ATSF and Southern is there any connection?

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
1

HI

I have manage to find some Athearn coal hoppers in the brown paint scheme of the Southern railroad that fit the time period i am modeling [late 1950s/early 1960s] as i am desperate for rolling stock of this period i would like to ask if this hoppers can be used with ATSF motive power or if was there any connection interchange or point were ATSF and Southern would have some interaction in the late 50s/early 60s?

thanks very much for your reply

stefano

2

I suppose someone in the midwest, KC, or toward Chicago could have ordered coal from somewhere along the Southern. It may have been interchanged a couple of times, but plausible, esp on the more eastern end of the ATSF.

3

I tend to agree that you’d be looking at the east end of the Santa Fe for the most likely appearance of a Southern hopper. Having said that, in the 1950s there was plenty of coal mining going on in Illinois itself to not need imports of southern coal, but possibly needing off road cars to handle it all.

The routings of freight cars in the 1950s, when things such as hopper cars were not necessarily in captive service returning to a particular mine but may well have been more like box cars, used as revenue producers that could take many side trips before returning to home rails, is a field that is open to informed speculation and at least some plausible “stories” can be created that would involve a Southern hopper appearing on the Santa Fe

So here is an attempt at a story. Let’s take little Roanoke IL, a small town on highway 116/117 a short drive east and north of East Peoria IL. The line is now torn up but it was on a Santa Fe branch that left the main line a bit south and west of Streator IL (I think at Ancona) and headed for E Peoria. The line was ripped out some years ago but in most towns you can still see the signs of the ROW.

Roanoke still has its wonderful little classic ATSF depot, nicely painted and preserved and looking for all the world like something you’d see in Kansas. Anyway Roanoke also still has its “mountain” of coal mine tailings towering over the streets, and the depot is in a little park with two coal mining cars as a sort of memorial to a mining business long since shut down. I don’t think it is too far fetched to imagine a Southern hopper wandering north to Peoria or E Peoria with a load, then being confiscated by a yard master before it could be returned to home rails and taken by the Santa Fe to Roanoke for loading.

This may never have happened even once. But it would seem at least plausible that the Santa Fe may not have been prepared to have a home road car to send to Roanoke which was on a pre

4

stefano,You could get by with sending Southern hoppers to a steel mill,foundry,coke plant and other like end users.

You see a lot of coal customers used and still uses Appalachian coal and that means hopper cars would be interchanged-some times complete coal trains…

5

Imb and Larry

thanks very much for your help and reply

Dave

Thanks very much indeed for the historical overview of the coal mining in those years

All very much appreciated

regards

stefano

6

The SOU and AT&SF both served New Orleans.

7

I don’t believe that is correct for the ATSF, based on Official RR Guides and ORER (Official Railway Equipment Register). What is your reference and the era?

8

The ATSF never went to New Orleans, the closest it got was Beaumont, TX.

9

Thank you for the clarification

stefano

10

I’d say in a model railroad context it’s good if something can be verified to be accurate, but it’s probably OK if the idea is let’s say “plausible”. To me the idea of Southern coal hoppers ending up on the Santa Fe at that time would certainly be “plausible”. Before the opening of the Powder River coal country (which really didn’t get big until the early 1980s or so) coal tended to go from the east to the west. For example 75 years ago the ports of Duluth-Superior had a large business in incoming coal. Coal from the east (Pennsylvania, West Virginia etc.) would travel by lake boat on the Great Lakes to Duluth or Superior and then be loaded into railroad cars to go the Mpls/St.Paul and other midwestern cities. Now it’s the opposite; Powder River coal comes into the Twin Ports by rail and is loaded onto Great Lakes ships and sent east.

p.s. Just because two railroads don’t have a direct interchange connection doesn’t mean cars can’t move from one railroad to the other. I’d have to check an old map, but I’d guess there were one or more railroads that interchanged with both ATSF and Southern that would move cars between the two railroads…or the car could travel on more than one bridge route to get there. In some cases, a car going from say the east coast to the west might travel on several railroads to get where it needs to go.

11

I just remember seeing that somewhere.

If you guys say “not so” then I’ll take your word for it.

12

Yes, you can use Southern cars on the Santa Fe. They may have been loaded with stone, not coal. They doesn’t need to be a physical connection between railroads, the cars might have been handled by a connecting railroad.

13

Stix,Waxon and Bill

thanks again for your reply

If not Southern wich railroad would be more indicative to have coal cars to be linked or transported by the ATSF in the late 1950s early 1960s?

thanks again

stefano

14

Hi Bill Waxon and Stix

Thanks very much for your reply

If not Southern which railroad would be possibly be using coal cars or coal cars be transported by the ATSF in the period of the late 1950s early 1960s ?

thanks again

stefano

15

Stefano,

I can help you a little for Illinois. CB&Q covered west central Illinois coal country pretty well near the SF lines.

Yes Ancona, just southwest of Streator, was the cutoff for the run down to Pekin, Illinois.

Many small towns in the area south and east of the Illinois river and north of US 24 have coal tailing “mountains.” Also in the area around Streator, Illinois were the New York Central, Wabash, CB&Q, GM&O, IC, and even the Milwaukee Rd (Ladd & Ogelsby). How much coal these lines carried I do not know, but most of the small towns there roads passed through had small coal or cement facilities, Ogelsby had a huge cement plant. Santa Fe had gravel pits at Chillicothe so they would not be importing gravel. SF also passed through Coal City between Joliet and Streator. I was there once at night and don’t remember it well. The other big player in the area, Rock Island didn’t have much coal in Illinois except near the Coal Valley-Moline area away from the SF. SF once owned TP&W may have had west central Illinois coal too.

My goal in saying all this is to give you some places to research in more detail if you like. My information comes from memory - growing up in central Illinois in the 60’s & 70’s and an old State of Illinois road map. Google Earth is also very helpful. Many right of ways are still visible even if the tracks are gone.

Bob

16

Hi Bob

much appreciated reply thanks very much

regards

stefano

17

My friend Dave Husman somewhat overstates the case. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe never did have a line serving New Orleans, but it did get closer than Beaumont, Texas. The Santa Fe’s Oakdale District was a branch line extending from Kirbyville, Texas, to Oakdale, Louisiana, which was active at least into the 1960s. At least as late as 1942 there was Santa Fe passenger service to and from Oakdale, in the form of motor trains (gas-electrics) 291 and 292. These were sometimes known, with tongue placed very far into cheek, as the “Louisiana Chief.”

But as the Southern Ry. did not extend west of New Orleans, it had no direct connection with the AT&SF in either Louisiana or Texas.

So long,

Andy

18

Hi Andy

thanks very much for your historical overview

much appreciated

regards

stefano

19

You are very much correct Andy and I should have remembered that since Oakdale was on the Lake Charles Sub of the big MOP and I was through there several times (but it was 25 years ago ).

20

Well there are/were coal mines in Illinois, CB&Q and M-St.L and others hauled coal out of Illinois. Since the ATSF served Illinois I wouldn’t be surprised if they got coal from the railroads in that area. There were coal mines in Indiana too. Milwaukee Road had a subsidiary (CTSE) that handled Indiana coal.

But again, no reason hoppers of Southern Ry. couldn’t be seen on the ATSF…