HawkinsRails.net - Bonhomie & Hattiesburgh Southern

The Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern rocks a profitable train of high cars across a wooden trestle near New Augusta, Mississippi, en route to is Gulf, Mobile & Ohio connection at Beaumont. The Bonhomie of this short-line's corporate title does not exist on the map of its operations, and its thirty miles of right of way are under the same management as the neighboring Fernwood, Columbia & Gulf, which owns forty-four miles of track. Their joint insertion in The Office Guide advises shippers: "Save Time and Money by Missing Bedlam and Confusion."

Lucius Beebe & Charles Clegg, The Age of Steam, 1957

In 1923 W.S.F. Tatum, owner of the Tatum Lumber Company of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, established the Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern Railway Company in order to purchase the Hattiesburg branch from the Gulf, Mobile, & Ohio Railroad. This twenty-seven mile branchline connected the town of Hattiesburg to the GM&O main line at Beaumont, Mississippi. Using the branch, Tatum would be able to gain access to a new logging operation near Denco, Mississippi and transport lumber from Bonhomie, where Tatum owned a sawmill, to the GM&O junction at Beaumont and connections eastward.

The Interstate Commerce Commission approved the sale on January 5, 1925, and the Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern Railway went into operation less than a month later. The entire capital stock of $335,000 was sold to the Tatum family, and all equipment for the railroad was leased from the Tatum Lumber Company--including five locomotives, three of which were new Baldwin acquisitions. The B&HS showed a profit for several years, but eventually slipped into financial deficit as its profit from lumber traffic declined. Tatum's logging operation near Denco ended when the GM&O abandoned its Blodgett Branch, a dummy line from Denco to Piave, Mississippi. In 1953 Tatum sold the then unprofitable B&HS to the Fernwood, Columbia, & Gulf Railway.

#200

Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern #200

Hattiesburg, Ms / Sep 1949 / collection

Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern #200

builder:Baldwin Locomotive Works
arrangement:4-4-0 American
built:Mar 1925, Baldwin #58268
fuel:coal/water
notes:
17x24" cylinders, 62" drivers
purchased new via Tatum Lumber Co
scrapped, 1953

builder's photo / Mar 1925 / collection

#250

Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern #250

Hattiesburg, Ms / Mar 1961 / JCH

Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern #250

builder:Baldwin Locomotive Works
arrangement:2-6-2 Prairie
built:June 1926, Baldwin #59239
fuel:coal/water
notes:
20x24" cylinders, 52" drivers
purchased new by B&HS
to Wanamaker, Kempton & Southern, 1963
on display at Edaville Railroad, Ma

Hattiesburg, Ms / Jun 1941 / collection

Builder's photo / collection

Hattiesburg, Ms / Dec 1960 / JCH

Beaumont, Ms / Dec 1960 / JCH

Beaumont, Ms / Sep 1959 / JCH

Beaumont, Ms / Dec 1960 / JCH

Hattiesburg, Ms / Mar 1961 / JCH

Hattiesburg, Ms / Dec 1960 / JCH

Hattiesburg, Ms / Mar 1961 / JCH

New Augusta, Ms / Sep 1959 / JCH

Beaumont, Ms / Sep 1959 / JCH

Especially in the lean years, many a steam-era shortline relied upon home-spun practices and simple shortcuts for keeping costs down and still getting the job done. In the spring of 1961, dad uncovered a wonderful little slice of Deep South shortline lore while chasing #250 through New Augusta, Mississippi (pictured here).

Turns out it was common practice for the Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern crew to roll into the little village of New Augusta, bring their train to a stop, and send the brakeman into the local mom & pop grocery store situated near the tracks. If there was switching work to be done, or new train orders to convey, it was the procedure of the B&HS main office in Hattiesburg to call down on the phone to Miss So-and-so, proprietor of said grocery store, and have her write the information down for the passing crew.

Surely this communication system was an integral component of the little railroad's famous pledge to help shippers "avoid any bedlam and confusion." This, plus one imagines that from time to time the crew took advantage of the pause to supplement their lunches.

#300

Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern's cap stacked 2-8-2 was, in proper perspective, a machine with which to move material for profit. Viewing it this way was not always that simple. Anyone with any emotion at all recognized this train in its rural Mississippi rounds as making for a deucedly pretty picture.

John Krause, Rails Through Dixie

Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern #300

Hattiesburg, Ms / Mar 1961 / JCH

Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern #300

builder:Baldwin Locomotive Works
arrangement:2-8-2 Mikado
built:Feb 1925, Baldwin #58241
fuel:coal/water
notes:
19x26" cylinders, 52" drivers
purchased new by B&HS
retired, Oct 1961
on display, Hattiesburg MS

Hattiesburg, Ms / Mar 1961 / JCH

Hattiesburg, Ms / Jun 1941 / collection

Hattiesburg, Ms / Mar 1961 / JCH

Hattiesburg, Ms / 1999 / JCH

Baldwin Sisters

Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern Baldwins

Hattiesburg, Ms / Mar 1961 / JCH

In looking back over these images again with me, my father recalled how every time he stopped by the B&HS engine house during the late 1950s and early 60s, there was always a handful of railfans hanging around the place with cameras. Dad said, "No one ever said it, but it was as if we all knew this kind of thing could not go on forever." That thing was, of course, that handsome pair of Baldwins still under steam and still plying the rails. It did not go on forever, which is why we younger railfans are indebted to images such as these terrific 120 negatives taken by my father in Hattiesburg in the spring of 1961.