Semaphore Drops at Stroud, Oklahoma

Frisco Oklahoma City train eastbound at Stroud, Oklahoma - September 1980

A photograph resulting from sheer luck. I had just finished dining at the marvelous Rock Cafe in Stroud, Oklahoma, on old US 66, and was leaving town when I heard an air horn. I slammed my little '78 Honda Civic to a halt ( I am parked off to the right of those tanks,) making Usain Bolt like speed to the other side of  the tracks. This Oklahoma City-Tulsa train was a once a day affair. I had just missed getting a shot of the Springfield, Mo.-Wichita Ks, train earlier in the trip, but this more than made up for it.

Frisco Oklahoma City train eastbound at Stroud, Oklahoma - September 1980

Frisco 900s - Classic SD45s

SLSF SD45 933 leads a WB pig thru Foyil, Oklahoma just one month before the BN merger in October of 1980.

Frisco's 49 SD45s gave the mostly four motor roster big muscle, but load limits on bridges meant you would not see three of them coupled together in a power consist. The sun has just risen over the rolling Ozark foothills of eastern Oklahoma, as a hot westbound rolls towards Tulsa. At least one SD45 got the "coonskin" herald on the nose, but unfortunately the Frisco never adopted nose heralds as a standard.

Four Digit Frisco - Post BN Merger Days

Except for its passenger power, the Frisco was a three digit locomotive number railroad. The period of absorption after the merger with BN in 1980, was brief. My friend Daryl McGee of Claremore, Oklahoma recorded this period on film. Claremore is located about 30 miles east of Tulsa, and is the location of the crossing of the old SLSF Tulsa-St. Louis main, and the old Missouri Pacific Kansas City-Texas route. This is about where the oak covered rolling hills of  northeastern Oklahoma begin, and the Frisco had a roller coaster profile east of town.