Book Review by Jerry Michels, Jr.

Missouri Pacific Lines Freight Train Services and Equipment.
by Patrick C. Dorin  
TLC Publishing, Inc.  Hardbound, color covers (no dust jacket), 144 pages, including 250 photos (34 in color), map, locomotive diagrams, equipment roster, table of contents. No index.  

From the outset, Mr. Dorin states that the book "provides a start by presenting the wide variety of freight services and equipment operated during the 'transformational half-century' period between the 1930s and 1980s", so we should not assume that this book will be a detailed history of the Missouri Pacific's freight trains, operations, and equipment spanning the 1930-1980 period.   The book consists of 11 chapters, two appendices, and a bibliography.   Chapter One gives a rather good corporate background that sets the stage for the rest of the book.   Chapters Two through Five describe Missouri Pacific operations for merchandise freights, coal trains, ore trains, and TOFC/COFC, respectively.   The book then takes a rather abrupt change.   The nest four chapters describe through photos, captions, and a brief introductory text; boxcars and refrigerator cars (Chapter Six), covered hoppers (Chapter Seven), gondolas and flat cars (Chapter Eight), and work equipment and cabooses (Chapter Nine).   Chapter Ten is a gallery of color photos, and Chapter Eleven comments on the Union Pacific and provides photos of Missouri Pacific freight cars with hybrid MP reporting marks and UP shields.   Appendix I contains copies of the October 1956 and October 1976 Official Railway Equipment Register, and Appendix II contains a selection of company steam and diesel locomotive equipment register diagrams.   There is a bibliography, however, it will be of little use for further study.   Most entries are for MoPac News (the company house organ), timetables, and other company documents.   Five of the eleven entries are on coal traffic.
 
Good quality black and white photos abound and are typically well-captioned.   The majority of these are often-seen Missouri Pacific company photos, although sufficient new photos are scattered throughout the book to keep it interesting.   The author also uses reproductions of company advertising throughout the book to reinforce thoughts on corporate strategies, which are a nice addition.   There seems to be a little tilt toward photos from the Chicago area, but this may be illusory because of the fact that for much of the 1930-1980s time period Chicago did not figure into Missouri Pacific history, and any photos from that region seem to stick out in a book such as this.
 
Color photos, on the other hand, are poorly handled.   Color rendition of the diesels (all 'Jenks Blue' by the way) are much too purple, and the caboose photos are “stunningly” red to the point of glowing.   The six color boxcar photos include an Eagle Merchandise car and three paint variants of the same car, i.e. four of six are the same type of car in different dress.   The remainder of the color photos range from acceptable to poor.
 
Delving a little more into the individual chapters, I find Chapters Two through Five to be the core of the book.   Chapter Two describes general merchandise freights, perishable schedules and also touches on oil and stock trains.   The text is quite readable and flows nicely.   There is interesting information about train schedules and designations, and the Transportation Control System (or TCS) for which the Missouri Pacific was famous.   The bulk of the chapter focuses on the 1960s through 1980s, and concludes with an informative table of freight train symbols from 1983.   It would have been nice to see some new maps showing perishable and stock traffic operations, since both were important during most of the period covered in the book.   Generally, trains and operations in the 1960s-1980s timeframe are well documented with relevant photos while similar topics from the 1930s-1950s era are only embellished with a photo or two.   Chapter Three concentrates on the Missouri Pacific's coal traffic.   The coverage is thorough, and describes the depth of the Missouri Pacific’s involvement in the Southern Illinois coal fields and its relations with coal transfer points along the Mississippi River.   Mention is also made of the expanding western coal business and unit train service.   A photo selection of relatively modern coal hoppers is included.   Chapter Four describes the iron ore business.   This is an interesting chapter describing operations both a Pea Ridge and Pilot Knob, although this chapter could easily have been included in the coal chapter, and more room given to other operations such as perishable traffic which far outstripped any Missouri Pacific iron ore business.   The final chapter on operations and traffic, Chapter Five, covers the development of intermodal services on the railroad.   This is an informative chapter, and one which uses a good combination of early and late era photos to enhance the text.   The company philosophy on intermodal traffic and the various new “Eagle” trains that were born out of the new way of handling freight traffic are well documented.
 
Chapters Six through Nine are typical of the many “pictorial” book layouts (although black and white in this case).   There are some interesting photos and a good cross-section of Missouri Pacific rolling stock is shown, although no wooden cars, and only one reefer and stock car photo are included.   At a glance the photos and captions seem accurate, but I find several problems in the caboose material, where I would be the most versed.   On page 85 the author states that window configurations varied from one builder to another when writing about opposite-side views of cabooses from the same builder (ACF 700-series wooden cabooses).   No differentiation is made between original Missouri Pacific, C&EI, and Texas and Pacific cabooses.   On page 88 is a caption about caboose 12340 being one of two in this group, the other being the 12325.   This isn't correct.   Caboose 12340 (ex-13340, nee-1056) is a Sedalia steel caboose built in 1948, and the 12325 (ex-13325, nee-1041) is a DeSoto riveted steel caboose.   There were a lot of the Sedalia and DeSoto cabooses demoted to local service over the years.   A photo of a T&P extended vision caboose is captioned as one of Missouri Pacific's 50 EV's (13605-13644), when in reality the Missouri Pacific had 91 EV's (13515-13605) and T&P added an additional 59 (13606-13664) to the roster, for a total of 150.   I point these items out not to be overly picky, but to illustrate problems that maybe associated with other aspects of the roster with which I am not familiar.   On page 99, short bay window caboose 13907 is specified as a 'CA-11 type of MoPac caboose'.   As with some assuming the short bay window cabooses were all transfer cabooses, there seems to be a line of thought that the Missouri Pacific cabooses of this type descended from Union Pacific cabooses.   The reverse of this story is the fact.   The Union Pacific borrowed one of the Missouri Pacific's new short bay window cabooses, and it became the basis for the UP's CA-11 class cabooses.        
 
I have to say this book was difficult to review for a couple of reasons.   First, I looked forward to its publication for almost a year, and had high expectations for a book about Missouri Pacific "freight train services and equipment".   I hoped that maybe this would be similar to Charlie Zlatkovich's effort with his book, Texas and Pacific Railway: Operations and Traffic, but with many more photos.   Secondly, I have to admit a personal bias toward the 128 and 144 page wonders that permeate the railroad publication business these days.   Although I understand the concept of limiting book size to standardize production and costs, I just don't like it.   A book on any subject should be written to tell a story.   Telling a 500-page story in a 144-page book is like wearing shoes that are too small, they may look good, but in the end leave a lot to be desired.   This could have been a monumental and valuable work if it was expanded to about three times its published size, and more effort given to the 1930s-1950s era.   All this being said, the book does fill a niche as a primer on Missouri Pacific trains and operations, and will find a place in most MPHS members' libraries.