FALLEN FLAGS

 

AT&SF 5619 West climbing the grade at Curtis Hill, Oklahoma.

I took my first railroad image in 1971, when I was 20 years old.  As of this writing, I am 74.  In those 54 years, I have watched many relatives, friends and railroads shuffle off this mortal coil.  Death is inevitable, as are our attitudes concerning the end of things.  My own mirror's Will Rogers':  "If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."

I feel about dead railroads the way I feel about dead relatives and friends.  Some I miss; some I don't.  Some I was fond of; some I wasn't.  Some I wish were still around; some I hope will stay away.

My collection of fallen flags is not nearly as extensive as others.  Most of my railfanning has occurred west of the Mississippi River, though I have occasionally traveled east.  This blog contains separate articles on virtually every company shown here, and those interested can consult the Table of Contents at waltersrail.com.

For those not old enough to remember when the United States was criss-crossed with more railroads than one could easily remember, and also for those who derive pleasure simply from remembering, I offer the following.  I start with the four roads that served my hometown of Oklahoma City when I was young:  Santa Fe, Katy, Rock Island and Frisco.

Santa Fe

The Santa Fe was like my father;  big, bold, overbearing and impossible to ignore.  My dad outlived the Santa Fe, but both were very old when they expired.  The Santa Fe was still robust; my father not so much.  What I remember most about my father, who grew up during the Great Depression, was his intense desire never to be poor again.  What I remember most about the Santa Fe was its clean motive power and well-maintained road beds.  Both father and railroad still occupy a fond corner of my mind.

The Santa Fe stretched from Chicago to Galveston to Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco Bay.  In this short survey, I cannot include an image from all those places, so instead I offer a few from my home state of Oklahoma to demonstrate the scope and breadth of this gone but not forgotten railroad giant.

Curtis Hill at Quinlan, Oklahoma.

Southbound grain in the Little Canyon of the Arbuckles beside the Washita River.

Nowers Junction, Oklahoma City.

North of Edmond, Oklahoma.

Katy

The Missouri, Kansas and Texas (affectionally known as the Katy) was the first railroad to cross what eventually became Oklahoma, its mainline running from Parsons, Kansas, to Dennison, Texas, invading the Cherokee, Creek and Choctaw Nations.  The Katy also ran a branch line from Parson to Oklahoma City that never saw much traffic and was abandoned after heavy flooding washed out the Cimarron River bridge in the early 1970's.

The Katy reminded me of my mother's brother-in-law, who spent his whole life on the edge of Lake Success without ever jumping in.  After retirement, he and my mother's sister moved from California to Oklahoma because they could no longer afford the Golden State, and my uncle spent the remainder of his life in constant fear of being blown to oblivion by a tornado.  Everytime the sky would darken, he would huddle in front of the television, listening to the forecasters proclaim that the end of the world was nigh.

The world did not end, and my uncle never saw a tornado.

Headed to Parsons, Kansas, on the Oklahoma City branch line abandoned after the bridge in this image washed out in the flood of 1973.

A meet on that same branch line.

F-unit in the last Katy paint scheme before the road was purchased by Union Pacific.  This train is leaving Oklahoma City, crossing the Oklahoma River, on the old Rock Island line from Memphis to Tucumcari, New Mexico.  After the bridge washout on the Cimarron River, the Katy continued running trains into Oklahoma City on the Rock Island from McAlester, Oklahoma.

Limestone Gap, Oklahoma.

Rock Island

The older I grow, the closer I feel to the Rock Island.  I am falling apart almost as fast as that forlorn company.  In its last years, much of the railroad's motive power looked as though it had contracted a vile and incurable disease -- leprosy perhaps.  You think I am exaggerating, but the images below validate my claim.

My father's sister was a lot like the Rock Island.  She lived into her nineties, and her mind stayed sharp until the end.  Her body was another matter.  Most of her hair fell out, and she weighed so much that she could hardly walk.  She practiced an Eastern religion that I can neither pronounce nor understand.  She claimed it gave her great peace of mind, and I do not doubt that.  Compared to my lack of peace of mind, she was the Rock of Gibraltar. 

