Frisco - yesterday and today

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

I just read an excellent article on the Frisco…“The Frisco in Kansas and Oklahoma” by Carl Graves and Paul Walters in The Railroad Press Issue 85 (2Q, 2010). The photography was very good and the authors described operations in the two states in the 1970s.

The Frisco seemed to make it’s way by hustling freight from major railroad terminals - St. Louis, Memphis, Birmingham, Kansas City, Dallas/Ft Worth, and Tulsa/OkCity. Similar to Wabash, it bridged the Mississippi. Similar to Conrail, it’s strength was “the X” route.

Frisco teamed up with Santa Fe and Seaboard to offer direct coast to coast service and no doubt had other important interchange partners.

I only “experienced” Frisco twice. Once in summer of 1972 while in Jonesboro, Ar at a basketball camp at Arkansas State University and once at North Platte, Neb at the huge UP yard where I saw and photographed Frisco units. The Arkansas experience was interesting. From my 6th floor dorm room both the Cotton Belt and Frisco lines were about visable about 1/4 mile to the south. The trains on both lines, but particularly the Cotton Belt seemed to run non stop. Looking at Google Maps of Jonesboro and particularly ASU, the lines crossed fairly close to the university. I still recall the red and white locomotives with beacon light mounted on the roof. That was quite an impressive site.

We have discussed in the past the BN’s purchase of Frisco and why it was chosen over the Missouri Pacific. The general concensus is that BN couldnt have afforded the MoPac and Frisco got them to some of the markets that MoPac did, but not all.

How did the former Frisco lines hold up? How important are these lines today? Lines such as:

  1. Kansas City to Birmingham

  2. St. Louis to Oklahoma

  3. St. Louis to Memphis

  4. The Dallas/Ft. Worth line

What major former Frisco yar

2

Ed,

The line between Memphis and Birmingham, at least across North Mississippi, is welded rail, CTC, and busy with unit coal trains, stack trains, auto rack trains, and mixed carload trains including lots of coil steel cars.

The Memphis hump yard was still humping cars last time I was there, over a year ago. Memphis also has a new, large, and close in Intermodal terminal. The route through Memphis is surprisingly good, that is free of serious delay makers. The IC main crosses overhead. There are connections with UP, CSX, NS and IC. The only diamond is with the IC passenger line right downtown but I think the only thing over it is two ATK trains in the dark of the night. There is also a grade crossing of the UP in West Memphis a couple of miles west of the Mississippi River bridges.

Mac