Information about S&P

[Anonymous]

I need some information on a Southern Pacific caboose I just recently bought for my father's Christmas present. My father is a model railroader and a big S&P fan. I bought this caboose for his G scale train he is putting together. I don't want to ask questions of him because then it would give away what his present will be.[:)]
I have never seen this S&P color scheme before and would like some history or just general information.
It is light silvery grey body.
It says "Southern Pacific"
"Trailer-Flatcar Service" and the number "1096"
All the lettering is black except the "S" and the "P" which is red.
If you know anything about this paint scheme I would greatly appreciate any info that you can give me. I know my father doesn't have anything like this in his collection and I would like to give him all the info I can at Christmas.
Thank you very much.
Hillary

[DSchmitt]

I found a thread on Trainboard.com stating that there are two pictures of caboose 1097 in TOFC silver on pape 120 of Southern Pacific Official Photography vol 1

[johncolley]

Oh, yeah! back when I was doing my carman apprenticeship in Oakland in the late 50's Piggybacks (trailer on flat car =TOFC) were the equivalent of today's hotshots and double stacks. Special trains of just piggybacks went east from Oakland to Chicago and south to LA. They had special (silver) cabooses that were later, in the '60's, merged into the general pool of cabooses and began showing up on other through trains.

[Anonymous]

Just to add a little bit to the above info.

Firstly, it's SP, not S&P. S&P is Standard and Poor's. If this is for an SP fan he would want it called out correctly.

The SP in 1954-1955 painted 8 cabooses up in the aluminum paint for the overnight LA to San Francisco TOFC trains that they had inaugurated. Brand new GP-9's were assigned to these trains that ran about an hour behind the overnight Lark passenger train and operated as trains #373-374. These piggyback trains were fast enough that they came pretty close to matching the Lark's schedule. There were several billboards installed along highway 101 on the coast route at that time showing off the aluminum cabooses along with a SP trailer advertising the fast overnight service. Business was so good at times that the train ran in two sections.

Around 1959 a few of the cabooses wandered to the Western Division and worked Oakland to Ogden, but that was short lived. In 1963-1964 the aluminum paint came off and the cabooses went back into regular assignments. The unique aluminum paint and bold lettering adds a lot of interest to these unusual SP cabooses.