Summer 2002 issue

IN EVERY ISSUE

Soo News
WC News
Editor's Report
Executive Report
Gallery
Rip Track
Letters
Transfer Table
Less-Than-Carload

STAFF

Editor
Rick Johnson

Associate Editor
Ken Soroos

Associate Editor/Soo News
Jason Korth

Soo News
tom Mastoras

Wiconsin Central News
Galen Fromm

Modeling Editor
Chuck Derus

Contributing Editors
Andy Roth, Guy Kieckhefer, Doug Fleming

Editorial Consultants
Jack Witmer, Gregg Condon

Technical Consultants
Stuart J. Nelson, Wallace W. Abbey

Commercial Accounts
Joe Lallensack

Advertising Manager
Burnell Breaker

Back Issues
John Strenski

Summer 2002 Issue Hightlights

The Armourdale Line

In 1980, if one were seeing the Soo Line’s Armourdale branch for the first time, he would likely conclude that the executive decision makers had taken leave of their senses 75 years earlier. Here was a branch line, built off another branch line, running 22 miles northwest of Egeland, North Dakota, to serve three small grain elevators on the sparsely settled prairie. In addition, a competing railroad paralleled it within two miles for its entire distance.

Before rushing to judgment, we must adopt the old Indian proverb and “walk a mile in their moccasins.”

To understand the Armourdale Line history, the rationale for the Soo Line’s “Wheat Line” must first be summarized. The power struggle between President James J. Hill of the Great Northern Railroad and the Canadian Pacific-Soo Line continued on several fronts. From 1900 to 1905 a bitter confrontation was in progress involving the new rapidly developing wheat producing territory between Grand Forks and Minot, North Dakota.

At that time Thomas Lowry was president of the Soo Line. Because he had many other concerns, he delegated the handling of most of the Soo Line’s affairs to Edmund Pennington, his General Manager. Soo Line founder W. D. Washburn was on the Soo Line’s Board of Directors at that time. History designates Hill’s adversary as Pennington.

The Great Northern had completed its main line from Grand Forks to Minot and beyond. The GN was next in the process of building one-ended branch lines running in a northwest direction out of main line stations between Grand Forks and Minot. This system was designed to monopolize the entire newly developing territory. It placed shippers’ rates at the mercy of one transportation supplier.

The Soo Line, through its earlier association with W. D. Washburn, had many friends in the milling business. They pleaded with Pennington to build a competing east-west railroad line across North Dakota to the north of and parallel to the Great Northern main line.

The Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic Railroad’s Baldwin Road Switchers By Andy Roth During the 1940s the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic was undergoing financial reorganization. The railroad’s steam locomotives were old and tired. DSS&A locomotives were serviced by the Soo Line while they laid over between trains at Superior, Wisconsin. Soo Line mechanics found that the DSS&A sometimes used barbed wire to tie items together on their steam locomotives. In fact, a number of railroaders in the Duluth-Superior area nicknamed the DSS&A “The Haywire.”

To replace their tired steam locomotives and to try to gain cost savings, the DSS&A management went looking at diesel locomotives. The first steps toward dieselization on the South Shore were taken with the purchase of 100-series Alco RS-1s, two in 1945 and five more in 1947. These initial DSS&A diesel purchases caught the attention of Baldwin. One of their field representatives, Mr. Tom Kearney, made contact with the DSS&A through his uncle Frank Kearney. Mr. Frank Kearney worked for American Air Gauge in Minneapolis. Tom Kearney knew locomotives before he began working for Baldwin. His father was the General Foreman for the Great Northern’s roundhouse at Allouez (Superior), Wisconsin. Earlier in his career Tom had also worked for the GN at this roundhouse. In 1949, Baldwin was the only manufacturer offering six-axle powered locomotives (DRS-6-6-1500 and DT-6-6-2000), and thus had a leg up on other manufactures with higher tractive effort and less tonnage-per-axle. In 1949 Baldwin delivered three DRS-6-6-1500 locomotives, numbered 200-202, along with three center-cab DT-6-6-2000 locomotives, numbered 300-302. Baldwin was the first manufacturer to build a single diesel locomotive with 2000 horsepower. The center-cab locomotive was actually two 1000-hp engines mounted on one frame with the engineer’s cab in the middle. The DSS&A added to its initial Baldwin fleet in August 1950 by purchasing the demonstrator DRS-6-6-1500 and the demonstrator DT-6-6-2000, which became locomotives 203 and 303 respectively. For employee safety, the DSS&A ordered all of its road switchers from Alco and Baldwin to operate long hood forward. Officially the DSS&A’s diesel locomotives were referred to as D-1 class for the 100-107, D-2 class for the 200-211, and D-3 class for the 300-303. However, they were also called 100 class, 200 class and 300 class respectively.

Table 1: DSS&A Baldwin Road Switchers

Orange and yellow Soo boxcars?

by Chuck Derus and Guy N. Kieckhefer

This is a great time for modelers. In every scale new freight cars are coming on the market at a pace that outstrips our ability to pay for them. Athearn recently introduced their 5800-series Pullman-Standard (P-S) 5344 cubic foot boxcar in HO scale. The model sets a new standard for Athearn freight cars with a very high level of prototype fidelity, separately applied details and prototype-only paint schemes. The best source for information about the prototype cars is Jim Eager’s May 2000 Railmodel Journal article. These higher capacity cars represented the bulk of cars built by P-S for the incentive per-diem car-building boom of the late 1970s.

By the early 1980s the Soo Line came under competitive pressure to provide 50-foot 77- and 100-ton 11-foot interior height boxcars particularly to the paper trade. The Soo Line’s immediate response in late 1983 was to lease 125 such cars, 50 Pullman-Standard 11'-1" high 5344 cu. ft. 100-ton boxcars originally leased to the Waterloo Railroad Company (WLO) and 75 ACF ll'-0" high 5317 cu. ft. 77-ton boxcars previously included in Itel’s GBW 7200–7407 car series.

Photos: Each issue of the SOO includes a Gallery photo section, plus a full-page color photo on the back cover.

The back cover of the summer 2002 issue shows FP7 2500 on an excursion train in Duluth, Minnesota, on the North Shore Scenic RR., crossing Tischler Creek on September 29, 2001—Steve Glischinski.

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