In its last days, the Rock Island ran trains that you would swear were about to fall over.  Motive power and box cars rocked from side-to-side as though rolling through an earthquake.  Engines smoked as though on fire.  Watching the railroad expire was a stark reminder of the transitoriness of everything we hold dear.    

F's at Okarche, Oklahoma.

South of El Reno, Oklahoma.

South of Enid, Oklahoma.

Along the Kansas River.

Frisco

The Saint Louis and San Francisco Railroad never came within a thousand miles of the Golden Gate.  Its westernmost reach was Floydada, Texas, where it joined the Santa Fe.  The Frisco began as the eastern portion of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, which went bankrupt in the late 19th century.  The Santa Fe took over the western portion, but the bankruptcy court required that the eastern portion be established as a separate company.  The name Saint Louis and San Francisco came from the intent of the Atlantic and Pacific to connect those two cities. 

The Frisco was like my mother:  organized, well-dressed, intelligent, ambitious.  With well-maintained roadbed and clean motive power, the railroad was the perfect image of a well-run corporation.  For example, the Frisco ran a daily train from Tulsa to Oklahoma City that always -- repeat always -- left Tulsa at the same time every morning and arrived in Oklahoma City before noon.  Every morning.

Everything about the company, at least from my point of view, was first-rate.  (I suspect some of the employees might have demurred.)  When the Burlington Northern swallowed the Frisco, I mourned, not because I disliked BN, but rather because a very dear friend was no more. 

The daily Tulsa to OKC train -- at Chandler, Oklahoma.

Crossing the Verdigris River northeast of Tulsa.

Leaving Oklahoma City for Floydada, Texas.

Semaphore signal at Stroud, Oklahoma. 

Missouri Pacific

During its life, the Missouri Pacific was mostly overlooked, the obedient son who stands in the corner while the prodigal receives the attention.  Few realize that the MoP was larger, in track mileage, than the Union Pacific.  Fewer yet know that the railroad climbed a mountain pass in west Texas.  

The Missouri Pacific was like the son of my father's brother, my cousin, who went to medical school, became a respected ophthalmologist and provided great knowledge and support during my wife's back surgery.  Reliable, dependable and trustworthy -- that is my cousin, and that was the MoP.

Today most traces of the Missouri Pacific have faded away like cheap paint.  Some of the old passenger stations remain, and a few of them still bear the railroad's red rotary symbol. 

However, since it was swallowed by the Union Pacific, the MoP is just a fading echo slipping further and further into silence as the few who remember it die off.  When no one remembers the railroad, will it even have existed? 

This is obviously not the Missouri Pacific.  It is, however, the original Texas and Pacific line (part of the MoP system) from Fort Worth to Sierra Blanca, Texas, which crossed the Carrizo Mountains just west of Van Horn, Texas.  This area was the Missouri Pacific's only mountain railroading in the west. 

 

A coal train near Ottawa, Kansas, on the line from Kansas City to Pueblo.  When the UP took over, this line was abandoned.

Southbound manifest at Calvin, Oklahoma, on the old Kansas, Oklahoma and Gulf line (part of the MoP system).  When the UP took over, this line was also abandoned.

Tupelo, Oklahoma.

Burlington Northern

Burlington Northern was the amalgamation of four railroads:  (1) Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, (2) Northern Pacific, (3) Great Northern and (4) Spokane, Portland and Seattle.  At its birth, BN was the largest American railroad by mileage.  The company would later acquire the Frisco, thereby extending its reach from Washington to Florida, a virtual coast-to-coast behemoth, reminding me of a friend of my father's who had a glandular problem and weighed over four hundred pounds, the largest human being I've ever seen.  He was so big that he had to have automobiles custom-made so that he could fit behind the steering wheel.

Despite its vast reach, Burlington Northern struggled financially in its early days, mostly because its original constituents were all floundering prior to merger.  As the old joke goes:  "We're losing a dollar per sale, but we plan to make it up on volume."

