Any other Texas and Pacific fans out there?

Yes, I have T&P in my livery....with my MOPAC Eagles.

Count me in, but the only T&P locomotive I have is the one shown in this YouTube video.

I am fond of the little Mikado but not as much as the narrator.  Suppose he is highballing due to the passenger consist?  Prefer to chug along barely above yard speed pulling freight cars myself.   Speaking of which, T&P freight cars are in short supply, too.  

I sold my small 800 Mike when the full size scale one came out, I think its # is 556. As pointed out previously, for a variety of reasons, none of them are really right. I like the bigger scale size mike but it's geared for high speeds and the sound is set to chuff way fast. It has the annoying habit of dying when you try to back it - i think that's related to the space age optical tender connection. I pull passenger consists with it, it's wartime and there is a motive power shortage!

I am modeling T&P, Ft Worth to Big Spring. Set in summer of 1943. I have a collection of engines, diesel and steam and several dozen T&P passenger and freight cars. More than 1100 feet of 3 rail track and nearly 100 turnouts, all in work but running. It might all get finished if I live long enough.

Please post pictures when you can! Sounds great!

Not a fan as such, but I couldn't resist when a friendly, neighborhood S Scale company (American Models) produced this:

(They also make the GP's in blue and gray: AM photo...)

Rusty

Very nice!

Okay, Griff, you asked for it.  Not a lot of scenery on the table yet, but lots of track and ideas.

Three of the T&P engines are visible in this service yard picture. There are dozens, mostly steam. This yard represents the engine servicing area in Fort Worth, TX.

This scene is intended to represent the main attraction in Fort Worth, the stockyards. The rail yard in the background is intended to represent the Lancaster Yard in Fort Worth which is still in service.

This little town represents Mingus, Texas with the Thurber Coal Mine and town in the background. Mingus looks very much like this diorama today.

On a tour a while back, I had occasion to visit a museum in Big Spring, TX where there was a display showing the impact of the T&P Railway company on west Texas. There was a picture showing the T&P train station. The model in this picture looks close enough such that I don't intend to modify it's appearance.

There was also a picture showing the Cosden Oil Refinery and rail servicing area with tank cars on sidings. I have several Warren tank cars to add to this diorama of a refinery.

Backdrop isn't made yet but there are scenes to represent the Cosden refinery and the terrain that would be seen in the distance.

Grew up in Midland and remember seeing the nice classification yard in Big Spring when we went there, or was passing through to Sweetwater to fish.  One of my favorite memories was hearing the sound of a steam whistle when 10 yrs old.  My mother drove me to the T&P, M&P tracks South of Midland along Hwy 80.  It was a T&P work train with a (I believe) a possible 2-6-2 steam engine. This would have been around 1962.  The engineer let me sit in the cab (boy was it hot in there) and I got 2 pcs coal as souvenir.  Though it was so long ago, I do think it was a T&P because I recall the "Texas" in the railroad name.  Do not have as much T&P in collection as I would like, but have most of collection in Western and South Western names.  Note:  I am not showing all of ten passenger cars I have for the Texas Eagle pass consist.

Fantastic layout! Already looks like West Texas... a little Soto, mesquite and cacti and it will look just right... I have your MTH mountain and 0-6-0. I have a Southern Crescent MTH I keep intending to paint as a T&P P-1, as it has an Elesco Feedwater Heater. It's a little underscale but should serve the purpose. My friend Tom Stamey, who has contributed to nearly every T&P book there is, says that Lionel Erie Pacific of some years ago is about as close to a P-1 as you can get, though you would still need a good oil tender. Maybe off of their WP 4-8-2.

Great Layout! Sure reminds me of many small Texas towns I have driven through!

TP never had any Prairies, at least not any made in the 20th century; their standard loco was 4-6-0 from the turn of the century, so I imagine it was a D-9 ten wheeler you looked over. World War One brought the Pacifics and Mikes in. 

Texas Train, I re-read your comment about your steam experience being in 1962. If it was in fact then and on the TP it could only have been #400, the "moccasin" - a 2-8-0 purchased from FW&D store specifically to operate on flooded tracks in East Texas and Louisiana. The engine is on display in Marshall and visible from the Texas Eagle. But I do think it's unlikely it would have ever run that far West.

I am very jealous of your streamlined Eagle cars!

Rusty Traque posted:

Not a fan as such, but I couldn't resist when a friendly, neighborhood S Scale company (American Models) produced this:

(They also make the GP's in blue and gray: AM photo...)

