I was going to start this topic too but ya beat me to it. It's hard to believe it has been 10 years sience the merger. 10 years, 20 years, 50 years and I will still call the former SP routes Southern Pacific. Railroading has gotten steril sience the departure of the SP. The variety of equiptment and operations was unsurpassed by any other railroad. From lumber locals in backwoods Oregon to Autoracks and doublestacks (an SP innovation) on the Memphis Blue Streak, from commutes on the penninsula to unit oil trains over Tehachapi, from beat trains to iron ore trains, from cab forwards over Donner to the narrow guage in Owens valley it seemed SP had it all. Well mabee except for coal, but merging with (actually being bought by) the DRGW cured that. And what railroad had more impact on such a huge area then the SP. Mabee I'm a bit biased because I've always lived by a SP line. Or mabee I'm a bit biased because I have many relatives that were lifelong employees of the friendly. I don't know. All I know is I miss the SP !!!!
I gotta agree with what Chad was saying about the Southern Pacific. The Oil Cans getting their start on September 11, 1983 and hauling almost 1.9 million gallons of crewd per train. The stack trains, even the old Golden Pig service trailors that SP owned and carried on their TOFC cars.
I enjoyed listening to the dispatchers giving out the blocks (DTC-Direct Traffic Control) to the trains and getting them back. Going back even further than the DTC was the decentralized operations with the help of the station operators along the system.
Just everthing about the SP I miss.
Have fun with your trains
Thats a good reminder that vsmith has given me. Having grown up by the El Segundo Branch I could see the local roll by.
Now living near the coastline, I can say that I've lived near the Southern Pacific all my life.
There is an unpatched speed-lettered SP GP40M-2 running around the Phoenix line still - it's the 7137 and runs the locals out here. Everytime I see it, it takes me back 14 years to when the Speed Lettering debuted on the Espee - I always did like that look. Too bad it wasn't able to last. Anschutz did stave off the impending exit for SP by several years, he did some good things I think. Too bad there was too much to be done. The Espee might still be around today.
Chad - I will always and forever refer to it as Southern Pacific out here too. "Union Pacific" just doesn't sound right, even after a decade.
Your friendly neighborhood CNW fan.
Lord Atmo wrote:when UP bought out CNW, i was depressed, but i became anti UP not thenm but until i learned that they also devoured SP. it was then that i decided that UP was more of an Empire than a railroad. taking control of all track and trying to get as close to a monopoly as they can. i loved the way that grey body with the red nose and white SP on the front looked. it was so cool. so great. but i'm glad that so many are not yet patched. are there sill full SP paint GP60s out there?
Yes, #9721. Interesting, since I kitbashed an HO scale model of this exact unit back in '92.
silicon212 wrote: There is an unpatched speed-lettered SP GP40M-2 running around the Phoenix line still - it's the 7137 and runs the locals out here. Everytime I see it, it takes me back 14 years to when the Speed Lettering debuted on the Espee - I always did like that look. Too bad it wasn't able to last. Anschutz did stave off the impending exit for SP by several years, he did some good things I think. Too bad there was too much to be done. The Espee might still be around today. Chad - I will always and forever refer to it as Southern Pacific out here too. "Union Pacific" just doesn't sound right, even after a decade.
When Anshutz bought the SP I was stoked. I lived in Alturas on the Modoc line at the time and the line had been shut down by the SP a year or so before and when Anshutz came along they re opened the line. They also talked big about running coal trains through there to a yet to be built port in Coos Bay. Well traffic picked up but the coal trains never came to be (although they did run a test train). By the 90s I had moved to Van Nuys right next to the Coast line and the SP was showing signs of trouble. Anshutz was selling the family jewels to keep the railroad running. I think he was overwelmed by the SP, a much bigger and more complex railroad then his DRGW. The loco fleet was old and in need of maintainance and they were severely power short. Track maintainance was being defered and the railroad was slowly melting down. Finaly Anshutz brought in some real talent and hired Ed Moyers out of retirement to straighten things up. I think Mr. Moyers did an outstanding job in that capacity. Most people think of Moyers as the bad guy that single tracked Donner. Well there was a lot more to it then that. The Overland route traffic was a shadow of its former self and the Sunset was in need of more capacity, especially with all those stack trains coming out of the ICTF in Delores. The track removed on Donner was the original alignment and was little used anyway so he pulled it out to use adding second main on the Sunset. Less then 20 miles was removed though. A much longer streach was removed out by Lovelock, Nv.where directional track was converted to CTC single track. Mr. Moyers also set out to straighten out the locomotive fleet. Within a couple years SP went from haveing the oldest fleet to haveing the newest fleet. Once again SP trains ran with good SP power instead of all those rent-a-wreck leasers. Between the MK rebuilds, the GP60/B39-8s and the new SD70Ms and DC & AC GEs a high percentage of the fleet was less then 10 years old. The car fleet was being rebuilt into Golden West Service cars (a rebuild leaseback program). Track was again being repaired & maintained. Things were really turned around in short order under Mr Moyers. The SP was running like a real railroad again, in a new speed lettered image. Then the BNSF merger came along and SP and UP reacted with there own.