Then Congress decreed that power plants should burn low sulphur coal, of which enormous deposits lay just below the surface in Wyoming's Powder River Basin.  The BN operated two, little-used branch lines running along the northern and southern edge of all that suddenly valuable coal.  The rest is history.  

An empty coal train from St. Louis, rolling through flood waters on the Mississippi River at Hannibal, Missouri, on the "K" Line.

South of LaCrosse, Wisconsin, along the Mississippi River.

Crawford Hill, Nebraska.

Beardstown Sub at Carlyle Lake, Illinois.

Rio Grande

This map shows narrow gauge and branch lines abandoned years ago.

The Rio Grande was spectacular.  Its lines through Colorado and Utah were unmatched for scenic grandeur.  Loaded coal trains on the Tennessee Pass route, with its three percent ruling grade above Pando, shook the mountains like an earthquake.  The echo off the surrounding peaks was as overwhelming as a pipe organ at full crescendo.

The railroad reminded me of a college friend who played on the football team -- a huge specimen with forearms almost as big as my thighs and an oak-like chest.  He was friendly, good-natured, mild-mannered and went on to play in the National Football League for more than ten years.

But football careers eventually end, and so did the Rio Grande's.  Today the tracks are operated by Union Pacific, which abandoned the Tennesse Pass line in the late 20th century.  The Moffat Route out of Denver sees a trickle of traffic, while the Utah Desert and the line over the Wasatch Range are remarkable mostly for all the parked coal gondolas in the passing sidings.

Still, those of us old enough have fond memories.

Eastbound at Crescent on the Moffat Route, with the Continental Divide in the background.

Eastbound along the Price River in the Wasatch.

Westbound climbing to Tennessee Pass beneath the Collegiate Range.

Eastbound approaching the summit of Tennessee Pass.

Southern Pacific

The Southern Pacific stretched from Portland to New Orleans, almost as big as the Burlington Northern.  Reviled as Frank Norris's Octopus, the railroad established itself in the 19th century as Lord over everything in its domain, in particular California, where nothing escaped its grasp.  

Founded in San Francisco in 1865, the company was purchased in September 1868 by a group of businessmen known as the Big Four: Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, Jr. and C. P. Huntington.  The epithet "Robber Barons" was coined to describe men such as these gentlemen, though some latter-day historians have claimed that the Big Four did more good than harm.  (Full disclosure:  your author is a graduate of Leland Stanford Junior University.)

In 1988, in one of life's greatest ironies, the Southern Pacific was purchased by the Rio Grande, which was sort of like Oklahoma's purchasing North America.  The combined companies then operated under the name Southern Pacific until swallowed by Union Pacific in 1996.

When I think of the Southern Pacific, and I don't think of it often, I remember my father's mother, whom I also don't think of much.  She was very big and very disagreeable but, in my family at least, impossible to escape.  She fed my younger brother M&M's and coffee for breakfast.

Tehachapi Loop, California.

Yuba Pass, California.

Train Masters at Palo Alto, California.

Colfax, California.

Kansas City Southern

The Kansas City Southern originally ran due south out of Kansas City to the Gulf Coast at Port Arthur, Texas, named after the railroad's founder Arthur Stillwell.  In the late 1960's and early 1970's, the railroad almost went broke.  It deferred maintenance on its rights-of-way and ran slow trains well over a mile long, trains too big to fit into the railroad's passing sidings.  Movements could pass only by executing a "saw-by," in which each train was broken in two, and the individual parts were manuevered through the mainline and siding, a process that took about one hour.  (If you're interested in a full description of a "saw-by," see https://www.waltersrail.com/2016/09/kansas-city-southern-requiem-for-white.html.)

When Congress required coal-fired generating plants to burn low sulphur coal, the KCS was resurrected and began running multiple coal drags to power plants south of Kansas City.  The first trains were pulled by White Knights -- all white engines that the KCS kept clean and sparkling.  Later came Grey Ghosts, followed by Retro Belles.  Once coal revenue started flowing virtually all KCS motive power looked immaculate.

