A City On Track

Three of the state’s earliest railroads – the Cairo & Fulton, the Memphis & Little Rock, and the Little Rock & Fort Smith — built depots and shops in what became North Little Rock.

The first to operate was the Memphis & Little Rock, which began running trains in 1859 between Hopefield (across the Mississippi River from Memphis) and Madison in eastern Arkansas. In 1862, the railroad established train service
between DeValls Bluff on the White River and the north side of the Arkansas River opposite Little Rock, where it built a depot and shops.

During the Civil War (1861-65), the Memphis & Little Rock line from DeValls Bluff was taken over by the Confederate army and then captured by the Union army in September 1863. After the war, the railroads faced monumental financial
difficulties. Half of the stockholders and directors of the Little Rock & Fort Smith had died, left the state, or were ruined financially.

Rejuvenated in the 1870s with the restoration of federal land grants and state aid, local fundraising, and infusion of private capital, railroads started a great age of construction in Arkansas.

The Memphis & Little Rock rebuilt its facilities on the riverfront in Argenta, erecting a 10-stall roundhouse, machine shop, carpenters’ buildings, engine room, and blacksmith shops. By 1871, the railroad ran from Hopefield to Argenta,
though flooding hampered service. A fire in 1875 destroyed the shops, which were rebuilt by 1878 on East Fourth Street, east of Olive in Argenta.

In early 1873, the last rail on the Cairo & Fulton’s northern division was laid, connecting St. Louis to a station and freight depot at Baring Cross, where the company also constructed a repair shop and six-stall roundhouse (replaced later
by a 25-stall roundhouse). In December 1873, trains began crossing the newlybuilt Baring Cross Bridge, operated by the Cairo & Fulton and financed by the Baring Brothers Bank of London, England.

Prior to completion of the bridge, the Cairo & Fulton operated a side wheel ferry, the Nellie Thomas, to transfer passengers across the river.

Consolidation ended the Cairo & Fulton in 1874 when it merged with the St. Louis & Iron Mountain to form the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railroad.

Meanwhile, the Little Rock & Fort Smith, having completed its line from Argenta to Van Buren in 1876 and to Fort Smith in 1879, built a nine-stall roundhouse in the middle of Magnolia between Fifth and Sixth streets in Argenta.

Missouri Pacific Railroad, owned by Jay Gould of New York, acquired the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern in 1881. The Iron Mountain in 1887 bought the Little Rock & Fort Smith, which had built the Junction Bridge in 1884 through common ownership with the Little Rock Junction Railway and the Little Rock, Mississippi River & Texas Railroad. The Little Rock & Fort Smith, as a subsidiary of the Iron Mountain, retained its name until 1906.

The Memphis & Little Rock reorganized in 1887 as the Little Rock & Memphis. It was then purchased in 1898 by the Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf through its subsidiary, the Choctaw & Memphis, which built the Choctaw Bridge in the
eastern part of the city.

According to the Arkansas Gazette, an auction of the Little Rock & Memphis took place at the Argenta depot in the 400 block of Newton Avenue (now Main Street). An attorney for the Choctaw bid $325,000 “as nonchalantly as though he were buying a cigar,” the paper said. The crowd gave three cheers and bottles of wine were served.

A fire in 1900 destroyed the Iron Mountain shops at Baring Cross, but they were rebuilt and expanded in 1902. A new 42-stall roundhouse was built seven years later.

In 1902, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific bought the Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf and changed the name of the Choctaw Bridge to the Rock Island Bridge.

The St. Louis Southwestern Railroad, which had shops in Pine Bluff on its Cotton Belt route in Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri, extended the line into Argenta in 1908 and built a train yard on Arkansas Avenue and passenger and freight depots on West Washington Avenue at Maple and Orange streets.

Both the Missouri Pacific and the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern went into receivership in 1915 because they couldn’t make debt payments. They were sold in 1917, ending the Gould family’s control, and reorganized under new ownership as Missouri Pacific Railroad.

–Cary Bradburn

The various trades of the railroad industry unionized in the 19th century and strikes accompanied by violence were a fact of life.

Three major strikes affected the north side in 1886, 1910, and 1922.

In 1886, about 300 men of the Knights of Labor walked off their jobs in North Little Rock over pay during a regional strike against Jay Gould’s Iron Mountain Railroad. Although it failed and Gould refused to hire anyone back, the strike
slowed operations and created some drama.

A strategy of the strikers was to hijack locomotives to overtake other locomotives to disable them by placing dust and dirt in the bearings of machinery. In one incident, a group of Knights commandeered a locomotive at Baring Cross and
headed south across the river bridge in pursuit of a freight train that they stopped and sabotaged near Benton.

On the way back, a posse of marshals and special railroad agents gave chase. While crossing back over the Baring Cross Bridge, with the law in hot pursuit, about 25 of the Knights jumped off the moving engine into the river as gun shots
rang out.

Officers arrested seven men and one of the strikers was shot in the leg. None were rehired.

Violence erupted during a 1910 machinists’ strike of five railroads, including the Iron Mountain shops at Baring Cross. The strike over pay and work conditions lasted almost eight months. Sabotage of equipment and numerous fights resulted in injuries from rock throwing. Gunfire was also reported. One shooting death of a striker at Fourth and Willow highlighted the trouble.

A rumored plot to blow up the Baring Cross shops never materialized.

The railroad brought in strikebreakers to the Baring Cross shops, where they fed and housed them, posted armed guards, and even built a stockade for protection.

