Nostalgia & History > Uncle Oliver (#35): How 'bout an L&A Pacific!

Here’s another morsel of steam history from “Uncle” Oliver Gibson that sent me digging into Wikipedia. Thank goodness, because I knew very little about the history & interaction between the KCS and the L&A railways. Amazing the info you can find if you know where & how to look! Here’s a snippet from Wiki:

“The Harvey Couch interests began purchasing stock of the Kansas City Southern Railway in 1937. After gaining control of the KCS in 1939 a decision was made to merge the two properties. Kansas City Southern was the surviving corporation with the Louisiana & Arkansas as a KCS subsidiary, but the KCS president and the controlling stockholders were all from the L&A. This merger created "single line" railroad freight service between Kansas City and New Orleans and on September 2, 1940 a new KCS-L&A diesel powered streamliner, the Southern Belle, was inaugurated to connect the two cities.”

1. L&A 4-6-2 #800 sits in Shreveport, LA in October of 1950.
Photograph from the Oliver Gibson collection courtesy of Art Gibson

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels (santafe199)
Art Gibson (wag216) … in honor of Uncle Ollie



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/01/22 20:29 by santafe199.

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A live steam 1/8th scale engine , a copy of a KCS 4-6-2 was built and owned by a fella in Kansas City who has passed away. I believe the engine was given to the KCS office in K.C..

K. Vollrath was the man and he was a KCS officer in his later years. Also, "K" was a great friend and I got to meet him when I was just 8 years old.
And, yes, I was able to have some throttie time on both of his 7 1/4 gauge locos. Later, he gave me all of his 127 negatives and they are still in my files. I am blessed more than I deserve, many times over. wag216

I've got some Louisiana & Arkansas RR envelopes that I picked up in Jefferson Texas in 1980.

wag216 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> K. Vollrath was the man and he was a KCS officer
> in his later years. Also, "K" was a great friend
> and I got to meet him when I was just 8 years
> old.
> And, yes, I was able to have some throttie time on
> both of his 7 1/4 gauge locos. Later, he gave me
> all of his 127 negatives and they are still in my
> files. I am blessed more than I deserve, many
> times over. wag216


Okay, Art, it's H.K. Volrath, a well known railfan as well as a KCS official.

Lance: It's interesting to read how the L&A took over the KCS, but kept the KCS
corporate name. We can cite chapter and verse on this in modern time. Best
examples: DRGW took over SP, kept SP name; MOP took over UP, kept UP name;
and while BN merged the Frisco into itself, the Frisco management took over
running the surviving entity. It just goes to show there's nothing new
in railroad owner ship.

Thanks for posting.

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

Neat looking engine, kind of funny not having a builders plate on the smokebox door.
Gonut