The KCS reminded me of the family that lived next door to us when I was a boy.  The father read water meters for a living and played the fiddle in a local country band on weekends, making just enough money to support his wife and two sons in a tiny house.  He took a correspondence course in welding,  constructed a horse trailer in his garage, sold it (the trailer), then built another trailer and sold it, too.  He rented a small building, quite his job as a meter reader and began assembling more horse trailers.  In about ten years, he owned a factory, was a multi-millionaire and played the fiddle on an Oklahoma City television station.

My favorite stretch of the KCS lay along the Oklahoma-Arkansas border, as the tracks climbed the Rich Mountain summit in the Ouachita National Forest.  My son is named after Page, Oklahoma, where the eastbound grade (railroad south) begins. 

White Knights at Page, Oklahoma.

 

Rich Mountain, Arkansas.

Grey Ghosts at Page, Oklahoma.

Retro Belles at Rich Mountain, Arkansas.

Gateway Western

This old map of the Alton Railroad, which was purchased by the GM&O, shows in red the lines operated by the Gateway Western.

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Look at the KCS map above and you will see a line running north from East St. Louis to Roodhouse, Illinois, then turning west to Kansas City.  This is a segment of the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio still operated in the 21st century.  (Unfortunately, I have no images of the GM&O.)

In 1972, the Illinois Central swallowed the GM&O.  In 1987, the Illinois Central sold the line in question to the Chicago, Missouri and Western, which filed for bankruptcy two years later.  From that bankruptcy, the Gateway Western was formed, and it ran the line through Roodhouse until selling it to the KCS in 1997.

The Gateway Western was a Class II railroad that reminded me of one of my mother's cousins -- small, clean, dependable and unobtrusive.  One was required to search diligently to find a train on the Gateway Western, but the effort was  worth it.

An eastbound freight arriving in East St. Louis.  In the background is the Gateway Arch that gave the railroad its name.

Westbound freight crossing the Mississippi River.

Illinois Central

Illinois Central's split-rail symbol outshone every other railroad's.  I do not know who came up with it, but that person should have been given a medal.

My connection to the railroad occurred during the six years I lived and worked in St. Louis.  The IC ran a branch line from East St. Louis to Du Quoin, Illinois, that saw a daily train leave each morning and climb slowly out of the huge flood plain of the Mississippi River.  Soon the IC would be rolling on flat ground past limitless corn fields and dairy farms, its flat black engines framed against a cloudless sky.

In 1971, Steve Goodman wrote a song about the City of New Orleans, the IC's premier passenger train.  Amtrak was preparing to take over most passenger service in the U.S., and the City of New Orleans was limping along with out-dated rolling stock and few passengers.  The lyrics include:  

Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders.  Three conductors and 25 sacks of mail. 

Arlo Guthrie and Willie Nelson both covered the tune, though I doubt that either ever rode the train, which to this day still runs between Chicago and New Orleans.  But not the IC.  It is now part of the Canadian National system.

A meet in winter.

On the way to Du Quoin.  When it absorbed the GM&O, the IC dropped the split rail.  

Leaving town beneath the Gateway Arch.

Canadian Pacific

After Canadian Pacific swallowed the KCS, it changed its name to CPKC, which sounds a little bit like "Sleepy Casey."  I am certain a modern Mark Twain will come up with a better nickname, but that is the best I can do.

From the Southern United States, I thought of the Canadian Pacific as part of the Great White North -- a gargantuan expanse of snow-covered wilderness sparsely populated by men with knee-length beards who could not speak.  Then I spent a month in British Columbia and realized:  (1) British Columbia may be the most beautiful place in the world; (2) those who live in British Columbia may be the friendliest in the world; (3) everyone who lives in British Columbia ends every sentence with the long vowel "A", as in "Nice day, eh?"

Canada reminds me of Oklahoma.  Both live daily with a gigantic clumsy neighbor to the south that does far more harm than good while thinking that it is God's gift to creation.  I have a close relative who also thinks that way.  Since (s)he is still alive, I won't offer a name.

Columbia Lake.

Canal Flats.

Morant's Curve.

