Steam & Excursion > AFT Confidential 27- Memphis TN

27 Memphis TN Apr 17-22, 1976

From Little Rock it was back up the MP the way we came in, then swinging right at Bald Knob towards Memphis.

Memphis was another extraordinary site. They put us in a parking lot alongside the Mississippi River near Mudd Island. To solve the obvious problem (city parking lots don't usually have RR track) they poured out a line of red dirt and laid panel track! Even more interesting: access into the parking meant crossing a major Memphis thoroughfare that couldn't be blocked for the 7 days we'd be in town. So once the train was backed in, the temporary grade crossing was pulled up and we were cut off from the Illinois Central main across the boulevard. It was all well planned and executed quickly- bravo!

The site was was on two levels. The 4449 and Display Cars were up on the parking lot, as described. The PreAmbles and support cars were in a small yard adjacent to the parking lot, but at a lower elevation closer to water lever near the Mississippi. I mention this because the drop off down to the PreAmbles was, to the delight of our golf cart jockeys, steep enough to “Get Air”.

Here's something else a bit different about Memphis- they (the Memphis Fire Dept) had an antique fire pumper. It was rolled into place, fired up, and used to fill the 4449's tender!

Craig (4449 Crew) had a friend that had flown into Little Rock, and needed to get back there to fly back out. This meant about a 5hr round trip, mostly at night, and I went along to share driving. I'd drive west, and Craig would drive back.
We borrowed a courtesy car to make the trip which, oddly, was not a brand new Chevy- it was a older stripped down Plymouth.
The trip to Little Rock was uneventful, we saved that for trip back to Memphis...
I was jolted awake in the back seat by Craig's cries of anguish (such language!). The car was bathed in red light. “Jeez Craig, what did you do?!”
The patrolman, in his Smokey-the-Bear hat, asked us both to step out of the car and wanted to see the registration. Craig dug the paperwork out of the glove box. Holy Moly- the car belonged to the FBI!
Okay, you've seen a few pictures of us by now- Craig's the one who looked like Ron Burgundy and I was all hair (trust me-God got the last laugh on that). This Arkansas patrolman had pulled over two California boys driving an unmarked FBI car.
Awkward!
I wondered if we were under cover? (Not quite Starsky & Hutch. Maybe Starsky & Serpico?) It's hard to imagine what he was thought, although, he did offer us a clue: Craig got a $30 speeding ticket.
SR Bush
Dutch Flat


Photos 1&2. The Memphis Site in the parking lot. These were taken when they were replacing the gap across the street on the evening before we left town.
Photo 3. Craig, back in his day job after his very career with the FBI the night before.

Photos 4&5. The steam pumper used to fill the 4449's tender.

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Definitely one of the more interesting sites - the panel track, the antique pumper, and best of all, the unmarked FBI vehicle.
An aside - J. Edgar Hoover was notoriously frugal - each agent was only allowed one US Government pen at his desk, things like that. It extended into the FBI vehicle fleet. When my father began as an agent in the '60s, it was bare-bones Ramblers - no A/C, even for agents out in Palm Springs, etc. By the late 60s/early 70s, it transitioned to Plymouths.
Obviously, the Arkansas DMV had not updated their vehicle listings from recent government sales.

2-10-2

No, the car WAS an FBI car. John Manning (Mad Dog), the AFT’s head of security, was ex-FBI and obviously still “knew people”. So I guess he had friends in Memphis and rather than going through the local GM/Chevy dealer for courtesy cars, all (or maybe just some) came from the FBI in Memphis.
SR