Rusty

T&P had Geeps painted blue and grey like that? Interesting?

Weathered T&P #1332 is my next offering.......................

Dominic Mazoch posted:

Rusty Traque posted:

Not a fan as such, but I couldn't resist when a friendly, neighborhood S Scale company (American Models) produced this:

(They also make the GP's in blue and gray: AM photo...)

Rusty

T&P had Geeps painted blue and grey like that? Interesting?

Yep, as the Missouri Pacific exercised more control over the T&P:

Rusty

What is interesting is that Amtrak's logo for the TX EAGLE uses the T&P version!

I am surprised also an eastern RR did not purchase the MP before Big Yellow.  But were there not some ownership or bonds or poison pill between MP and the Katy?

I do know the Mop hated T&P and jack hammered off the TP Diamond on the Marshal, Texas station and as many other landmarks as possible. There are still a few TP markings that may be left on bridges around Fort Worth, but not many. Of all the railroads UP absorbed, I suppose since TP was previously absorbed by MP, they have not dignified its memory with a fallen flag loco scheme or two. I think the UPnstill charges model companies a licensing fee to use the T&P logos, though! I know they shut down a private individual who was making O gauge dry transfers of T&P lettering and diamonds.

Griff,    I have never researched the T&P as the different type engines they had.  The knowledge you have is great and to be envied.   Yes, there is no doubt about the year being 1962 when I think of it, and the tracks that ran South of Midland, on the North side of Hwy 80, were T&P and M&P, correct ?   My memory is all I have gone on for this, sure would have been great to have taken at least one photo of it.  But, my memory is clear (as from an excited 10 yr old boy) about the fact of it being a steam engine (and the work train consist, which was in front of the engine, not behind the tender), and the word "Texas" on the side of the tender.  And, the two pcs coal I retrieved from the tender, and the great joy of actually being in the cab after the invitation of the engineer/fireman.  So, there is no doubt of the engine being coal fired, and not an oiler.

Griff, thanks so much for the input and comments.

Jesse   TCA 

Weird one to sort out. TP was definitely all oil by 1918 in fact the 500 numbered mikes Lionel made are correct per a builder photo but were rejected by TP and the US Railway Admin reassigned them to Rock Island. The sheer logistics of running a steam coal fired engine all on its lonesome in 1962 in far west Texas... By then all the coaling towers were long gone. Hard to figure out. Bunker crude oil was easy to get. Maybe it was running next to another coal source perhaps a power plant. My friend in New Zealand says they coal the preserved locos with every kind of skip loader. I have seen pictures of people in the UK loading and emptying plastic bags of coal to fuel a Pacific. No doubt it happened I am not questioning you. But it was definitely NOT a TP engine.

Griff Murphey posted:

I do know the Mop hated T&P and jack hammered off the TP Diamond on the Marshal, Texas station and as many other landmarks as possible. There are still a few TP markings that may be left on bridges around Fort Worth, but not many. 

There are still some bridges painted with T&P markings out west.  At the west side of Sweetwater, near the airport, there is a fading highway underpass that still advertised the Sunshine Special as recently as last year.

When I was assigned to Sweetwater in 1993, I talked about the T&P with some of the old head Engineers and Conductors.  They all remembered the T&P as a well-run railroad with smooth track.  At that time, the former T&P was down to one long freight, plus one local, in each direction.  (After taking over the UP, they had re-routed most traffic over the UP, rather than share the revenue with SP from El Paso to the coast.)  The rail was 119 lb., rolled in 1948, jointed, and largely ignored by MP and UP since the merger, with a maximum authorized speed of 50 MPH. We started running our California to Fort Worth trains over the formerly-T&P UPRR from Tecific to FW rather than via Brownwood and Dublin, and it was pretty rough track.  The Train Dispatchers were unfriendly to Santa Fe crews and did a lot of really chicken things such as dictating track warrants at machine gun speed and then criticizing the Santa Fe crews for asking for repeats.  They used a different voice and a different speed of dictation for their own crews.

The Missouri Pacific, although I am fond of it, was unfriendly to all other railroads.  It had to work hard for its traffic, and its management appeared to be especially jealous of the easy life that the prosperous T&P had after the discovery of oil in the Permian Basin.  Life on the Mop was not peaceful.  If its officials were not causing some contentious event with another railroad, then they had an internal dog fight while they awaited their next interline fight.  Their locomotives had no frills, and were equipped with the cheapest of everything, bare bones, in contrast to the T&P, which had equipped all of its through freight diesels with dynamic braking, Mars Lights or Gyralites, and comfortable seats.  However, the UPRR Trainmaster and the UPRR Road Foreman of Engines from Odessa and Big Spring, with whom I had to interact were very pleasant fellows and we worked well together.  They treated Santa Fe crews fairly.  However, the officials from Fort Worth did most of their operations testing on Santa Fe trains, rather than their own, and were critical of any small errors they could find.

