Avard, OK interchange

[TM Ten Wheeler]

In 1911, Frisco and Santa Fe had through passenger service via Avard.

 

[OWTX]

The Avard gateway was original from the 1908 completion of the AT&SF Belen cutoff. The QA&P Floydada connection didn't exist until 1928, and the ICC decision to permit the QA&P to act as a transcon gateway wasn't approved until 1937. That didn't eliminate the Frisco Avard routing, it just allowed the QA&P to market the Floydada gateway. They did this aggressively with their own in-house marketing staff. Conventional wisdom is Frisco did this to get a better cut on the longer hauls via Floydada, but I suspect the real get was running the revenue through a Texas shell company.

[OWTX]

Change of track ownership was at Avard, but that was never more than a switch. Frisco trains terminated at Waynoka, about eleven miles west on the ATSF:

"In 1908 the Santa Fe Railway made Waynoka a division point and built Oklahoma's largest rail yards, operating twenty-four hours a day and eventually employing about one thousand machinists, boilermakers, sheet metal mechanics, fire builders, car men, switchmen, engineers, and others. Said to be the nation's largest, the ice plant built by the Railways Ice Company provided ice for refrigerator cars that hauled perishables on the railroad's main line from Chicago to Los Angeles. A roundhouse, maintenance and repair shops,a reading room, a depot, and a large Harvey House were built by the Santa Fe"

There was also a crew hotel, and it was the location where westbound steam helpers for the climb up Curtis Hill were serviced and attached.

[SSW9389]

AVARD (archive.org) 

 

[Overmod]

If I recall correctly we had at least one detailed thread involving Avard on one of the Kalmbach forums a while ago.  He might type some of the possible words into Conmunity Search to check...

[timz]

Did they interchange much at Avard then? I thought Avard was a modern replacement for QA&P.

[SPer]

Did Avard, OK had a yard and roundhouse serving Santa Fe and Frisco in the steam era.