I love old Official Guides and have probably 25 -30 ranging from 1941 thru 1998, mostly back in the era of pre Amtrak.
The wife and I were on a Sunday drive and stopped (at her suggestion) at a shack ( truly a weather proof shack) that sells antiques and “stuff” in Wheeler, In. What a place. It was very well organized and she had organized chaos. More impressive was her knowledge of what she had.
On the bottom shelf were three Official Guides - 1950, 1959, and July 1964. All three were in very good shape and she priced them at $6 each. I purchased all three.
On July 24, 1964 my family traveled from Southern Illinois thru St. Louis and on to Pueblo, Colorado and then returned after 2 weeks. The OG gave me the train information for the trip. We took B&O #1 The National Limited to St. Louis then #11 (unnamed but at one time was “Colorado Eagle” on to Pueblo.
I recall awakening at a station in Kansas and looking out the window, seeing two clocks at the depot. One read 2:30 and the other 1:30. The next morning the conductor, when asked informed me at that town the time changed from Central to Mountain time.
The Guide shows that town as Hoisington, Ks with an arrival time of 2:33am and departure at 1:48am. Why the 15 minute stop in the middle of Kansas in the early morning? My guess, and it is only a guess is it was a crew change location and PERHAPS it was an inspection location (563 miles from St. Louis) or possibly it had something to due with the U.S. Mail. The train was coach only beyond Kansas City so it was not to add a diner car.
Anyway, the Guide provides me with a schedule for that trip years ago. As a kid in the 60s we took very few vacations, so the trips were few. But it was great to find the Guide…now if I could only find a May, 1966 to retrace our trip to Pueblo. By that time the MoPac #11 was gone and we had to take NW/UP to Denver then DRGW to Puebl
My ‘guess’ on your 15 minute stop in Hosington would be for a crew change as well as fueling and watering the engines.
Engines of the period normally had fuel tanks of 1500 gallons or less and water comsumption for the boilers for steam heat was higher than fuel consumption.
Hoisington (KS) was the next major roundhouse, shop, yard and crew change point east of Pueblo. (Eads, CO had long since been phased-out)…It also was the MoP Junction south to Great Bend branch, abandoned in 1968
Ah, fueling…didnt think about that. How much fuel would a set of E units burn?
Would it have been possible that since Hoisington was a roundhouse, etc. that the locomotives would have been changed out there? Google Maps satellite view shows a decent sized yard (I counted 11 tracks, but who is counting?) but I see no old footprint of a roundhouse. The footprint of the wye to the south is visable.
One other interesting note in the Guide was the existance of MP trains 34 - 35 which ran from Wichita, Ks to Geneseo, Ks. leaving Wichita at 10pm and arriving in Geneseo at 12:23am. The return trip left at 245am arriving back in Wichita at 545am.
Why would this train have run? Even more interesting was the arrival of both trains 11 and 12 at 1:50am. So at 1:50 am in Geneseo one would have found WB train 11 and EB trains 12 plus the train 34/35 (which probably was a turn). My guess is the MP had a mail contract from Wichita to Denver and St. Louis. The Guide doesnt show any equipment for the 34/35 pair. The 11/12 pairing were coach only west of Kansas City, so it is doubtful there was sleeper service into and out of Wichita.
I don’t know why this would matter, but isn’t Hoisington the place where the time zone changes from Central to Mountain? The only part of the entire MP that wasn’t Central TIme was the far west end of the Hoisington District.
It is the time zone change location…see my original post. I recall from 1964 waking up and seeing two clocks on the depot wall.
Interestingly (and probably only to me) the depot still stands. Google Maps has a “photo section” and one of the main points of interest in Hoisington is the “Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad” depot. Unfortunately I do not see two clocks on the depot.
Further, my May, 1954 OG shows sleeper service between Wichita, Ks and Denver, Co. with arrival in Geneseo from Wichita at 1215am. The WB #11 arrived and departed at 132am. Now that is a quick linkup of the sleeper to train 11…or the train from Wichita continued on to Hoisington where the train had an 8 minute station stop.
That makes sense as Hoisington had facilities to service the train and the 8 minutes would seem enough time to add the sleeper.
Yep! Hosington, KS was where a sleeper operating between Wichita and Denver was added/removed from the Colorado Eagle. The daily event was covered in Frailey’s “Twilight of the Great Trains.”
In 1964 MP was going through the long bureaucratic process of discontinuing the passenger trains. They could reduce their losses by going coach only without interference. But they couldn’t stop running the trains without permission.
My guess is that they just didn’t bother to change the schedule after removing the Wichita sleeper.
The rule of thumb on fuel economy for diesels of the 50’s & 60’s was 2 gallons to the mile and most engines had a 1500 gallon or less fuel capacity. E units, since they had two prime movers may have had worse fuel mileage. In that period of time (before the EPA), if you needed a fueling facility at a particular location - you built it without a second thought of spill containment or ground water contamination or any of the myriad of requirements that must be complied with for today’s fueling facilities.
My carrier has a very limited number of designated fueling facilities, using tank truck fueling at the locations locomotives are ‘resting’ before their next scheduled use. Today’s locomotives have a fuel tank capacity between 4000 & 5000 gallons and in loaded unit train service use between 4 & 5 gallons to the mile. While the fuel economy per unit would appear to be double that of the earlier locomotives, todays locomotives can handle 3 to 5 times the tonnage of their predecessors.