Frisco depot, Sawyer, OK. The Ft. Smith-Hugo line thru the Winding Stairs and down the Kiamichi River valley was taken up between Wister and Antlers, OK in 1981, but this depot still stands- in fact, the city uses it as storage. Notice the fairly new-looking roof. This interesting car was, until a few years ago, parked on a spur in Sherman, TX, and was used to load automobiles on the autoracks (drive-on, drive-off). One of eight SD40-2s owned by Frisco and lost in the vast numbers of SD40-2s owned by BN, this one leads a southbound freight into the yard at Sherman, TX in the early 1990s. The telltale sign here is the gap in the nose, once the spot of a nose Gyralite (wigwag to the Frisco men) once used by Frisco.
<font color="336633">is that a 40' flat? it looks shorter. and there is nothing wrong in the vast BN SD40-2's..... It wont be long until these vanish into the seas of BNSF C44's. </font>
I'm not sure of the length, but it does look shorter than 40 feet. And I agree, after the sea of BNSF colors, the green & black is becoming an endangered species. Even though I miss the Frisco, I still shot BN freights rolling thru Afton whenever I went home to visit. And now that GE techno-toasters and EMD Big Macs have come on the scene, give me a brace of SD40-2s in KCS, UP, MP or BN colors on the point any day!
<font color="336633">Is there a lot of ex frisco buildings still about in that area?? I guess there will be several depots still about, Over here in England almost all our old stations are still standing and many have been converted into houses, is that sort of thing done over there??</font>
Sadly, no. The brick depot in Afton, OK, where I lived for so long was demolished by BN after the agent's job was abolished. That same fate happened to a lot of rural depots after the agents were removed- tear down the building, it goes off the tax rolls. Some depots have been moved off their original site, others have been either restored on-site or left to the mercy of the elements. In most major cities, the depots still stand (Grand Central in NYC, Washington Union, Los Angeles Union), and also host commuter rail trains.
We were in Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1999 and I noticed a train coming and pulled over to watch it go by. (We had just been to the park there to see the Big Boy.) I looked and there were two Frisco boxcars on the same train. I did get several photos but I have not scanned them. Also, there were still a couple of Frisco boxcars that were running back and forth around Springfield as late as 1999. There are still several Frisco depots around here and there in one form or the other. Charlie
<font color="336633">Its a shame that they all seem to get pulled down over there, we kinda do a good job of keeping them over here, most of the small ones in rural locations have been converted into houses, there is also several buildings round here that have either been converted into farm buildings or wearhouses. I was really pleased when I went to the US in 1998 and saw a Frisco boxcar, I had to take a photo of it! I cnt remember if I have posted it here before </font>
Not Frisco, but Yesterday I saw a Woodchip car in full Northern Pacific paint. Even the reporting marks. Freshly washed even.
Hugo, OK and Paris, TX (both not far from here) each have their Frisco stations intact and restored. Up in Denison, the Katy depot not only still stands, but has several shops and a restaurant or two. Out front of the depot is a collection of Katy and MP cabooses, as well as the "blind-cab" F-unit (windows covered over with sheet metal, rebuilt with 645 prime mover to 2000 HP).
<font color="336633">Thanks Bob That reminds me of the CSX BQ23-7's thats no way to treat an F7A, wouldnt be quite as bad if they had not have added that door to the nose, although I can understand why they did it, it couldnt have been easy to walk from one unit to another with an A unit in the consist.</font>
A lot of our smaller stations are saved, either by being privately owned, or by having preservation orders placed on them, thereby saving them from demolition, or even from having the looks altered by building changes. Our local station at Spalding was going to be demolished and a shiny new metal and glass one built, but the authorities slapped a preservation order on it, so it is also saved! I also hate to see F units treated like that!
I agree with Alan & Matt- lousy thing to do to an F-unit. However, when Katy finished the rebuild, it was designated an "F38-2"- basically a GP38-2 type B unit. It was run between the hood units, and before Katy was merged into MP (yes, it was controlled by MP, which was by then a paper UP subsidiary- long story), it was retired and donated to the museum folks at the Katy Depot in Denison.
<font color="336633">How many was rebuilt??? The worst rebuild I have seen of an F unit was the KCS slug rebuilds</font>
Just the one. As for the KCS F-unit slugs, you couldn't tell unless you loked at the roof- the lack of exhaust stacks is the giveaway. KCS F-unit slugs (usually the F7s, but at least one F3, the 4050, got converted) were used with F B-units on unit lignite trains in Texas, and until retirement at about 1990 or so were used in conjunction with GP40 slug mothers, again in Texas on the Shreveport-Dallas line. At least two are preserved- one in its original KCS colors in northwest Arkansas, and the other next to the Frisco depot in Hugo, OK. F7A slug SL1 (former KCS 4055, nee 70) is in Hugo- somewhere here in TB I posted a picture of SL1, most likely in the Shortlines section. I can handle F-unit slugs- what gets me are RS3s re-engined with EMD prime movers, utilizing GP9 long hoods.
Worse than a......CF7? [/b]</font>[/QUOTE]CF7s are indeed unique critters, and so ugly as to be considered cute. Gotta say I like 'em- great power for shortlines and industrial switching.
Heh...I kinda dig those - only because they're so ulgy! They're out of my era, but I plan on modelling two of 'em just because they're so unique.
I actually have a model of an RS2M "morphodite" diesel (that word was Frisco crews' phrase for this hybrid.)
