Southern Pacific

[cbqjohn]

I need help with the train, consist, power, photos, back issues, whatever info I can get for the SP that ran from LA to Chi. in 1956. Got some help from another forum but need more "modeling" help.

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Try and get a copy of "Route of the Rockets" by Stout; White River Productions 1997. Lots of info on the GS, etc. Also try RI Tech and Hist Society and SP Hist Soc. Book lists a sample consist for #4 at Colton, 7/10/55 as follows:

SP E9A 6053
SP E7B 5908
SP E7A 6003
SP Bag-RPO 5065 [HW]
SP Mail Storage 4301 [HW]
RI Bag dorm 6015 [HW]
SP CC 2365 [1950 Golden State car]
RI CC 348 Valle Vista [1947 Golden Rocket car]
RI Coffee shop lounge 411 Golden Bowl [1947 Golden State car]
RI CC 342 Golden Trumpet [1947 Golden State car]
RI CC 343 Golden Lute [1947 Golden State car]
RI 8-6 Golden Tower [1947 Golden State car]
RI Diner 422 Yucca [1942 Golden State car]
RI 8-6 633 Turquoise Sky [1954 general svc car]
SP 10-6 9017 [1950 Sunset Limited car]
RI 2-1 obs La Mirada [1947 Golden Rocket car]

In 1956, the obs would have been squared off (and not well done, at that) and located up by the diner, and the SP coffee shop lounges contributed to the service 2 out of every 5 days would have been converted to hamburger grill cars, and the consist reduced by 1 sleeper (LA-STL).

See the following for what the GS looked like in 1951 (in color):

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/sp/sp-gldsta-amf.jpg

By 1956, most, if not all, of the red/silver SP equipment had been repainted in the Sunset scheme, and the RI equipment was bare stainless (dedicated GS RI equipment had "Golden State" on the letterboard in San Serif, with "Rock Island" on end boards on both ends of the cars).

Hope this helps

[csmith9474]

I don't know if this is what you are looking for, but Union Station Products offers prototypical sides for the Golden State and Sunset Limited. These sides are a little work, but are worth it in the end. Below is the link for their site.
http://unionstationproducts.com/ho_n_scale_passenger_car_sides.html

[jimrice4449]

Sounds like the Golden State. SP to Tucumcari NM and Rock Island to Chicago (Actually, the transition was Santa Rosa NM which was what the tickets read, but the power change was done at Tuc.)
I rode the train from Chicago to La in June of 1950. It was streamlined w/(as was the SP's practice) heavywieght head end cars, specifically an SP Harriman bagg/RPO and a RI Harriman Bag/coach tricked out to serve as a Bagg/dorm. The cars were an interesting mix of corrrugated and smotth side, coaches w/ diner in the middle and pullmans at the rear. When I rode it there was a RI round end obs on the end, but later that was changed to an SP blunt-end 10-6 sleeper (these were flat end cars w/ rounded rear corners that carried the paint from the car sides around the end. SP also used them on the Lark, Cascade, City of SF and the Sunset, the Sunset cars having the Budd corrugations carried around onto the end.
When I rode it we had RI E-7s (ABB) to Tucumcarri and then they coupled on an SP GS-4, no. 4438(gloriosky!!!) Unfortunately it was deskirted and black, but I brooded about that for aproximately 5 seconds. I rode the vestibule w/ the top half of the dutch door open until El Paso where they put on an ABB set of SP E-7s in Daylight paint. The first 3 3 unit sets of E-7s the SP got were for this train and were painted to match the cars, but only briefly when the 3 original sets were repainted into Daylight. (There was a picture of one of the sets that had only gotten the nose repainted w/ the rest of the engine in the original red and silver. There's a prototype for everything)
The cars (including the heavywieghts )were painted in Dalight red ,including the roofs. From the bottom of the windows to the floor line they were either pinted silver (smooth side cars) or were in unpainted stainless steel (corrugated.) There was a silver strip on the letterboard just long enough to hold the name "Golden State" and a much smaller panel near the end w/ the name of the owner RR of that particular car spelled out. All of the cars were named "Golden something or other" until the SP went to silver w/ a red letterboard for all their trains. At that point the names were dropped and one of the SP "ball & wings" emblems W/ the train name and car number were applied.
One of the reasons for the rapid repaint of the original units was that the operational cycle called for a considerable layover in LA and the Units were frequently run between LA and San Fran on the Lark and Noon Daylight.

[cbqjohn]

Thanks, drephpe

[cbqjohn]

Thanks, csmith9474

[cbqjohn]

Thanks, jimrice4449