One T&P peculiarity is that they moved the Engineer's windshield wiper further to the outside edge of the windshield on their F7A's.  However, they did not relocate the wiper on their E7A's and E8A's.

Great stuff. I assume you are ex-ATSF. One of my best high school ROTC buddies was a crewman on the SF, Joe Ivy. Have a Frisco hogger retired BNSF, Willam "Smitty" Smith who is a dental patient. G gauger but just took down his big outdoor layout. I have not had the heart to tell my grandson - he loved running his battery powered Polar Express RC train on that layout.

T&P did dabble with the idea of trying Lignite coal during the depression and converted a 2-10-2 to use it, the most visible feature of the conversion was a much fatter slightly taller stack. The engine was nicknamed the "snuff dipper." It was not a success and the conversion was reversed.

Griff Murphey posted:

I do know the Mop hated T&P and jack hammered off the TP Diamond on the Marshal, Texas station and as many other landmarks as possible. There are still a few TP markings that may be left on bridges around Fort Worth, but not many. Of all the railroads UP absorbed, I suppose since TP was previously absorbed by MP, they have not dignified its memory with a fallen flag loco scheme or two. I think the UPnstill charges model companies a licensing fee to use the T&P logos, though! I know they shut down a private individual who was making O gauge dry transfers of T&P lettering and diamonds.

Why buy if you hated it?  Or MP hated how T&P was run?

I'm only repeating what I was told by old T&P employees. But they did get rid of all of the logos on the stations. In a sense they were sister railroads and cooperated to a certain extent. First the diamond was exchanged for the buzzsaw logo but with TEXAS and PACIFIC on it then everything was painted for MP: 100 pct. 

UP has renamed the huge Fort Worth classification yard the Davidson Yard after some UP mucky muck. I do believe MP did allow the yard to retain the name Lancaster, named after its beloved president who shepherded it through He depression.

Griff,      Without me having to spend a lot of time searching on the Net, do you know of perhaps a local rail line that may have been contracted to do maintenance of the TP/MP tracks South of Midland?  It may not even exist, anymore, but may that have been feasible?  I do not doubt the fact of T&P being all oil fired, now I am really wondering what engine / line it may have been?  The tender no doubt had "Texas" on it, and now I am wondering what else may have been the remaining name.....    I reckon 55 yrs back in time makes it a bit more difficult to re-envision the tender lettering..... **** a picture would have been great.

Again, thanks for your input, Griff

Jesse   TCA    12-68275

Well since I have had all these complimentary remarks I had to cast around the Internet and I did find the Texas New Mexico Railroad which ran from Monahans to Lovington, New Mexico. It was operated as a subsidiary of the Texas and Pacific and it is still in operation today. Who knows maybe there was an old engine off of a rip track somewhere that was hauling that work train...

I have these signs. They are off if LCL T&P truck.  Picture taking in 2000 in Texas Panhandle, signs now live in Arkansas.

Griff Murphey posted:

I assume you are ex-ATSF.

There was doubt?   I turn toward 80 East Jackson, Chicago, Illinois, for evening prayer.

Griff Murphey posted:

I'm only repeating what I was told by old T&P employees. But they did get rid of all of the logos on the stations. In a sense they were sister railroads and cooperated to a certain extent. First the diamond was exchanged for the buzzsaw logo but with TEXAS and PACIFIC on it then everything was painted for MP: 100 pct. 

UP has renamed the huge Fort Worth classification yard the Davidson Yard after some UP mucky muck. I do believe MP did allow the yard to retain the name Lancaster, named after its beloved president who shepherded it through He depression.

The Ft Worth yard was 1. Lancaster Yard.  2 Centennial, 3 Davidson.

Griff Murphey posted:

Weird one to sort out. TP was definitely all oil by 1918 in fact the 500 numbered mikes Lionel made are correct per a builder photo but were rejected by TP and the US Railway Admin reassigned them to Rock Island. The sheer logistics of running a steam coal fired engine all on its lonesome in 1962 in far west Texas... By then all the coaling towers were long gone. Hard to figure out. Bunker crude oil was easy to get. Maybe it was running next to another coal source perhaps a power plant. My friend in New Zealand says they coal the preserved locos with every kind of skip loader. I have seen pictures of people in the UK loading and emptying plastic bags of coal to fuel a Pacific. No doubt it happened I am not questioning you. But it was definitely NOT a TP engine.