The strikers picketed the shops and hurled insults at strikebreakers, calling them “scabs.” In some cases, strikers were beaten up by the guards.

But not all the strikebreakers were happy with the work conditions and food. As strikebreakers quit, more were hired. In the end, many of the machinists’ demands were met and they went back to work, though some were punished or
not rehired.

That was not the case in 1922 when the Missouri Pacific did not hire back strikers. Brawls, shootings, and the bombing of the Baring Cross shop superintendent’s front porch cast a violent shadow.

Bitterness lasted for years after the strike. One of the strikers who lost his job, Jack Pyle, became a lawman and North Little Rock Police chief.

–Cary Bradburn

W.M. Adams

IT WAS ONE of those clear, sharp days in early December 1942, and mid-afternoon found me hanging around the east end of the platform between tracks 4 and 5 at the Missouri Pacific’s Little Rock (Ark,) depot. I was in military service, but I had business there, for I was assistant rail transportation office for one of the replacement training centers at nearby Camp Joseph T. Robinson, and we were expecting a carload of draftees on Second 8. When First 8 came rolling around the curve under the Third Street viaduct I was struck by the appearance of its locomotive. She resembled somewhat a 6600-class Pacific but she definitely wasn’t one — there was no bundle-type Elesco feedwater heater straddling the smokebox ahead of her stack, and her cylinders had a strange oversize, rather top-heavy look to them. As the handsome lady swept by, I caught her number, 6001, and was left openmouthed at the valve gear, or rather the absence of customary valve gear.

I started walking hurriedly to be near the head end when she stopped, and as I came by the cab a grip bounced on the platform and an overall-clad individual, obviously the fireman, slid out of the eab. Picking up the grip, he approached me shaking his head and muttering, “He’s crazy, crazier than bell, I’ll never ride with him again – I’ll lay off first!” This shook me up, as had the near miss with the grip, but I managed to ask him just who he was referring to; all I heard was “Skyrocket.” At the pilot, the nervous fireboy slammed his grip down again and pointed up to the remnants of his classification signals, now merely wooden staffs with a few straggling green ribbons left on them. “Hell,” he cried, ”look at that.’ Snatching up his grip, he headed for the locket room, still muttering.

My reverie was interrupted when the hostlers cut the clean-limbed racer off the train and headed for the service tracks, as well as by the arrival of Second 8 with its carload of embryo soldiers needing a shepherd to their new home. It was later, when I received a copy of the December 1942 issue of the Missouri Pacific Magazine from home, that I found out some of the story of “Skyrocket” and the 6001.

Skyrocket-was the nickname for the late Charles S. Young, then general road foreman of engines for the Missouri Pacific; and 6001 was a big, lanky Pacific not long out of North-Little Rock Shops. She was destined to become the most famous, and, to some, by far the favorite, engine on the Arkansas Division. The 6001 had been rebuilt from a three-cylinder Pacific bought in 1925, numbered 6000, and nicknamed the “Six Million.”

In 1942 the Missouri Pacific was desperate for motive power. World War II had generated traffic of staggering proportions. End-of-the-year statistics found freight traffic up 64 per cent over 1941 and passenger traffic ahead by 128 per cent! The Six Million wasn’t carrying her share of the load; as a matter of fact, she had been in white lead and stored behind the shops at North Little Rock when the Mechanical Department came up with the idea of removing her third cylinder and outfitting the engine with the Franklin Stearn Distribution System, commonly known as poppet valves. Outshopped on November 16, 1942, the 6001 quickly began earning her keep. And she quickly picked up her own nickname, “Madame Queen,” and by that sobriquet she is still remembered, fondly and otherwise, by veteran employees of the Arkansas Division.

THE October 1924 issue of the Missouri Pacific Magazine announced that on September 8, 1924, President L. W. Baldwin had placed an order for 50 new locomotives, 35 from the American Locomotive Company and 15 from the Baldwin Locomotive Works. Ten of the Alco engines were to be heavy 4-6-2’s, while the remaining 25 were to be heavy 2-8-2’s. One of each wheel arrangement was to have three cylinders. Delivery was tentatively promised by November 15. The announcement went on to say: “The three-cylinder type engine is admittedly an experiment. It has been developed by the American Locomotive Works, and the Missouri Pacific purchased one each for freight and passenger service in order to determine under practical operating test conditions the availability of this class of power and the advantages to be obtained, if any.” The February 1925 issue of the magazine displayed front and side views of the Pacific, No. 6000, which had arrived in St. Louis in late January, and explained that ·the Mike, No. 1699, would arrive in February after being given a thorough testing by the builder on the Altoona locomotive plant of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

The 6000 was 88 feet 3 1/8 inches in length, weighed 540,500 pounds including tender, and had a tractive effort of 47,100 pounds. The stoker-fired engine carried a boiler pressure of 190 pounds and had a grate area of 67 square feet. All three cylinders were 22½ x 28 inches. The tender had a water capacity of 12,000 gallons and a coal capacity of 16 tons. According to the magazine, the Missouri Pacific had the distinction of owning the first threeee-cylinder locomotive west of the Mississippi River. The article further stated, “While the three-cylinder idea is not an entirely new one, having been given something of a trial several years ago both in this country and England and then apparently dropped with little further experiment, its reintroduction into the transportation equipment field is of recent date. Commenting upon this revival, Railway Age in its annual review for 1924, pronounced the development of the three-cylinder simple locomotive the outstanding event of the year in the locomotive field. “Its performance during the past year seems to have assured its acceptance,” the review declared and added, “Opponents of the three-cylinder locomotive have, in the past, dwelt upon the probably increased maintenance cost due to the introduction of the third cylinder but this objection seems to be obscured by the increase in revenue-producing capacity.”

