Nostalgia & History > Maroon Monday: A Rock Island Freight Beginning to End in 1964

From the approaching EMD rumble to the caboose fading away to each joint, here's a look at a northbound Rock Island freight traveling through Oklahoma. I believe these were taken in Frank Tribbey's hometown of Medford, OK.

1) A quartet of pinstriped maroon EMD's (Two F's and two GP's) take lead approaching Mr. Tribbey.

2) The consist throttles up out of town with loads of coal, possibly from the southeast region of the state near the head end.

3) Some sort of special load rides on three flat cars 19 cars from the head end.

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4) More miscellaneous freight towards the rear.

5) Five trailers bring up the rear ahead of the caboose, with windows open for A/C in the summer heat.

Taken by Frank Tribbey in July of 1964
PQM

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 Interesting photos, especially the gondolas converted to intermodal service at the rear of the train!

         Track still in pretty good shape back in the early 60's. Won't last long however.

         The odd loads back in the train may be two upright cement storage tanks belonging to Halliburton and the center car has a scale tank and I-beam frame. If this is correct it is probably going to a new bulk plant construction site and probably came from the shop in Duncan, Okla.

Pretty cool, thanks for sharing!

Neat sequence.
Brian Stevens

That entire train from the power to the caboose looks like it came right out of the Lionel model train catalog!

Thanks for sharing the great group of photos. Very interesting to see the Might Fine Line when it could legitimately use that line.

Oh for someone to take photos of every car in that train and then the next train and the next .... What a wonderful collection that would be !
 

The Rock Island in the sixties used gondolas when they were short of flats which was just about all the time as their piggyback traffic ws growing rapidly.  As far as i know these were circus loaded.
Dick Eisfeller

A C&IM box is a rare bird.
Clarence

What a cool series! Very enjoyable!

Larry

dcfbalcoS1 Wrote:

>          Track still in pretty good shape
> back in the early 60's. Won't last long however.

Rock Island freight "beginning to end" in more ways than one.

The two trucks at the crossing are cool too!

Dick Wrote:
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> The Rock Island in the sixties used gondolas when
> they were short of flats which was just about all
> the time as their piggyback traffic ws growing
> rapidly.  As far as i know these were circus
> loaded.
To clarify, the gons were re-built with 5th wheels in order to handle trailers.  Later they were -re-re-built to company tieservice.
zr190

Excellent photos.
Thanks for the memories.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

Incredible series!

What a great collection taken when freight trains were interesting, unlike today.  And not a single tagged car!

A beautiful train and with NO graffiti.  Thanks for the incredible shots of better times!