Nostalgia & History > Art visits Fairview OK

Here are a half-dozen Art Gibson slide scans I’ve had in the hopper for a while. It looks like he caught a local train parked at the old KCM&O depot here in Fairview, OK. I’m unable to tell you what local # this train carried at the time. Perhaps someone with knowledge of Santa Fe operations in that part of the Sooner State can provide some info here...

1. & 2. AT&SF 3501 poses in a couple of ‘train shots’.

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3. & 4. AT&SF waycar 999315 is astern.

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5. & 6. The Santa Fe depot shows us some old KCM&O architecture.
All photos taken in Fairview, OK in August of 1974 by William A. -Art- Gibson (WAG) Jr.

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels (santafe199)
Art Gibson (wag216)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/23 01:24 by santafe199.

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Well-crafted images - Photo four is a great scene.
Bob

shade is the place to  be!

Very nice series, not much SF from Oklahoma on here. Cajon, too much, Oklahoma, not much...

JG

Neat shots indeed.  The Orient built the Fairview depot in 1904, but Santa Fe extended the freight room in 1931, which explains the different shade of roofing material and the simple gabled roof on that end versus the Dutch gable on the waiting room end.  I think Fairview was where locals on that part of the former KCM&O were based in later years.

Very nice shots!

RC Lundgren

Very NICE series!!

Larry

Looks like the scanning software didn't like the 1 being on the cupola of the caboose in photo #3.   Looks odd to see a two digit number up there.   

Milwaukee Wrote: > ...  Looks like the scanning software didn't like the 1 being on the cupola ...

Yeah (heh heh) I was going to mention that, but just plum forgot. I probably have dozens of Gibson scans that will have that particular scan flaw show up... :^/

Lance/199

I worked the Wellington KS to Fairview local for 2 or 3 weeks in the summer of 1969 as a trainman.  Don't recall what the number of it was.  Another crew worked from Fairview to Altus with Fairview being their home terminal.  I never worked it as quit at the end of the summer and went back to college.  Seeing those caboose pictures reminds me of a story.

A Wellington trainman working the Fairview to Altus job got hooked up with a Fairview girl and they got married on a caboose there in Fairview.  Everything was fine until a picture of them and the minister ON the end of the caboose appeared on the front page of the Fairview newspaper with an article about it.  I know the trainman was removed from service and I don't think he ever got back.  That seems kinda harsh punishment but maybe Wayne didn't want to come back.

I could tell another story about my experience in Fairview but doubt if anyone would want to hear it. 

Soooo, Santa Fe had no room for love, eh !  Tsk, tsk.

KskidinTx Wrote: > ...  I could tell another story ... but doubt if anyone would want to hear it ... 

Au contraire, my friend! You'd be surprised how well an authentic railroader's story will be received! And you don't know until you try. By all means, regale us with your tale. Besides, it just might spur another rail's memory banks... :^)

Lance 

In Summer of 1973 I was forced assigned to the Fairview Chain Gang on the Plains Division side to Kiowa.  I worked 3 round trips with a conductor who was beyond bad.  I decided it was time to go back to college.  The turn ran at night which was okay at that time during the summer.  I remember one station enroute we had to stop at to get a train order and we had to go wake up the on-call train order clerk who was asleep in his car to get us fixed-up with the DS for one leg of our trip.  Just moving grain hoppers for the trips on the line.  There was absolutely nothing to do in Fairview.  The hotel that was about 5 bucks a night was different.....

Well here goes another story.  There was a real pretty blond waitress there in Fairview that I was attempting to get to know better.  (By the way I was not married at the time).  She told me privately that our engineer really thought I was the greatest, had even saved him his job.  What?  I don't remember saving him his job.  She said it was something about a switch.  Oh, okay.  I now know what he was talking about.

We were coming into Wellington too fast and a switch at the west end was not lined.  I jumped off and ran as hard as I could and just got the high star switch's handle up out of the notch as the locomotive's wheels came sliding through the switch points.  Whew.  No damage.  The engineer was carrying 55 demerits at the time and running through the switch would have put him over the 60 demerit limit and he probably would have been removed from service.

The next eastbound trip out of Fairview resulted in another experience.  We were in the first or second siding east of Kiowa and filled the siding up.  In stopping the train we got a knuckle about 60 cars deep.  Normally one would throw off a new knuckle, pull the head portion up, load the new knuckle on the car on the point and shove back to near the rear portion.  We couldn't do that in this case as we had the siding full and the DS couldn't give us the main line to use for 2 or 3 hours account he had 3 or 4 hot shots to run around us.  Instead of just sitting there I got the crazy idea of carrying the new knuckle back to the point of the train separation.  I put a broom handle through the hole in the knuckle and pulled it against my belly.  Well I finally got it back there, got the trouble fixed up and we went on to Wellington.  I don't ever plan on doing a stupid stunt like that again.  By the way, it was in the middle of the afternoon in the middle of summer.  In other words, it was HOT.

This engineer I was working with was a really nice guy but he just didn't have good train handling skills.  As to the blond?  She even drove to Wellington to see me once.  Things may have worked out but I ended up quitting on the Plains Div. and going back to school in Emporia.  That was a good move on my part as I got back on as a fireman out of Emporia that Dec.                                     



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/22 18:03 by KskidinTx.