{"id":4748,"date":"2026-03-22T11:17:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T16:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/?p=4748"},"modified":"2026-03-22T11:17:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T16:17:14","slug":"the-reader-railroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/2026\/03\/22\/the-reader-railroad\/","title":{"rendered":"The Reader Railroad"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>At one time A.E. Brown visited the Reader Railroad and he recorded this view of the road&#8217;s steam locomotive #11 as she was getting ready to depart from Reader.  She&#8217;s putting out plenty of smoke, although the white flags are still limp.  But she will soon be galloping down the mainline at perhaps 5 mph or so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Reader-RR-Steamer-11.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"625\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Reader-RR-Steamer-11.jpg\" alt=\"Reader Railroad Steam Loco #11\" class=\"wp-image-4747\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Reader-RR-Steamer-11.jpg 625w, https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Reader-RR-Steamer-11-234x300.jpg 234w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 625px) 100vw, 625px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The Reader was a 23 mile shortline that ran between Reader, Arkansas (where it interchanged with the Missouri Pacific) to Waterloo, Arkansas where it&#8217;s largest customer was located, the Berry asphalt refinery.  The number 11 is an oil-burning 2-6-2 Prairie built by Baldwin in 1925.  I believe the locomotive still exists, and is displayed in a park<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>in Nicholasville, Kentucky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is a scan of one of several 8&#8243;x10&#8243; photos from the collection of the late Ron Findley.  I was gifted that collection, and plan to scan several more of these photos from the Reader, along with a few other roads in the South.  Stay tuned for more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At one time A.E. Brown visited the Reader Railroad and he recorded this view of the road&#8217;s steam locomotive #11 as she was getting ready to depart from Reader. She&#8217;s putting out plenty of smoke, although the white flags are &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/2026\/03\/22\/the-reader-railroad\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photos-i-like","category-railfanning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4748"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4751,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4748\/revisions\/4751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}