Not to sound like I total idiot, but can anyone out there tell me what roads I might have seen passing through south east texas being pulled by Southern Pacific back in the 1950s ?... So far I've got;
- Rock Island
- Great Northern
- Northern Pacific
- Union Pacific
- Western Pacific
- Southern
- Seaboard
- Canadian Pacific
- Santa Fe (occasionally)
- Rio Grande
- ?
Thanks in advance.
Tracklayer
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
Angelina and Nueches River RR.
Texas and New Orleans (T&NO)
Cotton Belt (SSW)
Burlington
Lots of Missouri Pacific
Lots of Missouri, Kansas and Texas RR (KATY)
Denver and Rio Grande Western (D&RGW)
Not too many UP cars...UP and SP were mortal enemies back then.
The Rock Island used to have a direct track to Houston back then (The UP yard at Englewood was once the Rock Island yard.)
Texas / Mexican railroad (now KCS's - TFM)
some Illinois Central
San Antonio and Aransas Pass RR
(There was another railroad that went from Fredricksburg to Rockport exchanging to the T&NO at San Antonio but I don't remember the name of it. It was sold before the 50's so it doesn't count)
I'm sure you also could see cars from
- Pennsylvania PRR
- New York Central System NYC
- Pacific Fruit Express PFE (that should worth being mentioned)
While the Eastern RRs were maybe not that present I'm sure you could see the occasional cars from MEC, B&O, B&M, C&O and and and....
Depending on the type of train of course, but with any major class 1 railroad a car from any railroad in the country could be seen on the SP.
You would see more home road cars (25% SP/SSW), then another 25% connections (MP-CRIP-ATSF-NW-L&N-SOU-TP-KCS) and the rest mixed roads. You would see some PRR cars since they had the largest fleet in the US (if you model the 1950's, you are a Pennsy modeler).
In S/E Texas the big industries were chemicals so you would see a lot of oil tank cars (UTLX, SHPX, etc) and cotton, pulpwood, paper, rock for road construction. There would be very few auto parts. You would see moves of reefers of produce from Texas and California to the east coast through New Orleans.
Dave H.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Thanks folks. The info won't go to waste.
The thing I don't understand is, out of all the people around the area that were alive and old enough to remember, none of them can tell me anything about the rolling stock from the 1950s except that they had lots of box cars. As far as they're concerned, trains were something that were just in their way at that time in the same way the average person looks at them today. I guess you have to be one of us to have an appreciation for anything railroad related...
As stated - lots of box cars and lots of different sizes and styles of box cars. You would still see wooden box cars in the '50s, and the roof line would not be even. And yes, a NYC and a PRR in every train. <g>
Gene
I have plenty of pictures of Reading gons modified for 'dish ends' (tank end caps) in Texas, although I think most of those are from the early 60's, not 50's. They were made up here in Reading territory and shipped presumably to the refineries in Texas. They look like big satellite dishes, and the gons were modified with stands to hold them at an angle since they were too wide to lay flat and too tall to stand vertically.
Someone already mentioned it, there were PRR cars on pretty much ANY railroad in the country.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Tracklayer--
I think you would have probably seen a lot of seasonal produce traffic on the Sunset Route coming out of California, also. Lots of PFE and possibly other RR reefers heading east, and of course, empties heading west. I know that just about all of SP's Southern California's produce traveled east on the Sunset Route (or Santa Fe's Transcon), while the remainder--Central and Northern California-- traveled east on the Overland Route (the dividing line seemed to be Salinas Valley and above--Overland, below Salinas Valley--Sunset.
Most of the reefer blocks I remember on the Overland were PFE's, but occasionally you could see blocks of FGEX, and even URTX-Milwaukee, among other railroads (even a lot of that ol' debbil Santa Fe, LOL!). I'm pretty sure that the same thing would probably have happened on the Sunset Route.
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
I don't know about the SP but I know that the 1950s were when intermodal really started being regular with the Trailer-On-Flatcar (TOFC) service. Mostly it was short 40' flats with running boards and a simple trailer hitch.
