A mid-January deep freeze cutting through the heartland of America threatened to make a cold motorcar run in southeast Oklahoma. We were lucky that the coldest weather had drifted to the east before our scheduled motorcar run on the Kiamichi Railroad on Jan 17, 2009. The sky was overcast and the temperature was a chilly 31 degrees at set-on time in Antlers, OK. A total of 10 vehicles made the trip on this day. There were seven motorcars, two privately owned hy-rails and our escort hy-rail from the railroad.

The early morning portion of the run is through thick woods. Leafless hardwood trees and overcast gray skies gave this portion of the run an odd colorless appearance to this winding section of rail.

Our first rest stop of the day was at the Frisco Depot Museum in Hugo, OK. Our event coordinator, Drake Rice, had arranged for the museum to be open as a rest stop. Hot coffee, donuts and a wonderful depot full of historic Frisco artifacts and photos greeted us. The museum has done a wonderful job of preserving local history in this substantial structure.

Departing Hugo, we had to make an interesting "Z" move to continue on our journey. At one time there was a diamond crossing between two Frisco lines at Hugo. The diamond was long ago removed. We had to take two different legs of the wye and perform a backup move in between to stay on our chosen route.

The crossing of the Red River into Texas was one of the highlights of the trip. The bridge over the river is a large multiple span steel structure. It is always a pleasure to operate our motorcars over historic structures such as this.

Our turn around point was downtown Paris, TX at the restored ATSF/Frisco depot. At one time in the 1980's this depot sat abandoned and was home to mostly pigeons. In the 1990's the structure underwent a first class renovation and is now home to the Paris Chamber of Commerce.

After re-tracing our steps a few miles, we made a lunch stop on the main line right behind a Dairy Queen at Powderly, TX, just north of Paris. By this late lunch stop the day had warmed nicely and may of the insulating clothing layers were coming off.

After lunch it was back across the Red River and into Oklahoma again. We repeated the "Z" movement where the crossing diamond once was at Hugo and stopped again at the Hugo depot for a rest break.

The late afternoon run north of Hugo was sunny and beautiful with the late winter sun shining through the leafless trees. This area of the railroad has a number of curves and small hills as we moved through this thickly wooded area of the state. Arrival back at Antlers was just about 5:00pm with plenty of sunlight left to make sure everyone was loaded out before dark.

Thanks again to our hosts, the Kiamichi Railroad, NARCOA Event Coordinator Drake Rice and the Oklahoma Railroad Museum for a fine winter time motorcar run.