The St. Louis-San Francisco Railway, Ship it on the Frisco!

The St. Louis-San Francisco Railway, commonly known as simply the "Frisco" has a storied history of two halves. During the railroad’s first 60 years it had a very interesting and tumultuous history going through a number of name changes and bankruptcies (resulting in so many names). However, after its final name as the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway, the railroad did quite well and prospered for its last 60+ years of operation before becoming part of the large Burlington Northern system in the very early 1980s.

From this point the Frisco’s history becomes extremely complicated up until its final name change as the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway. Fremont’s ownership of the line was brief as he defaulted on its payments and it was reorganized as the South Pacific Railroad in 1868, and just two years later was again renamed this time as the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad! Also unable to become profitable it again entered receivership, sold, and emerged in 1876 as the St. Louis & San Francisco Railway.

Soon the railroad was stretching out across not only Missouri but also Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Kansas by the late 19th century. While the Frisco would indeed serve St. Louis as its name implies it would never reach the Pacific Coast and San Francisco or California at all for that matter. It’s predecessor, the A&P, was originally planned to do just this and the new St. Louis & San Francisco carried through with these plans but was thwarted by the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific in the late 19th century. That story in itself is quite complicated but in short Santa Fe wound up controlling the SL&SF in 1890 but was forced to spin it off just two years later in lieu of the 1893 stock market panic that caused both railroads to fall into bankruptcy.

Once again independent and now known as the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad the company lost its rail line into California and would remain a Midwestern road serving points to the south and southwest for the rest of its life, never reaching the coast as its name implied. Still struggling by the early 20th century the railroad again fell into receivership, this time in 1913. It reemerged in 1916 as the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway, as it is best known today.

For the next roughly 30 years the railroad pressed on and actually did quite well upgrading its lines and even signaling a large section of its railroad. This attention to its physical plant would pay off when it fell into yet another bankruptcy during the Great Depression. While it would take the railroad until 1947 to emerge from its final receivership it exited a well-maintained, upgraded railroad very ready for the future.

Perhaps the largest boost to the Frisco began in the 1960s and 1970s when industries began moving to the south and the regions it served whereby it not only diversified the railroad’s traffic base but also increased it exponentially! Of course, as is almost always the case, success does not go unnoticed and as the railroad prospered other larger lines began taking interest, eventually being purchased by the Burlington Northern in 1980.

The reason the BN chose the Frisco was because the railroad gave the BN a much more diversified traffic base and extended it into the southeastern regions of Memphis, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and the Gulf Coast (which today contains very lucrative chemical traffic business). While the Frisco’s life ended in the late fall of 1980 its legacy certainly lives on under the now-BNSF Railway as an important artery to the Gulf Coast and Southeast regions.

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For an excellent listing of EMD-built diesel locomotives, including those owned by the Frisco please click here. Lastly, please click here to locate preserved Frisco diesel locomotives.

The American Locomotive Company

The Baldwin Locomotive Works

Electro-Motive Division

Fairbanks Morse

General Electric

For a more complete roster of St. Louis-San Francisco Railway steam locomotives please click here. Also, for information regarding surviving Frisco steam locomotives please click here.

Notable St. Louis-San Francisco Railroad Passenger Trains

Texas Special

Black Gold: (Tulsa - Fort Worth)

Firefly: (Tulsa - Oklahoma City)

Kansas City-Florida Special: (Kansas City - Jacksonville)

Memphian: (St. Louis - Memphis)

Meteor: (St. Louis - Oklahoma City/Fort Smith)

Oklahoman: Originally connected Kansas City and Tulsa and later served St. Louis and Oklahoma City.

Southland: (Kansas City - Birmingham)

Sunnyland: (Kansas City/St. Louis - Atlanta/Pensacola)

Will Rogers: (St. Louis - Oklahoma City/Wichita)

(A deep thanks to the Museum of the Rockies at Montana State University for allowing Ron Nixon's historic collection of the Frisco steam locomotives to be featured here. Please note that the photos featured on this page feature their corresponding image number so that you may quickly and easily find more information about it from their website. To view Ron Nixon's entire collection please click here.)

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