Much was claimed for the three-cylinder locomotive: Move power; greater starting ability; reduced wear on mechanism, rail, and right of way; and substantial fuel savings. The Missouri Pacific was happy with its pair of odd-cylinder jobs – for a time at least. Railway Age for May 16, 1925, reported: ”The Pacific-type locomotive, No. 6000, after having been broken in in freight service, was placed in passenger. service and has made a number of runs between Kansas City and St. Louis and between Hoxie, Ark., and St. Louis. Between the latter points a particularly difficult 2 per cent grade, 4. miles long, is encountered. Locomotive No. 6000, handling Train 4, Hoxie to St. Louis with 11 cars, was able to negotiate this grade without trouble and reached the top at a speed of 28 mph.”

Just how long the Six-Million handled mainline passenger trains is not known. The men who ran her and the company records are gone. I was fortunate in contacting Mahlon F. Fiske, whose father, the late James Lemuel “Lem” Fisk, was promoted to engineer on the Arkansas Division of the old St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern (now the Missouri Pacific) in 1903 and who, for many years, handled train 2, the Sunshine Special, from Little Rock to Poplar Bluff, Mo. Mahlon went through the apprentice training at the MoPac’s North Little Rock shops and worked there for several years as a machinist. He has a rare knowledge of steam locomotives. He recalls, “The 6000 seldom came south of Hoxie, but my father did run her on occasion and liked her very well. There were no speed restrictions on the engine, and the chief complaint of the enginemen was that the trainmasters thought she was an engine and a half and that she was consistently overloaded. The roundhouse men didn’t like her. They couldn’t get to the inside main rod, and the guides and bearings were consequently neglected – any slack in either gear was compounded to a ratio of 2 to l.”The Gresley conjugated valve gear was vulnerable to poor maintenance, and any play as cumulative and subject to multiplication. Alco itself recognized that a large enough number of such engines must be operated to justify their “specialized maintenance,” and admitted that the inside valve gear was inaccessible.

BEFORE AND AFTER: Flat-chinned, three-cylinder 6000 took on wvater (above) at Jefferson City, Mo., in August 1934.In her two-cylinder, poppet-valve format (below), the same Pacific, renumbered 6001, stood in North Little Rock, Ark., in 1949.

IT is obvious that ownership of just two three-cylinder engines refuted the recommendations of the very people building and selling them, and by their 10th birthday, the Missouri Pacific was sick and tired of the experiments. One wonders what the general opinion of the Union Pacific hierarchy was toward its three-cylinder fleet of 10 4-10-2’s and 88 4-12-2’s. Well, I had a good friend, now deceased, who served for some 17 years as private secretary to the late O. A. Garber, long-time chief mechanical officer of the MoPac. One day he and I were talking about this, and he recalled that years before, Mr. Garber had been touring the UP and while in Omaha Nebr., called on his counterpart on that system and asked him, pointblank, just what UP’s maintenance problems and/or costs were on three-cylinder power. His answer was that it was just like trying to keep an expensive mistress in every division point!

By the late 1930’s, all of the Missouri Pacffic’s primary main lines enjoyed passenger-train speed limits well above the mile-a-minute mark, but it was felt necessary to restrict the 6000 to just 60. This obviously took her out of the fast-passenger pool, and in 1939 I saw the old girl handling local freight between Kansas City and Atchison, Kans. The Mike, No. 1699, was faring no better, for in the early 1930’s she was relegated to local freight and minerun switching service on the Joplin Division around Pittsburg and Cornell, Kans. The 1699 was similar to the 1401-1535 series of heavy Mikados which MoPac started buying in 1921, but in addition to her third cylinder actuated by Gresley valve gear, 1699 was fitted with Baker valve gear on her two outside cylinders and had an American front-end throttle. She was 83 feet long, weighed 526,800 pounds with tender, carried 200 pounds steam pressure, and exerted 65,700 pounds tractive effort. The outside cylinders were 23 x 32 inches while the inside one was 23 x 28 inches. The Louisville & Nashville also had invested in a three-cylinder Mike and ultimately found use for her in hump-yard service, but the MoPac had fitted heavy 2-10-2’s with tender boosters for this chore on their humps at Dupo, Ill., and Kansas City, so the 1699 was out of luck there.

Aboμt 1935 I recall the 1699 making a trip in local freight service between Nevada and Joplin, Mo. She had to switch around Carthage for perhaps an hour, and I was fascinated by her chug-a-lug, -chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug, off-beat exhaust, and I stayed right on her heels until the work was done. John Renner, our venerable engine watchman at Carthage, told me that one of the problems with the 1699 was her propensity to derail, especially on switches. Now, Jolin was not a master mechanic but he did have an intense love for, and anuncanny knowledge of, steam locomotives. Since the bulk of the successful examples of the three-cylinder locomotives in this country were those with a four-wheel pilot truck to support the heavy cylinders and valve gear, old John might have had something there.

