Prototype information for the modeler

Anyone able to supply information of Southern Pacific's original Sunset Limited?  Plans, color schemes or even B/W photos would be useful.  I intend to model it in HO.  Westwood made kits for it about 40 years ago, other than that I'm at a loss.

Thanks,  Randy

Try the "Early Rail" Yahoo group.  Tons of expertise on pre-WW1 railroads.

Hello Randy,

Contemporary advertising lithographs reproduced in the book, The Sunset Limited, show the 1897 Sunset cars in olive green with brown vestibule doors and window sash, and gold lettering and striping. The trucks were also olive green and striped, and the paper wheel centers are shown in dark brown. (The outer faces of the paper wheels were actually iron or steel plates.) The roofs were probably black, except that the clerestory sections are shown as green like the sides.

While only a few pages of this book deal with these cars, it does have several exterior and interior photos and would be valuable to anyone modeling this train. It's avaialble from the SP Historical & Technical Society at sphts.org.

Good luck with your train,

Andy 

Sperandeo:

Hello Randy,

Contemporary advertising lithographs reproduced in the book, The Sunset Limited, show the 1897 ...

While the book's pages on 19th-century equipment and operations are limited, there is still quite a bit of useful information Andy doesn't mention.  For example, there is a route map (the train ran between New Orleans and Oakland back then, with ferry service to San Francisco.)  There are timetables, pictures of locomotives (mostly 4-4-0s were used, with 4-6-0s in mountainous areas), list of sleeping cars known to have been used, etc.

This was a true transcontinental, ocean-to-ocean, deluxe train.  Get the book!

Mark