Laid Back Railroading – Southern Style (Part 1)

By Brian K The St. Tammany & Gulf (St.T&G) is not a real railroad, only a fictitious one, a short line that first took up residence in my mind about 50 years ago.  I won’t delve into all the whys and wherefores of how the name came about.  Suffice to say it reflects the locales

Pecos! 1978-1984

By B. Smith I feel really fortunate to have witnessed the PVS when it was still a true short line, serving quite a number of customers receiving one or two cars at a time.  Sure, the gravel quarry was its main source of income, but it didn’t neglect the occasional rail shipper/receiver.  A shadow of

La Linda Awakens, Part 1

La Linda is normally a pretty quiet place. You hear a few diesel engines and electric motors and a bit of clanging across the river at the mine. When the wind is right, you can also hear the church bells across the river on Saturday evening to announce that la misa is about to begin. Flora’s,

Traffic on lower end of the South Orient in early 1993

By B. Smith and CE Hunt Here are notes from runs in 1993. This is based on actual traffic. We have gone back and looked at actual traffic patterns to get inspiration and reference material for our La Linda Canyon Northern Railway and Presidio & Northern Railway operations even though both of these operations are

A Regular Day in La Linda…or is it? (Part 1)

By. B. Smith It was a mild winter day on the border when I caught the daily freight just as it arrived in La Linda. It was running a little early. Perfect weather, 75 degrees, mild breeze from the south and partly overcast. They brought the newer trainmaster down from Marathon today. Haven’t seen “the

New Year’s Eve run on the LCN

By B. Smith It’s been a prosperous year in La Linda, at least for the business owners, so a celebration was in order.  What better way to bring in the New Year than with a train ride to Marathon — dinner in the famous Gage Hotel and a big fireworks display afterwards, then back to

Oklahoma Drilling mud and a rare visitor to the Southwest Spur

By B. Smith and CE Hunt These days Drill-Tex is obtaining most of their drilling mud from a plant in Oklahoma along the MKT. I wondered over and snapped a couple of pictures yesterday. Stepping back a bit, I was able to get the other MKT hopper in the picture and the PC hopper as

Imagination and Modeling (and a little more Background on the Presidio and Northern)

I recently wrote a post on my non-rail blog site entitled, “Readers Wanted.” In this post, I made the point that imagination plays a big role when we read because a writer can never fully describe any scene or even mood. We can never fully model a railroad. The Presidio & Northern Railway, my fictitious

Short train on the “The Canyon Route”

By B. Smith Another day moving fluorspar from La Linda to Marathon.  Here the daily La Linda Canyon Northern train is arriving in La Linda, Texas with three empties for fluorspar loading and their old wooden caboose bought back in the 1950’s from the MKT. The train proceeds down to the stock pens. The entire