Nostalgia & History > Need some KATY diesel help

This is a post card of a Howard Fogg painting. It is identified as Katy Train No. 1, the new TEXAS SPECIAL.

I looked at a KATY diesel roster and couldn't find a #1965. Am I blind, or did Howard Fogg make up the number? What model of diesel is it? Any info about the Texas Special? Thanks, guys and gals!

BLS

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I don't know where Fogg got that number, but I don't remember any MKT diesels with 4-digit numbers.

Maybe he was using poetic license. Or, and I hadn't thought of this before, maybe that is the year he painted the picture!

Anyone got any info on when the "New" Texas Special started or its history?

BLS

It was and maybe still is quite common to do that on some paintings to date them. More common on advertizing though, remember the old EMD adds. They dated some that way by putting the 'year' into the numberboards.

Fogg possibly painted this for the Katy PR department; the "New Texas Special" might have debuted in 1965. This is when John W. Barriger was president of the railroad. Fogg and Barriger's relationship went back to JWB's presidency of the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie, when Fogg painted several P&LE pieces for the railroad.

The unit is one of the GP40s that Barriger bought. As far as artistic license goes, the logo on the nose of Katy diesels wasn't that large, either.

poffcapt Wrote:

> I looked at a KATY diesel roster and couldn't find
> a #1965.

Is there a date on the card? It has a holiday feel. The number may reflect the year.

Africansteam

If I'm not mistaken the "New Texas Special" was an expedited freight schedule between Kansas City and Dallas; I'm pretty sure it lasted (in some incarnation or another) right up to the UP merger. That's about all I know on the subject....

Also if you look closely at the lead unit, Fogg has painted two large radiator fans separated by a space, like a GP35. MKT didn't have any GP35's. My guess is that it was intended as a PR piece with the year in the numberboards and the latest power shown on speculation that it would be bought.

atsf5704 Wrote:
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> Also if you look closely at the lead unit, Fogg
> has painted two large radiator fans separated by a
> space, like a GP35. MKT didn't have any GP35's.
> My guess is that it was intended as a PR piece
> with the year in the numberboards and the latest
> power shown on speculation that it would be
> bought.

The frame and fuel tank have GP35 characteristics, too. Your point makes sense, given that EMD was still building GP35's in 1965.

Did the Katy run where there was snow on a regular basis? :)

wabash2800 Wrote:
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> Did the Katy run where there was snow on a regular
> basis? :)


Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma for sure. And don't forget that last year some parts of south-central Texas got almost a foot of snow!

Could this also have been an artist concept?

i.e. EMD commissioned Fogg to paint a GP35 up in Barriger Red and give to MKT to say "Hey, this is what a GP35 would look like if you bought some, hint, hint" ???

WichitaJct Wrote:
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> I don't know where Fogg got that number, but I
> don't remember any MKT diesels with 4-digit
> numbers.

Bet you that 1965 was the year that this was done for EMD.... what do you think?

"Could this also have been an artist concept?

i.e. EMD commissioned Fogg to paint a GP35 up in Barriger Red and give to MKT to say "Hey, this is what a GP35 would look like if you bought some, hint, hint" ???"

But if Berriger and Fogg were friends as another reader said, then I would think that would put somewhat of a strain on the relationship because EMD would be using Fogg to get to Barriger.

I think the "1965" is probably the date. The post card was made by Curt Teich & Co. of Chicago and the format fits the late 1960's.

I believe Barriger commissioned Fogg to do several publicity paintings for the Katy shortly after the former came to be Katy's president. There's one famous painting Fogg did of a Katy train passing in front of Eisenhower's birthplace in Denison. (The Katy tracks at that spot were torn out shortly after the UP-Katy merger, to permanently sever the route from Denison to Greenville.)