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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.
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