Cheers!
~METRO
Someone (I think it was Bruce Chubb in How To Operate Your Model Railroad) came out with a formula for the mix of cars you would see on a railroad. I don't remember the exact formula but it was something along the order of 50% home road, 25% connecting roads, 15% other regional roads, 10% rest of the country. Of course you have to adjust for the particular situation you're modeling. Coal roads like the PRR would have a higher percentage of home road hoppers, for example. Shortline roads like the Ma & Pa had very few (if any) of their own cars so that 50% mostly gets scattered in the other buckets. You can also have special situations like a solid train of PFE reefers going thru to the northeast.
Enjoy
Paul
Tracklayer,,,,How about a couple flat cars with farm machinery from the period....Also, being Texas, was the oil field pipe hauled in gondolas or on flats....a few gondolas of scrap iron could be found anywhere... railroad rails and wheelsets were seen at times,..large construction equipment such as graders, dozers and trucks, both new and older were shipped by rail..Sometimes a large boiler for some large industrial plant was on a special railcar..Don't forget the junk railcars being hauled on flats from a derailment site...and don't overlook a damaged locomotive being towed in the train...Sometimes, a new or rebuilt locomotive would be towed in a train....50s era could also include old steamers being towed to a scrapyard..These cars could belong to just about any road...
I watched the Great Northern and Soo Line from my bedroom windows,,, when I wasn't trackside...I seen all of this and a whole lot more....Roadnames were a hienz57 mix..
BDT
Basically in the 50's, you still had 'carload' shipments. Also you had lots of railroads that were 'regional' in nature. Thus; manufactured good from the eastern railroads went west, and raw materials from western railroads were shipped east to the manufacturering plants.
For SE Texas, you would see a lot of industries that generated sugar or petro-chemicals as outbound loads. For the sugar, you would see a lot of bagged sugar in 'home road' cars or private cars. For the chemical industry, you would see a lot of private owner tank cars.
On the 'receiving' side of the traffic, you would see a lot of agricultural manufactured goods arriving fron eastern/midwestern railroads. These cars could be 'home road' cars or off-line cars.
A good general rule is as follows:
50% - Home road cars(SP/PFE/SSW/TNO)
25% - Direct interchange cars(ATSF/T&P/SLSW/KCS/L&A/CRI&P/SOU/MP/etc...)
25% - Distant railroads(NYC/PRR/B&O/N&W/B&M/NH/SAL/ACL/FEC/GN/NP/MILW/C&NW/etc or 'private owner' cars like the tank cars...)
Now, if a lot of your traffic petroleum based, the percentage of tank cars will increase. If you have a lot of export elevators, you will see a high percentage of 'grain' box cars.
For the 50's, a good mix of plain 'box car' red freight cars will be in order...
Jim Bernier
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
I have been operating a layout that specifically represents south east Texas for 25 years, but my layout is Santa Fe--- Somerville- Navasota- Conroe- Cleveland- Silsbee line.
SP interchanged with several East Texas shortlines but they did NOT have their own rolling stock- Moscow, Camden and St. Augustine, Texas South-Eastern.
Some of the the cars you would see that I don't remember people already mentioning---
Cotton Belt
Fort Worth & Denver (Burlington's Texas subsidiary)
private owner carbon-black covered hoppers
Swift and possibly Armour reefers
private owner Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Co. covered hoppers
Kosmos Portland Cement Co. covered hoppers
Reynolds Metals alumina covered hoppers
Consolidated Chemical Co. acid tank cars for sulphuric acid
Celanese Chemical tankcars
Corn Products Co. tankcars
Dow Chemical tankcars (found more on MoPac)
Ethyl Corporation tankcars for tetraethyl lead antinknock compound going to refineries
synthetic rubber cars (I took a picture but I don't know how to describe it...)