During the winter of 1932-1933, my father was working the midnight yard clerk job at Cornell, Kans., and remembers weighing many a car of Kansas strip coat behind the 1699. Cornell was a marshalling yard for the southeast Kansas coal fields, and theMoPac operated a dozen or so mine-run engines out of there in the winter. Dad remembers her being a dandy at weighing – that smooth, even power at low speeds, I suppose.

But the MoPac had plenty of Consolidations for service in the coal fields and on locals – what the road needed was fast freight power. So the 1699 wastaken into the vast Sedalia (Mo.) Shops and on November 1, 1937, came out with just two cylinders and minus her front-end throttle. Numbered 1671, she was the spitting image of engines 1536-1570, which bad been bought in April 1925. Interestingly enough, when Alco built these engines they lined up the first two pairs of drivers closer to the cylinders and put the second and third pair on 81-inch centers, leaving a noticeable gap between the two sets – all on the chance that the MoPac might want to convert them to three-cylinder power, in which event the drivers would be properly spaced for the operation.

THE Six Million was eventually withdrawn from service. In her last two years she had logged a scant 47,211 miles. Mahlon Fiske is of the opinion she threw her inside main rod. In any event, she was stored at North Little Rock while the Missouri Pacific bent an ear to the blandishments of the salesmen of the Franklin Railway Supply Company; purveyors of a poppet-valve system of steam distribution.

This poppet valve gear was developed in an effort to produce a better system of steam distribution, especially at high speed. The conventional reciprocating valve was always in motion on one side or the other and constantly restricting the port openings. Conversely, the poppet valves were always fixed in either open or closed positions with quick transition from one to the other, effectively separating the inlet and exhaust phases of distribution. Poppet valves increased the steam passage areas and permitted greater steam expansion at high speed, materially increasing engine power output. Much less work was required in their operation, and the valve events were positive and cleancut underall operating conditions.

Franklin promised the Missouri Pacific 16 per cent more horsepower at 40 mph and 22.9 per cent more at 88 mph than sister Pacific-type engines. The Franklin Type A system of steam distribution as applied to the 6001 consisted off two major components. These were the valve-gear box, the cam boxes, the poppet valves and related parts in the cylinders, and the power reverse gear. The valve gear box was located on the center line of the locomotive behind the cylinders and embodied multiple links to control valve events. The small amount of power required to drive this sytem was taken from the main crosshead. The cam boxes were located on the cylinders between the steam chest. The poppet valves, of the horizontal double-seated type, were cast integral in their respective halves of the cylinder saddle. The cylinder barrel, boiler saddle, and frame mounting were of conventional design.

The power reverse gear was connected to the cam boxes by rotatable connecting shafts equipped with universal joints and splined connections and actuated by a small air motor. The reverse gear quadrant was cut with fine teeth allowing micromatic adjustment. In addition to the poppet valves, the 6001 was given a new firebox and converted from coal to oil fuel. All axles and the main and side rods were fitted with Timken roller bearings, as was the suspended multiple-bearing crosshead. She was equipped with a Barco low-water alarm, and a caststeel pilot with retractable coupler was installed. On the engineer’s side, she had the standard Simplex lifting injector while on the fireman’s side she was fitted with an Elesco T-401 exhaust steam feedwater heater. Both boiler feeding devices shared a common “double” check valve on top of the boiler aft of the sand dome. Two boiler blowdown separators were mounted on the boiler top, one for each waterleg of the firebox. The American front-end throttle was retained, and the boiler jacket was extended to cover the smokebox. As rebuilt, Madame Queen had 27 x 28-inch cylinders and 73-inch drivers, the main driver being fitted with disc-type centers. She operated at 200 pounds steam pressure, had 4028 square feet of heating surface, had syphons in her firebox, and was given a tractive effort rating of 47,535 pounds., identical to that of a conventional 6600-class Pacific. With a light weight of 284,015 pounds, the 6001 balanced out at 314,755 pounds in working order, sans tender, of which 187,785 pounds were on drivers.

It would appear to me that there would have been no problem in increasing the drivers of the 6001 to 75 inches in diameter, since her driving axles were on 84-inch centers. This would have potentially increased her speed capabilities.

C. O. Peterson, general painter foreman of the North Little Rock facility, painted the 6001 the standard engine black of the Missouri Pacific but mixed up a special gray paint for the smokebox front remarkably, similar to that employed on some Santa Fe locomotives. Lettered with aluminum leaf, she made a pretty sight. (I admit to a lifelong prejudice in favor of Missouri Pacific steam power, but I believe any lover of the steam locomotive would agree with me on this.) As she hit the road, she was given a speed limit of 90 mph and, as we shall see, had no trouble attaining this and more. According to theDecember 1942 issue of the Missouri Pacific Magazine, she wasassigned to passenger service on the Arkansas Division between Poplar Bluff, Mo., and Texarkana, Tex., and quickly proved her mettle in speed, fuel consumption, tractive effort, and dependability. She handled trains of 16, 17, and 18 cars without undue strain and with on-time performance. D. R. Rodgers, Assistant to the Chief Mechanical Officer, was quoted, “We haven’t made any exacting tests with the 6001 and we probably won’t until traffic quiets down a bit. But it is quite evident the engine’s performance is entirely satisfactory, and especially is this true of high sustained tractive effort at high speeds. Everybody says this particular engine runs as smoothly at high speed as the ordinary locomotive does at ordinary speed.” The article went on to state that since November 16, 1942, when the Queen came out of the shop, she had made several return visits, mostly for minor adjustments and corrections. It was pointed out that special tools were purchased to service the engine, also a supply of spare parts. The March 1943 issue of the magazine noted, “Engine 6001 is making an outstanding record for performance. Engine 6001 is preferred by engineers and firemen as she rides, steams, and performs well, it being a pleasure to operate.” The article went on to note the field engineers of the Franklin Railway Supply Company bad been riding the engine and making notes of her performance. If the Missouri Pacific ever actually made documented tests, other than mileage and fuel consumption records, with or without a
dynamometer car, though, they are no longer on file in company archives.