Cathedral Mountain.

Western Pacific

When I was a undergraduate in California, I spent a few days at the Western Pacific yard in the East Bay and followed a couple of trains through Niles Canyon to Stockton.  At one time, both Southern Pacific and Western Pacific traversed the canyon, which included a climb across Altamont Pass.  

The SP line was abandoned years ago.  Today a tourist line operates a short segment.  Union Pacific operates the old Western Pacific line, which also hosts the Altamont Corridor Express.

Western Pacific was little brother to Union Pacific.  Anyone with an older brother knows the feeling.  No matter how hard you try, you will never escape the elder's shadow.

F7A 921-D in Western Pacific's East Bay yard.  This was one of the last WP locomotives with the orange and silver paint scheme.

GP7's.

Western Pacific 2254 -- a U23B.

Soo Line

I include two maps of the Soo Line because in the 1980's, the railroad underwent a startling transformation.  The first map above shows the Soo before.  The second map shows the after.

The Soo purchased the Milwaukee Road out of bankruptcy, then sold all of its original trackage to the newly reconstituted Wisconsin Central, leaving only the core Milwaukee system, as shown in the second map.  (Canadian National subsequently purchased the Wisconsin Central.)

Canadian Pacifc had for years owned significant stock in the Soo Line.  In 1990, it purchased the remaining shares and became sole owner.  Today the CPKC runs the system shown on the second map, and the Soo Line is just a memory.

The old Milwaukee Road mainline between the Twin Cities and Chicago.

The old Milwaukee Road line to Kansas City.

The orignal Soo Line near Fon du Lac, Wisconsin.  This line was later sold to the reconstituted Wisconsin Central.

Southern

Like the Union Pacific and Santa Fe, the Southern continued to make money during the dark days of the 1970's, when the lights went out for many formerly prosperous railroads -- especially in the East.  My paternal grandfather was like that.  During the worst of the Great Depression, that man (with barely an eighth grade education) kept his family sheltered and fed and even managed to save enough to provide for his wife and himself in their very old age.  (My grandfather lived to 91, his wife to 100.)

In my experience, Southern motive power was always spotless, its roadbed immaculate.  It was iconoclastic to the end -- its merger in 1982 with the Norfolk and Western -- running many lead units long-hood forward.  And the short hoods, which also led trains, were not chopped short.  The only visibility from a Southern unit was through the side windows, like a steam locomotive.  The railroad claimed this practice was for crew safety, and who am I to dissent?

During 1976 to1979, I was in law school.  Then I took the bar exam and spent the next several years doing what all associate lawyers do -- living at the office.  I did almost no railfanning.  By the time I was able to pursue this pastime with some frequency, the Southern was gone.  Still, I was able to obtain a few images, and I treasure them. 

Along the "Rathole" in northern Tennessee.

Along Mill Creek Road in western North Carolina.

Same

Chessie System

The Chessie System was the amalgamation of the Baltimore and Ohio, Chesapeake and Ohio and Western Maryland railroads, constituting a a major transportation link in the east-central United States.  Around 1987 it merged into the Seaboard System, and the new company was given the dull and unimaginative moniker "CSX," which was supposed to stand for "Chessie times Seaboard," but looks to me more like the name of a chemical reaction, or perhaps a failed sports car.

The Chessie System's yellow and orange engines with the "Chessie Cat" symbol on the nose were among the most attractive and noteworthy of the 20th century.

The railroad was known for hauling coal out of West Virginia and also for several mountain grades.  The images below were all taken at Sandpatch, the summit of the Alleghenies a few miles east of Meyersdale, Pennsylvania.  Although my heart has long been captured by mountain railroading in the West, the East does hold a special charm.  In the East, everything is heavily forested and crammed together like clothing stuffed into a suitcase.  Rail photography is more challenging and thus can sometimes be more rewarding.

The Chessie System reminds me of all the relatives who were kind to me when I was an insecure child.  Although the world is full of evil, it is also full of kindness -- if you are lucky enough to find it.  

