Another Set of Twins

In my April 8th and April 22nd posts, I introduced you to a couple of twin locomotives working for the Minneapolis, Northfield & Southern Railway. They were Baldwin-built locomotives. The twin locomotives pictured on the front of this post card are Fairbanks-Morse model H-12-44 switchers.

(the “H” tells us that is it a Hood unit, the “10” indicates that it produces 1,000 horsepower, and the 4 shows us that it has four axles and four traction motors) They are working on the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway (the Frisco line). Here they are pulling a freight in February of 1970, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Fairbanks-Morse H-12-44 was a switcher locomotive produced from May 1950 until March 1961. The units had a six-cylinder opposed piston engine prime mover, and were configured in a B-B wheel arrangement mounted atop a pair of two-axle AAR Type-A switcher trucks, with all axles powered and geared for a top speed of 60 miles per hour. Of the 336 H-12-44 locomotives produced, 303 were for American railroads, 30 were made between August 1951 to June 1956 by the Canadian Locomotive Company for use in Canada, and one was exported to Mexico. This website tells us some of the history of the Railroad to which the locomotives on the front of this post card belonged: https://frisco.org/mainline/about-the-frisco-railroad/ The St. Louis–San Francisco Railway (affectionately known as the “Frisco”) was a St. Louis-based railroad that operated in nine Midwest and southern states from 1876 to 1980. The railroad stretched from Kansas City to Pensacola and St. Louis to Oklahoma City and Dallas, having some of the most iconic motive power, logos and slogans in the history of railroading. The Frisco was also renowned for excellent passenger service led by some of the best-looking steam locomotives ever built, and celebrated for fast freight hauling behind steam locomotives of its own design as well as diesels in the later era. Born as a branch of the great Pacific Railroad project of the mid-19th Century, the Frisco became a separate entity that helped to feed the population of a growing nation, helped build its factories and ship those factories’ products, helped win two World Wars, and helped to carry Americans East and West, North and South in style and comfort. In the 104 years of its separate existence, it became a major corporation that provided the best service possible to its customers while treating its employees like a big family, never losing the homey touch. The Frisco merged with, and was assimilated into, the Burlington Northern on November 21, 1980, but most of its lines are still in service today with the BNSF or various short lines.

This post card is another of the post cards in my collection from Audio Visual Designs. It looks like the post card was commissioned by the Frisco line for distribution by them. The photo is by Mac Owen.