So much for what the company house organ had to say about the reborn locomotive. What about the men who ran or fired her? On November 16, 1942, the Madame was outshopped and moved around to the big North Little Rock roundhouse, where she was fueled and supplied. For many years there was a regular engineer assigned to the North Little Rock board whose only duties were to “break in” all locomotives as they were released from the backshop. By 1942, this job, called the ”engine tamer,” was being filled from the extra board, and on November 17, a young engineer, Eckles A. Hille, newly promoted in June, was called to run the 6001 to Bald Knob and back. Now, enjoying a well-earned retirement, Hille remembers that he was called for 12:01 p.m with Fireman O. L. Eakin. Hille relates, “I did not run the engine as Mr. Young (C. S. “Skyrocket” Young, General Road Foreman ofEngines) wanted to pace her, but I did have the honor of signing the work report he made out. There were representatives from the valve company, the roller bearing company, the lubrication company as well as I remember, there were about 10 or 12 men in the cab who made the trip. Mr. Young took it easy all the way up, making frequent stops, but coming back at about Beebe (30 miles out of North Little Rock) he opened her up to about 60 mph. We tied up at the roundhouse at 6:10 p.m. I had never touched the throttle and never rode her again,” Hille went on, “One day, when the 6001 was coming out of the depot with a northward passenger, one of the laborers at the coal chute called to another urging him to come over and watch her go by. When the second proved reluctant and wanted to know what was, so special, the first replied: “Why man, that’s the Madame Queen, she’s the one with the puppy valves.”

Searching for any employee with experience on the 6001, I first ran into a pair of veteran conductors, who 30- plus years ago were mere extra-board brakemen. One parroted the other, “Sure, I remember Madame Queen I sat in many a passing track and listened to her roar by on the main.”

Thirty-five years ago, the men running passenger on the MoPac, and most other roads for that matter, were veterans occupying the top fourth of the seniority roster. Few, if any, are left. The crack young passenger firemen are a different matter, however, and the top echelon of the Arkansas Division engineer’s seniority roster of today were firing fast passenger during and after World War II. From one and all I got the same story -Madame Queen was a fine locomotive, but she was fickle – you had to stay on your toes and never relax a minute when firing her. All these men said to talk to Warren Pelton, for he knew more about her and probably had more experiepce with her than anybody working. So, I called Warren. Then near the top of the engineers list, Warren had entered the service of the MoPac in 1941 and for several years had served as rod foreman of engines and trainmaster before returning to running. He said, ”I tired the 6001 considerably. She was equipped with the Elesco exhaust steam injector, which operated on back pressure. The valve gear reverse was actuated by an air-driven motor and sometimes just moving the reverse one notch would cause the ES injector to ‘break’ and then you had to open the standard injector on the engineer’s side and this would chill the boiler. You had to force the fire – the engineers wouldn’t shut off, it was up to you to keep her hot, how they did not care. Her drafting was critical, and you had to keep the oil just so hot and the flues clean. The valve gear gave no trouble, especially when new as they took great pains with her. When new she had a speedometer, but in later years it was not maintained – I have seen 95:and 96 mph on it many times. She had a real, sharp, popping exhaust building up speed, and at high speed the exhaust sounded to me just like tearing or ripping a tough cloth. She was a phenomenal engine except for that ES injector. She liked low water and was very efficient on water. With a light train and no stops, you could go 180.15 miles to Poplar Bluff (from Texarkana) on a tank of water. She had two drop seats in the cab, attached to the regular seat boxes.

I was firing her one night on No. 26 out of Texarkana for Harry Wiseman. Skyrocket Young was running her and his boy, David, also a fireman, was riding with us. Harry was on the drop seat next to Skyrocket, while David was riding alongside me. As we went into the 55 mph curve at Alexandria, she was still running in excess of 70. Young had waited too long in setting up his brakes, and she started cutting rail and squalling. Wiseman was thrown to the deck, and David had me jammed up in the left rear corner of the cab where I couldn’t have gotten out if I had wanted to. Well, Skyrocket just reached up and yanked the throttle wide open and she settled right down! When we got to Little Rock we found that several passengers had been thrown down and hurt. I have seen over 100 mph on her, but old man Williams (R. C. William.s, longtime superintendent of the Arkansas Division) nearly run us all off for that.”

Warren also said that for many trips the office car of O. A. Garber, Chief Mechanical Officer, would be next to the engine to accommodate visiting mechanical people and others interested in Madame Queen’s performance. And Skyrocket Young literally lived on her. Young had a well-deserved reputation for getting the most out of an engine, and apparently his propensity for high-speed running met with the approval of management, for he served as General Road Foreman of Engines from 1939 until his death in March 1948.

