Here's a question for our SP ladies and gentlemen. I took a brake to relax and run a few trains, when I noticed a number of my passenger cars lettered "Southern Pacific Lines". My question or questions have to do with a number of SP Daylight Passenger cars Ie., Heavy weights as well as some early fluted, streamlined cars with rounded windows. In the one foot to the one foot scale, did SP have in their roster of passenger cars, these afore mentioned cars?` Did SP letter early versions "Southern Pacific Lines"? And/or was this a Cotton Belt thing to pass on the word they had merged? The N scale versions now operating on my layout are: The heavy weights produced by Rivarossi. The fluted, streamlined with the rounded windows made by Rivarossi for Atlas. The cars currently operate in a somewhat freelanced version of the San Joaquin Valley Daylight. Seems to me they miss matched and romanced all kinds of equipment into that train during it's last decade of operations. Your thoughts please. Have fun!
I have seen this question posed on the Yahoo Groups Espee List. I think it was 1947 that the term "Lines" was dropped from SP equipment, but i don't think it had anything to do with Cotton Belt. I am not sure what cars were lettered or not. I would presume that they were all lettered with the appropriate corporate name.
The word came down from SF about then, but they did not repaint everything immediately. I have seen photographs taken in the 1960s where one of the cars (usually a HW baggage) still had the 'Lines'. Photographs of 'Sad Sam', The Coast Mail, are instructive.
A little history of the word "lines". Originally the Sunset herald said one of three routes in the center bar. Sunset, Ogden, or Shasta. Also a combination of the three was common. Around 1915, the herald was simplified to just "Lines". Cotton Belt was lettered "Cotton Belt" or "St. Louis Southwestern" as they were a subsidiary operated as a separate company. Thom
Other railroads used the word "Lines" in their name. This was done as a convenience, when there were seperately operating subsidiaries. Useful in allowing equipment to roam around the entire family of companies... Saved them money. Such as in buying supplies. Burlington Lines, Missouri Pacific Lines, Rock Island Lines, Kansas City Southern Lines.... Then there was the New York Central "System." And so forth... Boxcab E50
I think the "lines" referred also to their steamship holdings. This would be common when a company has multiple modes of transportation. Of note, the large locomotives on some routes were to remove the herald from the tender entirely following the removal of the "lines".
I checked into a number of websites shared here and found a roster of passenger cars, heavy weights that did receive the daylight paint scheme. However, nothing was mentioned with regards to the lettering on the cars. I did find one Harriman style baggage/mail combination with the lettering "Southern Pacific Lines". Just not sure where and when my fluted, streamlined light weights fit into the scheme of things. Thanks for your input here. Have fun!
The use of "Lines" ended in 1948 and as near as I can tell it was never applied to any lightweight equipment. The key issue with the use of "Lines" involved, as much, divisions and the group of long-term subsidiaries such as the Central Pacific, San Diego & Arizona Eastern, Southern Pacific of Mexico, and the Texas & New Orleans (which became the owner of a number of Texas lines in addition to its own original routes, among them El Paso & Southwestern, Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway Company, Houston & Texas Central and Sabine and East Texas Railway Company). The Cotton Belt didn't figure prominently in this arrangement.
The El Paso & Southwestern was never part of the T&NO or Atlantic Lines. It was included in the Eastern Division of the Pacific lines. Most of its tracks were in Arizona and New Mexico and only entered Texas at El Paso. The light weight fluted side cars delivered from Pullman in 1937 for the Sunbeam and Daylight trains were all lettered "Southern Pacific Lines" and remained that way until the late 1940s.
Big as Life! R.I.Straw, Your ability to come up with the precise prescription based on solid research has always amazed me. The picture of the cars are just what I was looking for. You can see the "Daylight" oops I mean "Sunbeam" on the lower panel. And the Southern Pacific Lines stands out and can be clearly seen. There you have it... just as big as life. Thanks for the comeback. Nice work. To Jerry LaBoda. I did visit the website looking for pictures and found mostly a type of roster. Good information and I thank you for the redirect. Have fun!
Heavyweights In Daylight Paint I found a picture of a heavy weight baggage and mail combo, dressed in the Daylight paint scheme. I think I see a Daylight insignia. Also a Harriman diner lettered in the Southern Pacific Lines. I thought you might appreciate this as much as I do. Enjoy!
Found this footage of the San Joaquin Daylight heading from Sacramento to the Bay Area with a SOUTHERN PACIFIC LINES steamer on the point. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfh6f7dRmMw"]YouTube - 4-10-2 Passenger duty[/ame]
I pulled out one of my Charles Smiley's, videos, "SP Vingtage West". Discovering to my satisfaction, a pre-world War II, San Joaquin Daylight, lettered "Southern Pacific Lines". The cars appear to be the forerunner of Kato's SP Daylight. Making for an awesome looking train. The trains consist was made up of an articulated diner several articulated coaches. I didn't realize SP had train equipment this nice so early on. A date mentioned, "In the late 30's"...? I may have to listen to the video again just to get the full impact. Edited add on: I went back and listened to the commentator on the video. He mentions that some of the Daylight equipment arrived on the SP property in the late 30's. No mention of the type of equipment and I'm guessing these are the heavyweight cars that received the SP daylight paint scheme. Makes for interesting model railroading.
Over the weekend I viewed Pentrex's video, "Railfanning Southern California In The 1950's". A unique video showing various freights and passenger trains that ran through the greater Los Angeles area. To my Daylight... delight I discovered passenger equipment marked "Southern Pacific Lines". A number of Harriman style baggage cars, diner, bar lounge and coaches. I looked for the rounded window chair cars and I didn't see any. By the time this film footage was shot, the coaches must have been pulled out of service or operating somewhere else on the SP system. Since, I asked the original question I thought you might appreciate the results of my research. Have fun!
Rick, is this the rounded window chair cars you refer to? I don't know what prototype was used for the cars. Not Santa Fe and probably not SP. The SP cars are old, made by RR for Atlas. The SF cars shown here are newer, made and sold by RR, but similar were made originally for Atlas. A good reference for prototype cars built by/for SP is the SP Historical & Technical Society's "SP Passenger Cars". Volume 1 covers Coaches and Chair Cars. Over 450 pages covering cars owned by or assigned to SP. http://www.sphts.org/sphts_inprint_w08.pdf Ben
I believe the prototypes for the old Atlas/Rivarossi cars were Rock Island pre-WWII Pullman built cars.
These must have been used as part of RI's contributions to the Golden State consist. I found a photo of observation Vista/Divan on this page. http://faculty.simpson.edu/RITS/www/histories/goldenstate/gs.htm Never did find photos of similar coaches but I used the RR coaches in my Golden State. Ben
According to this page the baggage dorms were built for Rock Island in 1947, the coaches 1940 and the observation cars in 1948. The windows are all correct but the two post-war cars were given pre-war corrugated panels above the windows like the coaches. They should have full fluting with short letter boards instead of full length letter boards. Here is the link to the home page for the N Scale Passenger Car Prototypes.
