I work for the South Kansas and Oklahoma/Stillwater Central Railroads. Our trains operate over old ATSF, KATY, and FRISCO right-of-ways.
I would like to find some timetables, and detailed maps that reveal the location of every mile of track of these railroads in Oklahoma. So far, my searches on Ebay, and Google have produced very unsatisfactory results.
Didn’t anybody write a book, with maps and pictures, about Oklahoma railroads? I see many spurs and mainlines that used to join our present main track, but don’t exist anymore. I would like to know where all these various tracks went.
I am disappointed in all you wonderful foamers. Surely, someone knows of someone who put out detailed maps of the right-of-way of Oklahoma railroads from 1900-1970? Someone is bound to say yes, but don’t call me Shirley!
So far I have had only one reply, and that was to suggest a Yahoo discussion group. Let’s discuss it here and now, I don’t want to have to join Yahoo. This is where the railroad history experts should reside.
I hope I have spurned you into positive action. You guys and gals have forgotten more about railroads than I’ll never know. But I do have the priviledge of working on a railroad every day.
I have found local libraries to be a great source on old rail lines in there area. Try that or contact some of the RR historical societies. Here in California we have the California State Railroad Museum and they are a great source of old RR lines in the state.
I was Sooner born but raised in KS. A town I have found to hold an interesting rr history is Blackwell. . For a small town, Blackwell had a large industry base serviced by both Santa Fe and the Frisco. A flour mill was located on the west side of town where both trks ran next to each othr. Even though the mill was on the Frisco, Santa Fe did switch undr some sort of joint switching agreement between the two carriers. That must have been interesting. A large shipper for Santa Fe was the big glass plant on the east side of town. The building was wiped out by the May 25, 1955 tornado and was not rebuilt. The flour mill itself closed in 2004 after about 105 yrs of business.
Joe, you certainly have posed a lengthy task. One way to begin would be to search for public timetables of the Santa Fe, Katy, Frisco and MP (yes, according to the SPV Prairies West atlas, SKOL uses some former MP track from Sherwin, Kan., to SKOL Conn. on the former SLSF, near Cherokee, whence it uses trackage rights over former SLSF track to gain access to Pittsburg). Or if you can obtain a copy of the Official Guide from the early fifties, it might be even better. You may not get the operating mileposts from such timetables, but you will be able get an idea of just where the lines were. Do you have employee timetables for your roads? They, also, may help.
What you need is the “Railroads of Oklahoma” published by the State of Oklahoma Department of Transportation in January of 1970. The copy I have was revised in April of 1978.
It also incorporated Bulletin No. 60 of the RLHS by Preston George & Sylvan Wood which covered Oklahoma railroading up to 1943.
I originally obtained a copy directly from the State Department of Transportation in 1979, the copy I have now came off of eBay.
I was on a quest for maps, timetables, anything that would help me determine trackage in Texas,
I couldn’t find anything, then I ran across this website. My book of Texas gives current and past track rights.
I belong to a family of two generation railroaders(now the BNSF). I lived in Illinois before moving to Texas, this was thirty years ago. By brother retired from the BNSF, I’m still working and both of us have rekindled our interest in model railroading(HO scale), so we have been searching for info on the BN in Illinois and the SP and UP in Texas, all three during the period of 50’s and 60’s. We both found out getting this history is tougher than we thought. My brother is modeling the hump yard in Galesburg, Ill and points to Clyde yard in Chicago.
As a kid, my Dad, who was a conductor on the main line(Galesburg Division), knew all the Train Masters, and such. They all took a liking to me, and I had a free pass up in the towers, and dispatchers offices, this was back in the 50’s. They never let me line anything up in the hump tower, but the Seminary St Tower, who controlled all traffic
This is one of the reasons for having an Official Guide, to do this research. An Official Guide will answer all of the questions you pose. They will have timetables which will show the routes of each railroad. Where to get one has been discussed before but I suggest train shows or swap meets. Timetables sold over the Internet can be both expensive and of poor quality. Never buy anything sight unseen. Official Guides from the 1960’s may still be in fair condition. This is before mergers and abandonments. They will show RI, MKT, AT&SF and Frisco timetables and maps. Don’t waste your time with any post 1969.
Joe, Steam Power Video has a series of Atlases; the one titled ‘Prairies West’ has detailed maps of Oklahoma plus Kansas and Nebraska. The scale is one inch equals 8 miles, with a finer scale for major cities.
The Official Guides mentioned above have timetables for the various railroads but do not concentrate on any individual state. I would recommend the SPV series for your specific interests.