All of the enginemen I talkedto said the same thing about the Elesco ES injector, or technically, feedwater heater. Elesco claimed that such injectors were applied to more than 20,000 locomotives, mostly in Europe. But one American authority described it as a “poor man’s feedwater heater.” Why the Missouri Pacific used it on the 6001 is conjectural. The Elesco bundle-type feedwater heater could not have been used with the frontend throttle, and the oversized cylinder section might have prevented installation of the Worthington SA type. A Worthington BL hung on the left side would have forced relocation of the air pumps t.o the pilot deck or to the right side of the engine, a definite no-no. Considering the times, it is entirely possible that the ES was all that was available through the War Production Board. The Missouri Pacific had a number of Mikados equipped with Elesco ES’s, and according to Warren, they worked fine. But they were designed to operate primarily on cylinder back pressure. With the 6001 and her poppet valve, such back pressure was negligible -that was what the poppet valves were for! The ES injector featured an automatic cut-over from cylinder back pressure to live steam out of the turret, and this is possibly where the trouble lay.

In any event, the ES never in the life of the engine workedt o complete satisfaction. As Warren related, the Madame was very sensitive to bad water, and not long after she was turned out it was found that an additional boiler blowdown was desirable and the “belly” blow-off valve, ordinarily operated only under controlled conditions in the engine terminal, was given a cab-operated connection and exhausted into a third separator mounted just ahead of the steam dome. Then, a fourth tap was made in the boiler on the left side just above the air pumps and at normal water level also exhausted into the third separator.

I contacted one old retired shopman~ one who had worked on her valves – and asked him if she spent very much time in the shops. “Hell, son,” he said, ”they all came to the shop at one time or another!” He then went on to tell me that the valve stems as fitted snapped easily and they finally just increased the size of them and eliminated this problem.

One engineer, then an extra board fireman, told me, “I sat in many a passing track and heard her roar by on the main with the low-water alarm howling, and I always made a reverent wish I would never catch her – and l never did.” He then said, “That ‘feedwater heater’ gave them more trouble than anything.” Another ancient roundhouse employee told me, years ago, that the Queen was very particular about cylinder lubrication and that her cylinder oil was cut 50 per cent with kerosene. He also related that she bad oversize lubricators with sensitive gauges in the cab to keep the engineer informed exactly how much cylinder oil was being used and how much was left.

Hugh Philllps of Abergavenny, Wales, has made a comprehensive study of the various types of poppet valve gears, and in a letter to me in 1974 he wrote, ”Your comments that 6001 was fussy about her water is typical of all poppet-gear engines. The hard waters coated the valve stems with deposits which caused-sticking in the bushes. On Caprotti engines there was no lubrication to the valves at all, as the oil used to carbonize on the stems and again sticking occurred. The remedy for a stuck valve was to free it with paraffin (you call it kerosene), so cutting 600l’s oil with 50 per cent kerosene makes real sense.”

DISREGARDING company releases and even the clouded remembrances of employees stretched out over three decades, just how much train could the 6001 handle and how fast could she run? I was fortunate in being able to save the April 1949 dispatchers train sheets for the Arkansas Division and have been able to turn a couple of representative trips by the Queen, one amply demonstrating her ability to get a heavytrain over the road and the other revealing just how fleet-footed she was.

On April 22, she handled Train 7 from Little Rock to Texarkana in the charge of Engineer Emmet Putman and Fireman Earnie Williams. Leaving Little Rock at 12:12 p.m., 47 minutes late, she arrived at Texarkana, 144.59 miles distant, at 3:10 p.m., making up 7 minutes. Significant is the fact that she made five stops totaling 20 minutes standing time, so her actual running time was 2 hours 38 minutes for an average speed of 54.91 mph. The line from Little Rock to Malvern, the first stop, is undulating with a stiff climb of neatly 1 per cent right out of the depot at Little Rock for almost a mile. It takes time and distance to build up speed with a heavy train, and a train southward out of Little Rock has to get to the Saline River valley below Be.ton before reaching terrain conducive to ultra-high speed. No. 7 roared down the slightly descending grade from Traskwood to Gifford, 7.34 miles, in just 5 minutes, at an average speed of 88.08 mph. Just south of Malvern the railroad enters the flood plain of the Ouachita River and is perfectly straight for 16 miles. By the time Donaldson, 12 miles out of Malvern, had been reached, the 6001 was hitting 75. And Arkadelphia, Gurdon, Prescott, and Hope are all difficult places from which to start a southward train, especially Gurdon.

Comparing this trip with that of No.7 on April 18, we find on that day the same engine crew had the 6621, a heavy oil-burning Pacific. They left Little Rock at 11:59 a.m., 34 minutes late, and went into Texarkana at 2:55 p.m., 25 minutes late, making up 9 minutes and making the same five stops but only consuming 17 minutes standing time. So, the Queen bested the time of the ordinary Pacific (also equipped with roller bearings) by just one minute. However, the 6001 had a 16-car train weighing 1200 tons while the 6621 had a 14-car train weighing 1050 tons. Now these were not lightweight, streamlined cars running on roller bearings, but conventional, heavyweight equipment, riding friction bearings. Those two extra cars, especially being hoisted up the hill out of Little Rock Union Depot or hanging down those hills at Gurdon, Prescott, and Hope, made no little difference.

