Return to David P. Morgan Article Awards
 Lawrence N. Thomas |
The award is given for an outstanding article or paper published one to three years before the year of the award. Thomas, St Louis, Mo., received his award for “Madison Yard–Heartbeat of the Terminal Railroad,” Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis Historical and Technical Society, Inc. Bulletin, Summer 2014. After attending high school in Jerseyville, Illinois, he received a degree in history and English from John Brown University, Siloam Springs, Ark. That was followed by teaching school in Liberal, Kansas, for ten years before moving to Oklahoma City in 1982. After the oil business in Oklahoma collapsed in 1986, he moved to St. Louis and began a 22-year career with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Missouri. Thomas retired from Blue Cross in 2012 and devotes his spare time to editing the Bulletin and railroad history research.
“Mr. Thomas’ article is a model of very thorough research, and it contains information about dispatching at Madison Yard, St. Louis’ railroad bridges over the Mississippi River, the rip track at Madison Yard, a chronology of Madison Yard, Madison Yard memories from the firemans’ extra board, locomotive assignments, a complete list of TRRA presidents, Madison Yard recollections from a New York Central conductor, cars that were interchanged and blocked, copies of company memos relating to Madison Yard, and a fold out map of the yard. The article also covers Illinois Central’s “New Yard” in East St. Louis which became the first hump yard in the area.” the committee said. The full citation will appear in Railroad History. |