(taken November 5, 1974 by Ken Ziegenbein)
L&A tracks 4 miles southwest of Hope, Arkansas, looking south, Tuesday, November 5, 1974 at 1:30 p.m.
Louisiana & Arknasas freight depot at Hope, Arkansas, Tuesday, November 5, 1974 at 1:40 p.m. I am looking south.
Same photo, but scanned from the original negative, which I finally found.
L&A (Frisco) old passenger depot in Hope, Arkansas, looking north, November 4, 1974. I lightened the photo up considerable to show the doors and windows of the depot. The photo just above is from my original negative, the one above that is from the matte print. I left them both in.
Here are some comments I received regarding the above two depot photos from someone who once worked for the Missouri Pacific in Hope:
"I enjoyed looking at your Nov 24 post on the Current Rail pictures on your Train Weather site (the pictures of the short lines from 1974). This is regarding your photos of the L&A at Hope Arkansas. I was a MoPac operator at Hope and Gurdon from 1971 to 1975. I worked my first day on the railroad in the MoPac Hope depot that you have pictured in a following
link. The first photo of the building with the "L&A Freight Depot" sign on it was also used as the station agents office. I remember his Chevy pickup that is parked next to the building. His name was Martinez. The building with the tiled roof in the next picture is the Frisco office. They came into Hope from the northwest out of Valliant Ok (now the Kiamichi Railroad). This was in the days when we had to deliver cars/waybills before midnight to get the cars off our "per diem" and I delivered waybillsto both offices many times.
In the picture of the Frisco depot, the track closest to the camera is the L&A lead that the MoPac used to deliver and receive from both railroads (still uses for the KRR). The track closest to the depot is the Frisco main.
In the picture of the L&A depot, the track closest to the depot is the L&A lead with the tracks to the right being the Frisco main and the Frisco yard. The L&A yard was farther down in the distance where the track seems to end at the trees.
I grew up in Hope. When the L&A had passenger service to Hope they used the Mopac depot to load and discharge passengers. This was before I started with the MP but I do remember once as a kid, an L&A conductor let me ride with him on the empty passenger car as they backed from the MP depot to their yard, where they parked overnight before returning to Shreveport early the next morning.
Thanks again for an interesting railroad web site."