DuPont Chemical
Gulf Oil
Warren Petroleum
Monsanto tankcars
Koppers Chemical creosote tankcars for treating utility poles & crossties
Magnolia tankcars (Texas subsidiary of Mobil)
Humble tankcars (Texas subsidiary of Standard Oil)
Sinclair tankcars
Conoco tankcars
Shell tankcars
Phillips 66 tankcars
Protex Industries tankcars (lignosulfate paper-mill byproduct)
Linde Air Products "box-tank"
Staley tankcars "engineered" starch to stiffen corrugated cardboard E Texas paper mills
Stauffer Chemical tankcars for recycling "spent" sulphuric acid from refineries'
Texas tanks
Union Carbide tanks
and many many more
Again guys, thanks a million for everything here. I especially like the formula idea... I've been told that this area was a railfan's dream back in the day, but apparently no one thought to take any photos or film. Can you imagine how great it would be to be able to see actual mid 1950s film of an old Southern Pacific 4-6-2 coming through pulling a mixed consist like some of you have mentioned...
Tracklayer wrote: "apparently no one thought to take any photos or film." Tracklayer
"apparently no one thought to take any photos or film." Tracklayer
Oh, I don't know. They probably did but you might need to ASK for it IN YOUR THREAD HEADING where forum browsers can find it without having to open it first. Questions about 1950s rolling stock have been asked so many times. Your thread might attract the responders with specific information if it said "1950s rolling stock on SP in SE Texas".
Mix of various shades of 'boxcar red' boxcars indeed. And various types of cars, as in the 50's there were earlier 1920's designs still in service and they have noticeably lower roof heights. Lookign out over the train and seeing the mix of car heights makes for a good lookign train.
leighant wrote: Tracklayer wrote: "apparently no one thought to take any photos or film." TracklayerOh, I don't know. They probably did but you might need to ASK for it IN YOUR THREAD HEADING where forum browsers can find it without having to open it first. Questions about 1950s rolling stock have been asked so many times. Your thread might attract the responders with specific information if it said "1950s rolling stock on SP in SE Texas".
That's an idea. I may just do that leighant. One thing that was very helpful was that a friend of mine loned me a SP DVD that shows about ten minutes of locos and rolling stock of the 1950s. The only problem being that it was all filmed in southern California... Oh well. Beggers can't be choosers can they.
leighant wrote: I have been operating a layout that specifically represents south east Texas for 25 years, but my layout is Santa Fe--- Somerville- Navasota- Conroe- Cleveland- Silsbee line.SP interchanged with several East Texas shortlines but they did NOT have their own rolling stock- Moscow, Camden and St. Augustine, Texas South-Eastern. Some of the the cars you would see that I don't remember people already mentioning---Cotton BeltFort Worth & Denver (Burlington's Texas subsidiary)private owner carbon-black covered hoppersSwift and possibly Armour reefersprivate owner Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Co. covered hoppersKosmos Portland Cement Co. covered hoppersReynolds Metals alumina covered hoppersConsolidated Chemical Co. acid tank cars for sulphuric acidCelanese Chemical tankcarsCorn Products Co. tankcarsDow Chemical tankcars (found more on MoPac)Ethyl Corporation tankcars for tetraethyl lead antinknock compound going to refineriessynthetic rubber cars (I took a picture but I don't know how to describe it...)DuPont ChemicalGulf OilWarren Petroleum Monsanto tankcarsKoppers Chemical creosote tankcars for treating utility poles & crosstiesMagnolia tankcars (Texas subsidiary of Mobil)Humble tankcars (Texas subsidiary of Standard Oil)Sinclair tankcarsConoco tankcarsShell tankcarsPhillips 66 tankcarsProtex Industries tankcars (lignosulfate paper-mill byproduct)Linde Air Products "box-tank"Staley tankcars "engineered" starch to stiffen corrugated cardboard E Texas paper millsStauffer Chemical tankcars for recycling "spent" sulphuric acid from refineries'Texas tanksUnion Carbide tanksand many many more
Somerville is BNSF now isn't it ?.
I was actually interested in the Hempstead area of the mid 50s, but I think you answered quite a bit of my question with the above reply... Thanks a lot. I really appreciate your help here.