 North - Fayetteville, AR, MP 352.4

This interesting picture shows a northbound coal train at Fayetteville, AR. Courtesy of the A & M Railroad.

Also shown is a Frisco work train and a GP7 (?) engine. The Mansfield Branch served the coal extraction operations in South Sebastian County, AR. The coal had very little smoke components and found wide acceptance in cities such as St. Louis where a clean coal ordinance took effect in 1940.

The traffic dwindled as Gulf Coast natural gas replaced coal for domestic heating.

 

It is also interesting to see 5032 retains its four-digit number while having been repainted in the "austerity" scheme.

How many more F's got "austerity" colors, yet retained their original numbers. I did not know the "austerity" scheme predated the renumbering of the F's to 2 digits.

It is just another reason to pay attention to what goes on here at frisco.org!

 

Does anyone know the years that this coal train was in operation?

My guess is this photo is about 1964 judging from the equipment.

Was this a single mine/shipper or several coal mines?

Who was / were the shipper(s)?

Who received this coal in St Louis or other cities?

This is really interesting.

Thank you for posting.

 

Rick asked:

Hi Rick.

The coal extras were run on an "as needed" basis.

That is, once enough coal built up in the yard to warrant a train, it was dispatched. If the volume of coal ebbed enough to where it could be handled in the scheduled freight, that's the way it would be done.

I am unclear as to when the last coal extra ran, but I have photos of one as late as 1976.

The coal was gathered out on the Central Branch remnant of the Mansfield Branch. The main location was the coal washer at Montreal. Several strip operations utilized the Montreal washer. By the last of the Frisco coal traffic had dwindled to a handful of cars every other day or so.

It was even more sporadic and skant with the BN. Sometime during the mid-1980's the Central Branch was no more, as the coal washer at Montreal had been shut down.

I have no definite info as to who the shippers or consignee's were.

Hope this helps some.

Andre Ming

 

The Burlington Northern received Interstate Commerce Commission approval to abandon the Montreal Lead on December 5 1983.

SECO, Inc, located at Montreal , by then was the sole customer. The explosives maker received incoming shipments of 58 cars in 1981, 47 cars in 1982, and 7 cars in the first three months of 1983. No outgoing shipments were noted.

Some of the coal shipped from South Sebastian County in later years went to coking plants in Colorado to CF&I at Pueblo; California to Kaiser Steel at Fontana; and Utah to Geneva Steel Works at Provo.

The South Sebastian County coal would have been shipped out on the Midland Valley and Frisco after the MoPac abandoned its Greenwood coal branch 1958, after no business since 1952.

The Midland Valley became part of the MoPac and abandoned its Sebastian County coal mine branch in February 1965. This left the Frisco's Montreal lead as the sole coal hauling line in South Sebastian County.

Prior to about 1930 the Central Coal and Coke Co of Kansas City had numerous operations in South Sebastian County. They did not survive the Depression. My impression is that mining after 1940 was heavily focused on strip mining since anyone with a drag line and trucks could enter the business.

HE

 

I'm really appreciative of the info from Tom and Andre.

I have a few coal loads parked in the Fort Smith yard right now, mid-1980 that is, so I guess they'll go out on a scheduled freight per Andre's post.

Chris, if you look at the track charts for the Fayetteville depot a few years before that photo, there's a great switching layout just in that Zone.

I believe the Frisco burned that coal, so pre-diesel they would be setting some out for the local switchers.

 

I'll add a little bit to what's already been posted above.

The Little Rock & Texas, later Mansfield Branch, was constructed in order for the Frisco to reach the south Sebastian County coal fields to obtain locomotive fuel. The original mines were at Hackett, Arkansas and were reached via a spur track.

Although these mines opened with great fanfare they failed quickly because of unanticipated problems with water and a soft ceilings The Frisco, perhaps earlier than they had planned, extended the Hackett spur on into the coal field, finally ending it at Mansfield and renamed it the Little Rock & Texas (LR&T) Railroad.

The mines at Hackett were in production before the LR&T was even chartered, in fact before the line to Paris even finished. Although the story is down played now, it was published in several articles in the 1920's and 1930's that the town of Mansfield got its name when someone asked where the end-of-line depot was going to be built.

The answer was something like "in that mans field". One source says the line was extended the two or so miles past the end of the coal field simply to provide depot services for local agriculture since farmers were not going to like doing business in a mining town, Huntington.

Through the late 1800's the only real business was the K & T Coal Company mines at Huntington. This complex was a series of strip pits and small underground mines which began at Huntington and gradually expanded to the west as the coal was "exhausted".

K & T Coal Company was poorly managed, their mines being pointed out as examples of the wrong way to do things in one engineering text from the time. Labor problems were rampant. To cut a long, interesting story short, the company's assets were purchased by Central Coal & Coke Company in about 1902. K & T left more coal in the ground than they removed, it would be picked up or "mined" again later.

Central Coal already had some interesting relationships with the Frisco in Kansas and in Sebastian County, Arkansas prior to this time. The Frisco got its coal from the Huntington area but the Central Coal & Coke mines at Bonanza, Arkansas shipped most of their coal to Poteau, Indian Territory (Oklahoma) for the Kansas City Southern.

This coal started out on KCS track at the mines, traveled over the Frisco from Bonanza to Poteau, and then was transferred back to the KCS. Central Coal moved their own coal in this operation using trackage rights. Prior to the "Tap Line Case" this was done via the Missouri & Louisiana Railroad. Again this was a mix of surface and underground mining.

Flash forward many years. The Hartford Branch of the Midland Valley was removed for it's steel in 1943, during the War. A short section east of the Montreal crossing was left to service local mines and became a Frisco spur. This is the track where the last coal washer was located in the latter days of the railroad operations.

After the War most of the underground mining in the county was confined to the area along the Midland Valley between Hackett and Greenwood although some of these mines actually shipped via Frisco. The last of the large underground mines closed about 1960 or so.

The big difference was that it had now become possible to go back into areas that had been mined many years earlier, with modern equipment - mostly walking draglines, and recover coal that had been missed. By the 1970's this was the majority of the coal mining that was taking place.

The old mines were simply dug up and turned into strip mines and some of the remaining coal recovered. I know the operations were still going full scale, 24 hours a day in 1974. I used to wake up thinking that the next bite the big dragline at Huntington, the closest one to where I lived at the time, was going to take would be my front yard.