many from the railroad’s engineering de- partment, add to the package and show ele- vations, floor plans, fittings, and accessories including trucks, pedestals, stoves, bunks, underframes, end platforms, and steps. Painting and lettering diagrams are also provided, not to mention an extensive trove of roster information for each class of car. Simply put,this is a monumental work. It
will obviously appeal to Burlington fans but also to preservationists as well as modelers who have an interest in understanding how the construction and assembly of wooden and steel freight cars progressed over the years. —WALT LANKENAU
VIDEO REVIEW
The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Courting Miss Katy A&R Productions, P.O Box 492, Kensington, CT 06037;
www.classicrailroadvideos.com; 800/246-5898. 120 minutes; DVD; $30.00 plus $5.50 shipping. CT residents add sales tax. Here is some very nice archival Super 8mm Kodachrome sound movie footage of a region of the country that’s not of- ten covered. In the 1980s James W. Ter- rell, a local resident with a good eye for train photography and skilled at camera handling, shot a
number of the remaining Katy routes in Ok- lahoma, Kansas, and Texas, with plenty of main line running, views of yards and en- gine terminals, plus unusual detailed views of a tie plant and its workings. Trains of the Santa Fe, Amtrak, Southern Pacific, and Missouri Pacific appear from time to time. Except for the first few minutes of the pro- gram, almost all locomotives are EMD sec- ond generation four- and six-axle power in Katy’s final bright green and yellow “John Deere” livery, which debuted circa 1971. As the film progresses chronologically into the Union Pacific merger, the power transitions from pure Katy to mixed consists that in- clude Mopac units. Now and then, leased and foreign units are included in road sets and a couple of the last cab units make ap- pearances as trailing units. Parts of the Katy system have been abandoned or spun off, but in southeast Texas the town of Katy and the Katy Freeway (I-10) in Houston re- main as permanent reminders of the north- south regional transportation link. After a nice introductory system map and historical overview, in 1970 some red F units make cameo appearances in Okla- homa City before the program moves on to Galveston, Texas, where yard and engine terminal movements are shown around 1982, plus trains on the long causeway to the mainland. SP, Texas International and Galveston Wharves switchers also make ap- pearances as well as a Texas City Terminal switcher at Texas City. The next major stop is Temple, Texas, where Santa Fe yellow- bonnets pull freights and Amtrak’s Texas Eagle passes. In Dallas, the Tower 55 inter- locking presents a Katy train crossing the Santa Fe diamond, followed by another Katy freight with a road slug in the consist. A few more runbys around the system precede views of a Baldwin DS 44-1000, repowered
with an EMD 567 prime mover, as it switch- es cars. Next a freight powered by many Katy Geeps is chased enroute to McAlester, Okla, with several good runbys. Journeying into Kansas, first up is the Kansas City yard with an MP15AC switching, a former F7A converted to a B unit, and other switchers. At Parsons, the location of Katy’s main loco- motive shop, a GP7 and slug work the yard while an EMD-repowered RS3 and a GP7 shuffle along. Sherman, Texas, offers up street running
and the crossing of seven SP diamonds by a switcher and a few cars. Gray SP and blue Mopac power passes the tower there in a se- ries of nice runbys. Note the semaphore or- der board still in use. Next at Denison, Texas, a Katy freight enters the yard, a crew spreads ballast, and the car shop is visited and the transfer table is shown moving cars from one bay to another. The Katy depot, the Travelers Hotel, and another rebuilt RS3 are seen. The premier footage in Denison covers rather extensively the large tie plant, where everything and everybody seems to be soaked in creosote. Narrow gauge Whitcomb critters push and pull raw and finished ties around on baby-sized cars as the retorts are loaded and emptied. Finished ties are loaded into standard gauge gondolas for shipment, and telephone poles are also treated at the plant. It’s a maze of two-foot gauge trackage in a Dickensian landscape which produced a very necessary product. Back out on the main line, Mopac and
Katy freights cross the Red River Bridge, then more runbys are caught at a truss bridge near Union City. The Anadarko depot is the venue for switching out some cars from a road freight. More bridge views are seen of UP trains on the old Kansas, Okla- homa & Gulf and later, in 1989, at the Arkansas River crossing of both the Katy and the Mopac with their parallel bridges. A few more runbys at McAlester, Okla., and then back to Temple for a variety of Santa Fe freights at the depot. More runbys and meets occur at Taylor, Smithville, Bastrop, and West Point, Texas. The final scenes show a long wooden trestle across the Col- orado River in Texas, street running at La- Grange, and chasing a freight with Missouri Pacific power in UP colors. The program ends with some runbys of UP’s 4-8-4 No. 8444 in the Dennison, Red River, and north environs in less than sterling weather, but a Mopac blue business car brings up the rear. This film was generally shot under clear
skies and is well framed and exposed. The quality of the camera work is very high and the editing is also very good. This part of the country can be scenically challenging for miles and miles but the cinematographer made up for this by using stations, infra- structure, river crossings, and so on to cre- ate a pleasing palette of scenes. The sound transfer worked out quite well. It is general- ly not easy to do with Super-8 film and typi- cally requires post production computer work, which was done here. The film trans- fer is very good — no jitter, no dust or dirt, sharp from corner to corner, but not high de- finition quality, of course. It’s all a very nice package which includes good narration that explains everything. Fans of the Lone Star State who are starved of archival local con- tent and those who wish to round out their video library with a unique paint scheme that once roamed the southwestern states will enjoy this program. — TOM KELCEC
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0586 has B end on long side 6' - 0"
05 8 5
05 8 5
13' - 2½" 0585 26" 6' - 4" 3' - 7"
22' - 6" 30' - 3"
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3' - 7"
“A” End 7' - 6"
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D & R G R W 2177
D & R G 2177
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