I just wondering why SSW and SP wore the same paintschemes. How were they connected?
Thanks…
The SP needed a “friendly” connection to St Louis from Texas. The SSW was available and became a subsiduary of the SP. The SP made application to control the RR in 1930 and the ICC approved the application in Feb 1932. The SP bought about 88% of the SSW stock during this period.
The book “Cotton Belt Locomotives” by Joseph A. Strapac gives a brief history. My copy was published in 1977, but I believe it has been recently re issued. I saw it in the book section of a hobby shop two weeks ago.
During the 1950’s the Cotten Belt adopted diesel paint schemes (Black Widow, Daylight, and switcher) that were similar to the SP, but they were not identical. The paint schemes became the same when the “bloody nose” was adopted.
I believe they were like the Burlington Route. Burlington (CBQ) had subsidaries like the Fort Worth and Denver, and the Colorado and Southern. I believe they were like a branch of the big railroad that wore the same paint scheme. I might be wrong on this next one, but I believed that they took them over, kept the same name, and applied their paint scheme to it.
I saw 3 unpatched cotton belt locos during the past week…like the 1980s all over again!!! They were indeed “buddies” SSW was a subsiderary. St. Louis SouthWestern…Cotton Belt…what a nice railroad…good to see that 4-8-4 819 will be returned to service!!!
For legal reasons, the SP never went further east then El Paso until the State of Texas repealed their law of railroad ownership in Texas RR lines. Until that time, the T&NO (Texas and New Orleans) for all SP properties in Texas and Louisiana. Then, as mentioned above, the SP purchased the SSW, but again, for legal reasons, they couldn’t purchase the remaining 12% and the SSW name remained (Saint Louis Southwestern). The SSW is the part of the SP that purchased the St. Louis - Chicago lines for the SP and the old CRIP lines from New Mexico through Kansas and Missouri to St. Louis. Again, for legal reasons.
The Texas statute or constitutional provision (I’m not sure which) required that railroads which operated in Texas had to be incorporated in Texas. This was the reason for the existence of T&NO, two different ATSF subsidiaries and subsidiariers of SLSF and MKT, among others.
The provision was stricken by the Federal court during the Missouri Pacific bankruptcy reorganization as improper state regulation of interstate commerce.