Now, let’s take a look at the growling, brightly painted machine that was to replace both of the-4-6-2’s, for on April 14, 1949, the same engine crew had the 7014 AB, a 4000 h.p. EMD E7 team, and a 15-car, 1125-ton train. They left the capital city at 11:42. a.m., 17 minutes late, made the same five stops but only consumed 14 minutes (no water to take at Gurdon), and hit the state line, on time at 2:30 p.m., averaging 56.3 mph. At Gurdon the diesel had much the advantage, for all steam engines stopped with the tender spotted at the water crane and took water, which meant the entire train was hanging downhill. The diesel could, and did, run four or five carlengths farther before stopping and had an easier time of it. They had a job, though, as the rash of burned rails south of the depot at Gurdon would testify. (It was found, later, that when Alcos and EMD’s were run in tandem, the wheel-slip indicator on the trailing unit or units would not actuate in the cab of the off-brand control unit).

Turning now to the north end of the Arkansas Division (Hoxie Subdivision), we find that on April 4, 1949, Train 25 from Poplar Bluff to Little Rock was powered by the 6001. In the charge of Engineer E. A. Mequette and Fireman K. D. Hall, she had 12 cars and 840 tons and left Poplar Bluff at 6:28 p.m., 23 minutes late, and arrived at Little Rock, 180.15 miles, at 9:28 p.m., 3 minutes late. Making two stops, one at Hoxie consuming five minutes and one at Newport taking four minutes, the Queen averaged 60.05 mph for the trip including stops and 63.21 mph actual running time.

The north end had no grade condition with which to contend. From Poplar Bluff to the stop at Hoxie, 60.81 miles, the 6001 consumed 57 minutes for a 64.02 mph average. From Hoxie to Newport, 35.39 miles, she used 35 minutes for a 60.66 mph average. From Minturn, 6.10 miles south of Hoxie, to Tuckerman, 19.44 miles, she used just 15 minutes for an average of 77.76mpb. By Alicia at 7:44 p.m., she went by Swifton, 5.37 miles, in just four minutes at a cool 80.50 mph gait and was by Tuckerman, 7.57 miles further, in just five minutes for a blazing 90.80 mph average! Below Tuckerman you had to start getting your wits about you and getting some air under the train for a 30 mph restriction at DOD Junction. From Milepost 226.50, just south of Hoxie, to Milepost 259.1, the track is perfectly tangent and for the most part on a slightly descending grade. The 83.95 miles from Newport to home terminal was run off in 79 minutes for a 63.76 mph average.

I have ridden this portion some five minutes faster behind steam, but that steam was a monstrous Mountain-type locomotive handling only 11 cars.

Now, this schedule from a dispatcher’s train sheet is certainly not stop-watch timing and is subject to error. But any errors will be small, and I think we can accept it for what it was, good engine-handling on a fast railroad. The runs don’t compare with the diesel-powered Texas Eagle placed in service on August 15, 1948; but they had all roller-bearing, lightweight cars and were equipped with electro-pneumatic brakes which enabled them to run right up to a speed restriction and then release and build back up to maximum speed very quickly. The streamliners were also permitted to operate around restricted curves 5 miles per hour faster than steam locomotives (or diesels for that matter) handling conventional, heavyweight equipment. When the Eagles were placed in service they were carded at 2 hours 40 minutes, nonstop, between Poplar Bluff and Little Rock at 67.56 mph average. From Poplar Bluff to North Little Rock they were carded to average 71.96 mph. And they did this without exceeding, for the most part, 80 or 85 mph. (Your old-time steamlocomotive engineers on the Missouri Pacific and other roads, I suppose, not having speedometers for the most part, would always say: “They give us five miles an hour tolerance – and we take five!” E. A. Mequette was of this school, his nickname being the “Flying Frenchman.” As one conductor told me, “When you gave him a highball, you better have one foot on the step!”)

I risk starting World War III by comparing steam with diesel but I would like to relate a story just told me by W. C. “Bill” Glover. Now occupying the No. 2 slot on the Arkansas Division engineers seniority roster, Bill was a passenger fireman during World War II and in the early postwar period. One night he was firing train 21, the Sunshine Special, out of Poplar Bluff for Engineer John Roberts. They had the 6001,while Second 21 had a pair of diesels. This was just before the inauguration of the Texas Eagles) and the “Shines” were usually given diesels. When they stopped at Newport for water, Second 21 was brought down the other main and stopped alongside them. They got their signal first and took off, and Roberts hollered at Glover to hang on. They ran nonstop to Little Rock, and after making out the work report, unloaded and adjourned to the bullpen to register out and then joined the group of enginemen you could always find hanging out in the waiting room of the depot. They were enjoying a cup of coffee when the crew of Second 21 came in, and the engineer hollered, “Where in the world did you all go to? We have never even seen a yellow block all night.”

Glover had nothing but praise for the Madame Queen. “Man, she would flat run!” But he admitted the ES injector was bad to “break” on you.

MISSOURI PACIFIC purchased its first diesel yard engine in 1937, and placed its first streamlined, lightweight, diesel-powered Eagle passenger train in service in 1939, followed by a second in 1941 and a third in 1942. In August 1940, MoPac tested Electro-Motive’s 5400 h.p. freight diesel demonstrator 103 between Kansas City and St. Louis against 2-8-4’s, and in August 1943 was authorized by the War Production Board to purchase its first freight units. Making postwar plans, MoPac envisioned replacing two sections of the Sunshine Special with diesel powered, lightweight stteamlined trains and lost no time placing equipment orders and at the same time committing the system to eventually powering all trains with diesels.

