SLSF Shoot it on the Frisco

To hold compressed air for the brakes.

 

The braking Main Reservoir is shown under the walkway. Whatever the big tank is for, it is above and beyond the normal braking system.

 

Yes, sure.

Mallets tended to operate on grades, up and down, and had no dynamic brakes. They installed "retainers" on cars to keep all the air from escaping as the brakes were cycled on and off, and most especially, when they were half applied for a while. That was how you got down a hill. Excess air capacity was desirable. Pressure per square inch doesn't drop as fast when you have more square inches.

Mallets also tended to have room on the pilot beam to spare. Weighty items mounted right on the pilot beam added ballast to the slippery radial chassis as a bonus.

So, why not? What's the downside?

 

Thanks for that explanation @acptulsa . As long as I've been a railfan, I've never quite understood the purpose of retainers. Thank you.

 

This A&P shot would be as at home in the Santa Fe thread. Needles, California.



The Frisco was originally the A&P subsidiary intended to connect it to St. Louis. The A&P (no, not this A&P!)...



...was one of the original four transcontinental routes which received land grants during the civil war. The central route was initially the only one to get subsidies, and the resulting Credit Mobiliér scandal insured that would remain the case.

The northern route became the Northern Pacific. Both the NP and the UP got to set out from places served by both existing railroads and navigable rivers. The two south of the Mason-Dixon were handicapped, not surprisingly. The southern route, a.k.a. the Texas and Pacific, set out from Longview, Texas, and the 35th parallel route, the A&P, from Springfield, Missouri. The A&P was further limited by a route that led through Indian Territory.



There were other land grant roads that tied in to the system. These were designed as feeders for the transcontinentals. There were two across Kansas. The Central Branch of the Union Pacific was independent of the UP when it operated under that name. Later it became the Kansas Pacific, but the UP soon took it over as its Kansas City-Denver line. The other was the ATSF.

As the Santa Fe built across Kansas, it sold grant lands, and attracted settlers that it was able to do business with as soon as their first crops came in. It thrived. Meanwhile, the Indians wanted nothing to do with any railroad. They reluctantly allowed it to be built, but granted no land and did very little business with it. So, the A&P starved; the St. Louis connection was its only asset that brought it any revenue. The Santa Fe reached Colorado by the end of 1873; in 1890 the Frisco was just inching its way into Tulsa.

Santa Fe president William Barstow Strong was anxious to reach the Pacific. He found the Frisco cash strapped, and bought half interest in the western portion of the A&P, including the land grants across the desert. Before long, he bought the Frisco too, and merged it into the system. The two roads built from Monett, Missouri to Dallas, which is why they shared a yard and union station in Paris, Texas. And they built the A&P across New Mexico and Arizona, even though the Frisco (as all the Missouri trackage was now called) had no connection to it. He was also trying to push the Colorado Midland across the mountains, in spite of the lack of a good route.

This left the Santa Fe overly leveraged, and the Panic of 1893 proved the road's financial arrangements to be a house of cards. The resulting bankruptcy saw the Midland Terminal and the Frisco become independent. The receivers did, however, retain full control of the A&P, which became the Santa Fe Pacific.

And that's how the regional ATSF became the transcontinental, and the transcontinental Frisco became a regional.

 

Excellent account.

 

Looks like the tender has been converted from coal to oil!

 

The Frisco was a very early purchaser of the U25B.

 

The Sunnyland backs into Central Station, Memphis, one track over from the City of New Orleans.

 

For a few years c. 1915, the Frisco and the Santa Fe operated the Chicago Express and the Texas Express between St. Louis and Dallas, via their junction at Paris, Texas, Ft. Smith, and the Fayetteville, Arkansas station seen here.

The named express was dropped just about the time the Texas Special began operation in 1915. I can't find a pic of it, I can't even find out exactly how long it operated and I don't know why they dropped it. Ft. Smith was a bigger city than Muskogee, Oklahoma (the largest city between Springfield and Dallas on the Texas Special route), but the Katy could forward the train to San Antonio and the Santa Fe couldn't. That route also had easier grades than the Ozark Mountain route of the Texas/Chicago Express.

Even so, both roads made note of the schedule of other road's Paris local on their own's timetable for another twenty-five years, so passengers between Dallas and eastern Arkansas could more easily use the route.

 

Cape Girardeau, Missouri, on the St. Louis - Memphis cutoff, in the days when photo colorization happened by hand, with brushes and paint.



I suspect that the Big Muddy was really less blue and more brown than that.

 

The Frisco thought their locomotive fleet, led by 64 Mountains, would carry them through WWII. By 1943, however, they were ready for more. The War Production Board was not allowing any new, unproven designs to be built. So when they turned to Baldwin for their first Northerns, they had to choose an existing design.

They ordered copies of neighbor Burlington's, which weren't so different from their 4300 class. The WPB wasn't so obsessive that it wouldn't allow for variances of detail. The Frisco's copies had three thermic syphons, Coffin feedwater heaters in their smokeboxes instead of Elesco types on top, different cabs and disc drivers, among other differences. And sure enough, they worked just fine.

 

Admittedly it's hard to look away from the switcher. But sharp eyes will notice that the EMD is a somewhat unusual FP-7.

 

There were critters on the Frisco. Have a Whitcomb.

 

The FP7 is also in the old colors. Nice

 

The 1630 does not have roller bearings. I don't think is aloud out on a class 1 railroad. Would be limited because of no ditch lights. Have had fun riding behind the 1630 many times.