Posted from iPhone

Oh my...we are now getting into the "dark side" of the AFT experience. If memory serves me, we both had "Friends" fly in from California that had to go back to
Little Rock because of airline tickets. If wrong please advise.  The AFT would usually get GM cars from a dealer you could check out for errands (see Jefferson City).
I believe that didn't happen for some reason in Memphis and the head of Security back in Bailey's Crossroads, Va., John Manning ex FBI of some 35 years or so
got us the unmarked FBI Chrysler police type cruisers. Driving back from Little Rock when the Arkansas Mountie lit up the car, well it was almost like Smokey and the Bandit. He notified
me he had the car at 76 in a 65 with radar, this caught me off guard. I mentioned being passed by 18 wheelers and others but to no avail. Then the real fun began,
he asked for license and registration. I handed him my California drivers license... Strike one. I started fumbling around in the glove compartment for the registration
wondering what I might find as I had never driven an FBI car before. I thought it my be licensed to the General Services Administration or something like that...Wrong.
The car was licensed to the FBI ar some address in Memphis if I remember correctly...Strike two. Boilingman and myself were asked to exit said vehicle as we did not
fit the profile of FBI agents. It was dark and standing next to a couple of Arkansas Troopers with the Smokey the bear hats just reminded me of I believe Chrysler ads
 of the recent past and the line "Boy...you in a heep of trouble". When it was all done and I believe Boilingman explaining the Freedom Train and how we got this car, and I'm
sure a radio call by the partner checking on ambushed FBI agents, we were set free. I was given a ticket for $30.00 that I could mail with a money order to some county seat
to get things right in Arkansas...Strike three. I did indeed do that not wanting trouble in Arkansas. Oh yeah, I haven't had a ticket since...see Chief, I've been good. I have some
interesting pictures of the stop in Memphis which I wouldn't be surprised if ble692 doesn't post as he has my slide collection. Interesting picture of me in the Firemans seat with a
hardhat. Didn't usually wear those in the seat, must have been doing some maintenance on the engine before the picture was taken and ascending to the seat for what we lovingly
called "soar throat duty" talking to visitors to the train.

sp3204 wrote:

> It was dark and standing next to a couple of Arkansas Troopers with the Smokey the bear hats just reminded me of I believe Chrysler ads of the recent past and the line "Boy...you in a heep (sic) of trouble."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az_gECAGXvE

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/21 10:58 by johnsweetser.

Here's Craig photos from Memphis.

1,2. The ICG was right across the road.
3. The antique steam pumper.

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More from Craig

4,5. Laying the track panels back down.

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More from Craig

6,7. Bolting things back together so they can get out of town

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For the record, the Memphis steam pumper was named "E.H. Crump" after a former mayor. Their department took it to many FD events in the midwest as a PR activity, not unlike certain railroads did with steam locomotives.

BoilingMan Wrote:
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> No, the car WAS an FBI car. John Manning (Mad
> Dog), the AFT’s head of security, was ex-FBI and
> obviously still “knew people”. So I guess he
> had friends in Memphis and rather than going
> through the local GM/Chevy dealer for courtesy
> cars, all (or maybe just some) came from the FBI
> in Memphis.
> SR
Then it becomes more interesting - It'd be quite a story to hear how the FBI Memphis boys CYA'd this episode, as Everything was reported to FBI HQ, especially something involving the Arkansas highway patrol.
For a long time (might still exist), there was an email listserv for retired FBI agents - "XG-boys". My father used to forward the more entertaining "now that the statute of limitations have passed" tales to me.

This photo answers a couple things I wondered about this site and the access to it. I understand that the site had no existing rail service or associated track, and that temporary panels were brought in and assembled for the duration of the stay, then removed and the site reverted back to its use as a parking lot. Gathering and assembling panel track is not that complicated an endeavor, but bringing in a switch and cutting it into an existing track is. 

 As I looked at various satellite images, I found the line used to bring the AFT to the site, but there is no switch for access to the site/parking lot. In Craig's last photo, it shows there actually was a switch in place, and it quite obviously is a switch that was there for some time prior to the trains arrival, but in the photo is appears to be a switch to nowhere. Since the road runs parallel to the tracks at a very close distance, and there is no sign of a crossing in either the current images, or in the photos from 1976, and we can see that panel track was laid across the road, it raises the question why is that switch there? My guess is that if that switch wasn't already in place, the advance team would never have been able to economically use this site, nor would it have even been suggested.       #strokeofluck

     Tom 

The PreAmbles and Flats were on some track in a lot just north of the parking lot that came off the main just north of where the panel track was laid.  I suspect the parking lot was relatively new at the time and the switch served whatever had been there before the lot. 
But you're right- it was a stoke of genius to have seen the stub switch and realized the opportunity-  good going Ed!
SR

Picture #3.  At a quick glance I thought Richard Pryor was in the fireman's seat.

I forgot about the FBI cars, that was funny. Memphis had the preambles down below the train correct? Another long time friend Larry Wines of Lancaster, hired on in Security shortly before I got hired in San Juan Capistrano. He earned his pilot's wings in a flying golf cart. He asked me where they were and I told him to get in and I'd take hime there. As we headed for the curb in the parking lot at full throttle he asked what the hell I was doing and I told him to hold on. We went up the dirt ramp at the curb and over a cliff with a walking path underneath the car at basically a 45 degree angle. We touched down about 2/3 down the embankment. He was white as Casper. We rolled to a stop at car 204, I told him that it would be 5 bucks for the cab ride. Going back up was just as fun because you would look like a Rat Patrol Jeep flying over a sand dune.