Wanting to continue this fine thread, I submit the following: a recent 3-way email conversation between myself, author Steve Goen, and a BN, Inc. maintenance foreman (notice another unreconstructed man referring to himself as Frisco, as it shall always be). It regards the abandonment and razing of the QA&P from Floydada to Paducah, TX in 1981-82.
Hi Steve - Robert Leese posted to the Ship It On The Frisco Group on Facebook that he had gotten a DVD titled "Ship It on the Frisco" and that had footage of taking up the QA&P. I was the person in charge of abandoning the QA&P. "Manager of Rail Trains" on the Frisco at the time.
I will be sending you a check to get a copy of the DVD in the near future, but I thought I would tell you a couple of stories about the job.
First, the train crew was great. I don't know how much you know about RR operations, but normally it requires authority of the train dispatcher to operate trains. In this case they put out a General Order giving all train operation authority to the Maintenance of Way, i.e. me. Never heard of such a thing before, or since for that matter.
Second story requires a little background.
First, I was using the two Frisco 'Rail Replacement Gangs' (45 man each) to do the abandonment. Because they worked over the complete Frisco they would work all of the work days of the month (20 or 21 ish) in a row and then take the rest of the month off.
Second, I remember two things the Frisco did every year to wine and dine the 'big' shippers. First was running a business car special to the Liberty Bowl in Memphis. The second was taking the business cars out on the QA&P and park them (along with the porters, cooks & bar tender) to go bird hunting. They would round up 3 or 4 hy-rails for the officials and customers to hunt out of.
Now for the story.
Communications back then was not what it is today, so they got hold of the Agent at Quanah and sent him out to find me and tell me to call the Chief Engineers office in Springfield. The gist of the conversation was they realized how long we were working and how fast we were going and they wanted to have one last hunt for the big spenders and would prefer that I not run over any of the hy-rails with my work train so they wanted me to stop all operations on Sunday (as I recall). I hope the hunt was worth it because normally it would have been a big deal to have two men sitting around for half a day, but 60 men all day, not so much. Never did hear if they had a good hunt.
Name withheld (by RRLeese)
Topeka, KS
In the past, the SW portion of SLSF was alleged to be notorious for quail hunting from the R-O-W, but I am here to affirm that the accusation was absolutely true, hehe! And it the spirit moves us, there is more to tell...
Another example of "How it used to be".