 

Not exactly all oil after 1918.  A list of mainline facilities in 1932 shows many coal and coal towers still in existence and use. In fact there was still a coal tower in the old downtown yard in Ft Worth ..  However, when the yard was closed and Lancaster Yard was opened in 1932  no coal facilities were included at Lancaster.  The coal was for support of many 4-6-0's still being coal burners mostly in west Texas thru the 1920's.  No one I know can say when the last coal burner (other than the Snuff Dipper) ran. The last  T&P 2-10-4 that ran was in Aug 12, 1951 Texarkana to Mineola, Tx. Last steam run was a Class D-10 Shreveport to Alexandria La, in late Nov 1951.  I have a color short video of it leaving Shreveport.

T&P used the USRA coal burners for a short time until they received 11 oil burners and immediately gave the coal burners to the Rock Island.  They were numbered in the 550-560 series class  H.

A side note.  T&P used coal in its steam derricks, wreckers, and pile drivers at least into the  early 1970's

Tom Stamey

By the way, on the Texas New Mexico steam was used as late as September to early October.  I have pictures dated Aug 1951 showing both T&P 2-8-2 and 4-8-2's, YES 4-8-2's.  They ran on the T-NM and from Monahans to Big Spring and back. Do far as I know , no steam was run by anyone in west Texas in 1962

Tom, thank you for correcting my assumptions leading to mistakes. You and the Collias book are my T&P bibles. I sincerely wish you would write a book with all of the fabulous details you know about our beloved Texas and Pacific. 

I did not list the D-10 as a 4-6-0 which it was.  They had tractive effort exceeding 42.000 lbs. and were heavily used in Louisiana due to lack of grades.

I have gone thru a book on railroad construction and abandonment in Texas 1853 - 1978 and there never was a railroad south of Odessa, much less in 1962 with steam.  There was a railroad from Midland to Seminole but it was abandoned in 1928.

Hi Griff,  I have 2 MTH GP-9's that are in the Blue and White paint scheme that are lettered and numbered for the T&P.   They are packed up and stored in a PODS in Carolton TX waiting for us to find a new home.  They were the first diesels I bought when I was getting into the 3 rail part of this great hobby.  I'll see if I can find pictures of them.  Good thread. 

Griff Murphey posted:

Tom, thank you for correcting my assumptions leading to mistakes. You and the Collias book are my T&P bibles. I sincerely wish you would write a book with all of the fabulous details you know about our beloved Texas and Pacific. 

Lot of good T&P info on the MPHS website.  Membership is not onerously expensive, and the newsletter--really a slick magazine--is worth it by itself.

The last T&P coal was mined I think in Thurber, Tx. The company I worked for in the 80's, reopened the mine area and mined that coal for several years. We even dug up an old mine cart that was in one of the tunnels. It was a very interesting old Town from days past.

Jeff

Although you would naturally assume it was a subsidiary, the Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company was not connected with the T&P Railway. Thurber is still there off of IH-20 and still boasts the the “Smokestack” restaurant. 

Tom Stamey    There is no doubt the track remains on the South side of Midland, running East-West.  In fact, during the Veterans Day parade in 2018, a float became hung up on the crossing due to low clearance.  The result was the death of several older veterans by a freight headed West, as I read in the accounts.  This event was also posted by someone here on the Forum, I believe.  And I have no doubt about the work train having a steam motive power.  The difference between steam and diesel not with standing.  Yes, your knowledge and information is a great addition for us all.  Perhaps doing a cross reference with another source on trackage South of Midland is a pursuit of worth.  I grew up in Midland with a love of trains, and my Lionel, with the MP/TP tracks being only a couple miles South of our neighborhood on the West side of Midland.  Also, have pics of my father, when he and other fellow truck drivers for W.E. Pittman Trucking, were offloading well pipe casing from gondolas and onto their truck 40 ft trailers.  The oil industry in Midland was too vital and a strong economy for there have NOT been any railroad access.  Also, there was more than one refinery in Ector County, Odessa area, and served by rail.  Hearing the trains every night as I lay in bed and all else was quieted down is very embedded in my memories, no doubt.  Also remember the tracks running East as I saw many a train heading same as we were when going to Big Spring.  The chance to see the yard in Big Spring from the highway overpass was always a treat!

Jesse   TCA  12-68275