TRRA Issue #84

The TRRA has a well-established reputation for the high quality of their annual publications; their books are well researched and filled with photos, drawings, pertinent advertising, menus and so forth. The latest issue covers the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio’s Gulf Coast Rebel service direct from the St. Louis metropolitan area—the Rebels did not actually begin at St. Louis Union Station until later—to Mobile, AL, where they arrived in the middle of the morning the next day. The route of these Rebels began instead at the East St. Louis Relay Station across the Mississippi River in Illinois. From there, service proceeded south through southern Illinois to Cairo where they crossed the Ohio into Kentucky and proceeded through Tennessee and Mississippi to Mobile. These trains originally ran over the old Mobile & Ohio (as their Gulf Coast Special  which was powered by steam locomotives into 1940) which already had a freight station in East St. Louis. With the M&O in financial straits, having been cut from the Southern’s auspices in 1938, the successful Gulf, Mobile & Northern absorbed the M&O into itself in September 1940 as the newly-renamed Gulf, Mobile & Ohio. This issue covers the history of the Gulf Coast Rebel, predecessors on the GM&N, the Little Rebels, the Orange State, the route, consists, motive power, paint schemes, accommodations, dining service, stations, business cars and more. This is a 206-page softcover with b&w and color imagery. Gloss paper.