Chicago & Southern Air Lines Douglas DC-3-322     NC25626       (c/n   2219)

                                    

                                        Framed by two 1940s vintage trucks is this Chicago & Southern pre-war DC-3 at Shreveport
                                        Municipal Airport in 1942.  C & S took delivery of six DC-3s in 1940, and started phasing out
                                        their Electras.   The Shreveport stop was introduced when the new schedule from Memphis to
                                        Houston was inaugurated in 1941.   During WW II C & S, like most other carriers gave up part
                                        of its fleet for military duties, whilst at the same time performing valuable war work in the training of
                                        pilots, radio operators and mechanics.         Below is an interesting shot from Allan Hammons of
                                        Greenwood, MS showing N25626 in the revised, latter C&S livery.  The aircraft is carrying the
                                        name 'City of Greenwood' (see close-up at the foot of the entry) and was taken at that Municipal
                                        Airport on 9 June 1950 as part of the fourth annual Mississippi Goodwill Air Tour sponsored by
                                        the local Jaycee organization.  Some 75 aircraft took part, of which the high light was the arrival of
                                        this "new" C&S Dixie Liner.    Now, a listing I received from C&S circa 1948 indicates this aircraft
                                        was named 'City of St. Louis' so evidently some renaming went on throughout the careers of these
                                        DC-3s.  This was not uncommon.....United renamed their aircraft constantly, as did American and
                                        PanAm.     In May 1953 N25626 passed to Delta who retained it until 1956 when it was sold to
                                        Stewart Air Transport.  I saw it at their main base at Hawthorne, California soon after it arrived from
                                        its scheduled airline days.   It later went to Aerovias del Pacifico in Mexico as as XA-SUV and was,
                                        I believe, finally scrapped under the identity of XA-RTC when with Aero Transporte Turisticos