MORE KCS MEMORIES
SOME OLD, SOME NEW
By H. E. Huber

Since the KCS has starter operating trains through Plano, TX on the old COTTON BELT trackage from Lavon Junction (near Wylie TX) to Renner Junction thence the Santa Fe’s track to Dallas Junction (near Denton TX) to the Santa Fe’s Alliance Yard north of Fort Worth, it is a welcome sight to see their trains once more. After a long period of years of not seeing too much KCS activity, it is refreshing to observe the operation of KCS trains again. But, I still cannot get used to a caboose not bringing up the rear! To me, a train without a caboose is just motive power with a cut of cars. A blinking red light is no substitute for a red caboose!

With no conductor, rear brakemen or a caboose nowadays, I got to wondering just what the KCS would do if they had a situation they faced in Fort Smith, AR in 1943 when all trains had to be detoured around the flood-damaged bridge on the main line over the Arkansas River between Spiro and Redland, OK. Both southbound and northbound detouring trains had to back their long freight trains across busy Fort Smith street cross-ings. Wartime traffic was heavy and the KCS did not shorten the trains at all to help ease the complex moves to get from the FRISCO to the MOPAC tracks

Detouring southbound trains used the Missouri Pacific from Sallisaw, OK to Fort Smith via Greenwood Junction, OK and then the FRISCO from Fort Smith to Poteau, OK. Northbound trains used the reverse route.

At Fort Smith the northbound trains getting off the FRISCO mainline at SF Junc-tion used the KCS yards until the caboose cleared the switch to the Missouri Pacific con-nection. This switch was at the south end of the yards near SF Junction. This would put the engines almost to the Union Passenger Station near downtown Fort Smith. They would then back the train out on the MoPac’s Paris, AR branch line until the engines cleared the connection switch, picked up the MoPac pilot engineer and proceeded through the MoPac’s yards, crossed the Helen Gould bridge into Oklahoma and then into Sallisaw, OK, where they would get back on the KCS mainline again.

On this operation, the caboose would be shoved across numerous city street cross-ings. There were no radios back in those days and the train was too long for hand signals. All the conductor had was the air whistle and emergency air value on the rear platform of the caboose. True, this part of Fort Smith that did not have a lot of automobile traffic, but still had numerous street crossings in a residential area to contend with.

Southbound trains had it even worse. The engines would pull the train out on the MoPac Paris branch until the MoPac switch to the KCS connection was cleared. When the back up move was made into the KCS yards, the caboose had to cross city streets that were bustling with automotive traffic. I have seen the caboose lots of times reach Carnall Ave. which is near the Union Passenger Station. The distance from SF Junction to Car-nall Ave is approximately one mile.

The Frisco trains orders were issued at the Union Passenger Station and would have to be taken by automobile down to the engines waiting at SF Junction All this time at least 6 city street crossings were being blocked. All in all, it was quite a problem for both the city and the KCS.

Executing a similar move today, it makes me wonder how it would be accom-plished with no cabooses, no conductor or a rear brakeman on the rear of today’s 8,000-10,000 foot trains.

That portion of the Frisco from Fort Smith to Poteau was an extremely exciting place to watch trains, especially during the detour movement was going on and SF Junc-tion was at the center of all this activity. The KCS would detour at least two northbound and two southbound freight trains a day plus extras. Since the Spiro branch was now completely gone, due to the record flood that year, the Fort Smith crew started operating on the Frisco to Poteau. The Midland Valley had one train down and back each day to Rock Island, OK, 14.8 miles from SF Junction. In addition to the Frisco passenger trains, which, incidentally, used the KCS trackage from SF Junction to the Union Passenger Sta-tion on Rogers Ave, there were numerous extra Frisco troop trains, several solid northbound oil trains off the KCS each day to the Frisco at Poteau, plus solid southbound trains of empty oil cars going back to the KCS at Poteau. Frisco caboose hops went both directions to handle this traffic. Also, Frisco’s Mansfield local was on the line each day to Jenson, the junction point for the Mansfield, AR branch. Jenson is located about halfway between SF Junction and Poteau.

Camp Chaffee is on the MoPac’s Paris, AR branch that generated inbound and outbound troop and army equipment trains, plus the solid coal trains from the Paris coal-fields. I suspect the Frisco and MoPac dispatchers must have had their hands full during this time.

I watched everything I could during the day. It did not slacken at night, but I didn’t see the nigh time operation. Where we lived, I could hear the whistle. Each of the four railroad’s steam engines had distinctly different sounds to their whistles. I could tell which whistle belonged to what line and knew what was taking place.

The motive power used by the KCS on the detouring trains was mostly the E4s, their big 2-8-0s, the E3s a smaller 2-8-0, the class H and H-1 passenger Pacific type 4-6-2 and occasionally a D-7 class 4-6-0, the 600’s Most of the trains were double headed with an 800 series and an E4 with the 800’s leading. The bridge at Fort Smith on the MoPac kept the 900s and the 2-8-8-0 mallets off the detour move. Also, probably the Frisco Bridge across the Poteau River prevented their operation on the Frisco-Poteau line.

It is good to see the KCS again in Plano, but I still remember 52 yeas ago that busy summer of 1943 when the mainline KCS was detoured through Fort Smith.

KCSHS-The Belle
Volume 14 – Nos 3 & 4-1995