This Chessie System freight is passing under the bridge of the abandoned Western Maryland, the right-of-way of which has become a public trail.

Rolling downgrade through the Alleghenies.

Boston and Maine

The Boston and Maine Railroad was chartered in 1835, teetered on the edge of liquidation in the 1970's and became part of Guilford Transportation Industries in 1983.  (Guildford changed its name in 2006 to Pan Am Railways, and much of its system was purchased by CSX in 2022).  As the above map shows, the railroad served New England, with a mainline stretching from Boston westward into far eastern New York via the Hoosac Tunnel.

I know virtually nothing else about this railroad and was fortunate to obtain some images in 1978 while visiting friends.  

The 1970's were a decade of distress for most of the American railroad industry.  Passenger business was gone, and freight traffic was being strangled by over-regulation.  Late in the decade, the Carter Administration led the push to deregulation, which saved many companies from obliteration.

The B&M brings back memories of old relatives who passed many years ago, gone but not
forgotten.  Once I vanish, though, memories will disappear.  At least the B&M has an entry in Wikipedia.

Westbound approaching Hoosac Tunnel.

Bicentennial 200 west of West Concord, Massachusetts.

Penn Central

The Penn Central Transportation Company operated from 1968 to 1976 -- a combination of the Pennsylvania, New York Central and New Haven railroads.  Though its life was brief, its impact on American transportation was enormous.  The company filed for bankruptcy merely two years after formation, at the time the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Penn Central's demise, occurring in the Northeast, the locus of political power, forced upon Congress the realization that America's railroads were careening toward oblivion.  The Carter administration then led the drive to deregulation, which ultimately birthed Conrail, a government entity that took over Penn Central and other bankrupt carriers. 

I saw bits and pieces of Penn Central during its short life, which reminded me of a child that does not live long enough to see puberty.  The death of a child is always heart-breaking, especially a child in the family, and the Penn Central was no exception.  It did not seem possible that railroads as mighty as the Pennsylvannia and New York Central could fail, but they did.    

A short transfer freight along the Northeast Corridor.

Coming off the Rockville Bridge.

Rockville Bridge.

 Conrail

Conrail was the government corporation created out of the implosion of Northeastern Railroads.  Included in the mix was not only Penn Central but also Ann Arbor, Erie Lackawanna, Lehigh Valley, Reading, Central of New Jersey, and Lehigh and Hudson River.  The new railroad was approved by Congress on November 9, 1975, and on February 5, 1976, President Gerald Ford signed the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976 into law.

The federal government owned 85% of Conrail, with employees controlling the remaining 15%. The company was not immediately profitable, posting a net operating loss of $2.2 billion from 1976 through 1982.  Railroad deregulation finally allowed Conrail, as well as all other American railroads, to operate without government strangulation.  More specifically, profitable routes were no longer required to subsidize unprofitable ones, and carriers were allowed to set market-based rates.  On March 26, 1987, the government sold its interest in Conrail to private investors for $1.65 billion.

In 1996, CSX offered to purchase Conrail outright.  Fearing domination, Norfolk Southern then made its own offer.  In 1997, the two companies agreed to jointly acquire Conrail, with Norfolk Southern acquiring a larger portion. Under the final agreement approved by the Surface Transportation Board, Norfolk Southern acquired 58 percent, roughly 6,000 Conrail route miles, and CSX received 42 percent, including about 3,600 miles.

Conrail was like a relative of mine diagnosed with terminal cancer who proved the doctors wrong and recovered to live another 30 years, proving that victories are possible in an inhospitable world.

Beneath the Gateway Arch.

Really beneath the Gateway Arch.

Rolling across Illinois.

We come to the end of our survey of fallen flags.  As mentioned at the beginning, we have covered only a few of the many railroads that once flourished in the United States.  Many other railfans have many more images of many more companies; this is the best that I can do.  

Don't ever be hesitant about taking too many photographs.  If you are still alive 50 years from now, you will be amazed at their value.  

To see my other posts, go to waltersrail.com.

To see my photographs on Flickr, go to https://www.flickr.com/photos/jpwalters/.