By 1950, when the Arkansas Division was heavily dieselized (especially passenger service), the decision was reached to concentrate first on replacing steam power on the Western District, from St. Louis out to Pueblo, Colo., and to Omaha, Nebr. The Southern District would be last. This move forced the removal of large numbers of diesels from the Arkansas Division to the Eastern and other divisions, and to the Arkansas Division came the giant 2201-class 4-.8.-4’s and the classy 1720-series roller-bearing 2-10-2’s. The shift also staved off white lead for the Madame Queen, for by this time she was handling just about everything – troop trains, grape specials, box-car mail trains, and strawberry trains. The Queen was involved in only two derailments while in service on the Arkansas Division – on January 8, 1944, while handling Second 7; and on May 10, 1946, while handling Second 8. Both cases involved burned off journals on passenger equipment, probably because of excessive speed (ordinarily, you just didn’t drop journals on passenger trains!). Finally, in early 1952, time ran out for the Madame and she was set aside in back of the shop at North Little Rock. I was working in the office of the general car foreman at that time, and it was his responsibility to scrap all locomotives at a facility called the “burn track.” This portion of the shopswas presided over by the inimitable Fennie A. Reynolds, erstwhile wrecker foreman. One day, the Queen – after just short of a decade of honorable (for the most part) service – showed up on Burn One.

An engine was considered officially scrapped when the boiler was rendered inoperative, i.e., you put a man up on her with a cutting torch and he incised a nice neat hole in the boiler shell. You could then report so much tractive effort had been scrapped and turn in an order for enough diesels to replace the lost pulling power. Then, when you loaded out the boiler, you got credit with your bankers for so much scrap metal and your credit was in turn transferred to EMD or Alco, wherever you had placed your last diesel order. Among my other duties was the filing of a daily report listing all the engines scrapped that day, and I wish I could say I remember October l , 1952, but I don’t. On that day, Reynolds would have shuffled into the office in the shank of the afternoon and dropped bis scribblings on my desk. I then, no doubt, turned and typed a report reading: “GGF Office, NLRock, Ar.k., Oct. 1, 1952. Scrapped following engines this date … 6001 …. ”

She is not completely forgotten. Ask any veteran employee of the old Arkansas Division about engine 6001 and he will perk up. If he was in engine service he can probably tell you a story …. “Hell, I remember firing her one night on Second 2 with Claude Yarbrough and we went to Poplar Bluff, nonstop, in 2 hours and 40 minutes – Claude chewed up a whole damn pocketful of cigars!” .. .

And she is not completely gone. A.M. Harris, long-time division freight agent on the Arkansas Division, married a lady who was owner of the Silica Products Company at Guion, Ark., up on the White River Division. When the Queen was cut up, the late John Whalen, then superintendent of shops, took the melodious chime whistle off the 6001 and presented it to Mr. Harris. He had it mounted on the mill of the company, and for years it kept one and all informed of work time, lunchtime, and quitting-time.

Several years ago, Charles H. Ost, railfan supreme and conductor on the well-known Reader Railroad in southwest Arkansas, borrowed the whistle from Mr. Harris. The genial Tom Long, president of the Reader, then placed it on Reader G.I. 2-8-0 No. 1702 for a few trips so the faithful could make tapes of her musical journeys through the beaver- and turtle-infested bayous between Reader and Waterloo. Charlie Ost and Al Harris have both passed away, and the Reader is a mere shell of its former 22–mile glory, but the whistle still is preserved.

When the Missouri Pacific closed its depot at Guion, Mrs. Hanis bought the building and converted it into a fine restaurant, gift shop, and museum. There, deep in the beautiful Ozarks of North Arkansas, is preserved the big chime whistle – the last tangible evidence of that great locomotive, Madame Queen, the one with the “puppy” valves.

Madame Queen

OUT OF SIGHT around the curving tracks of the “Hole Yard” about a mile away, there came the deepthroated moan of a chime whistle. The hot, humid air seemed to transmit the steady rhythm of exhaust rapidly increasing in cadence and volume. A pale plume of fuel-oil smoke appeared above the strings of freight cars filling the yard tracks.

The black bulk of a locomotive came into view, canting to the right as she swept around the curve of the northbound main line. Behind her trailed the dark, Pullman-green shape of the heavy steel cars of No. 4, the Ozarker. She was running a little late that June day in 1943, as she left Little Rock (Ark.) Union Station of the Missouri Pacific, headed for St. Louis, 348.9 miles away.

My little $10 folding camera was ready. The beating of my heart quickened, even as the exhaust increased. There came the sharp, fierce barking from the stack as the heavy Pacific ran off the spiral of the curve and hit the tangent track. The rhythm of the exhaust was perfectly spaced and sharp as the crack of a rifle.

The hulking sheet steel pilot and smokebox loomed rapidly larger. The hot air seemed suddenly charged with suspense and excitement. Then the numbers were discernible on the large rectangular brass plate directly under the hooded headlight in the center of the smokebox door–6001.

It was “Madame Queen” in all her royal beauty!

My breath stopped, the camera shutter clicked, and the awesome beauty of her royal highness was caught and preserved.

With a thunderous roar, the lunging locomotive passed; a solid wall of displaced air sent me stumbling across the shiny rails of the adjacent southbound main. The train of swaying, reeling cars was but a brief, dark-green moment. The cafe-parlor-coach bearing The Ozarker drumhead and crimson markers flashed by and was rapidly growing smaller. The distinct barking exhaust became a steady roar and then diminished quickly. Floating behind on the hot, still air came the moaning farewell salute of her whistle.

Madame Queen had passed in royal majesty.