So I don't know if Anshutz was all that good for the SP. Moyers on the other hand was. If only Anshutz would have hired Moyers sooner (like right out the gate). Then mabee it would have been SP takeing over the UP.
chad thomas wrote: I was going to start this topic too but ya beat me to it. It's hard to believe it has been 10 years sience the merger. 10 years, 20 years, 50 years and I will still call the former SP routes Southern Pacific. Railroading has gotten steril sience the departure of the SP. The variety of equiptment and operations was unsurpassed by any other railroad. From lumber locals in backwoods Oregon to Autoracks and doublestacks (an SP innovation) on the Memphis Blue Streak, from commutes on the penninsula to unit oil trains over Tehachapi, from beat trains to iron ore trains, from cab forwards over Donner to the narrow guage in Owens valley it seemed SP had it all. Well mabee except for coal, but merging with (actually being bought by) the DRGW cured that. And what railroad had more impact on such a huge area then the SP. Mabee I'm a bit biased because I've always lived by a SP line. Or mabee I'm a bit biased because I have many relatives that were lifelong employees of the friendly. I don't know. All I know is I miss the SP !!!!
Don't forget the tunnel motors.
I did a thread where I listed information fromm the 1990 SP roster that I have and another titled "The Friendly' where I told of some of my memories of SP employees living up the SP's nickname. Unfortunately, I did not bookmark these. Hopefully they will fix the search engine on here so it goes back further than a month. If not, I may eventually look for these and post the links here.
"No soup for you!" - Yev Kassem (from Seinfeld)
Sili,
Where about in Phoenix do you see it? My son and I watch the UP lines out here in Mesa quite a bit. Off the Mcqueen siding, we see different power every now and then. Most of it though, if it is old SP blood, has been patched out, or worse, the blank gray look on the hood.
Best Regards, Big John
Kiva Valley Railway- Freelanced road in central Arizona. Visit the link to see my MR forum thread on The Building of the Whitton Branch on the Kiva Valley Railway
I most recently saw it about three weeks ago, on a local out of Phoenix (vs. those based at McQueen). I was at the Dobson Rd. crossing and the train was heading east to Mesa. I don't know if it continued on to McQueen or further east to Higley/Germann etc., but it was MUd with a GP60 (1919, patched SP).
Another question - when did they start running an office off of McQueen? Back about 12 years ago, when I had friends on the SP who gave me cabrides, we'd often switch out the newspaper plant there on the east end of McQueen, sometimes Empire on the way back, and often they'd take their break and go eat at that restaurant there in that office complex west of the Chandler branch on Baseline (I think it was called Charley's Grill). That was in the days of the Magma Turn and the train was based out of Phoenix Yard.
Getting back to the 7137, it still has its Nathan P124 horn. The '60 had a K3LA, however.
On the western end of the Phoenix line, locals tend to run mostly six-axle power, mostly UP, but you will see the occasional SD40-2R unit that still is speed lettered and unpatched. Mostly SD60Ms, sometimes SD70Ms (flag paint, flared radiator) and these are the locals.
Since the search engine on the new forum is useless, it took a few hours, but I found one of the threads I was looking for.
http://www.trains.com/trccs/forums/373421/ShowPost.aspx
All I can say is that the Pass and the Loop aren't the same without Southern Pacific. Union Pacific on the Palmdale Cutoff is just like a fish out of water, and double goes for the Loop. It's just wrong.
I think that we all should put our heads and wallets together and start up a new Southern Pacific and buy back their lines little by little. Who's with me?
--Zak Gardner
My Layout Blog: http://mrl369dude.blogspot.com
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zgardner18 wrote: All I can say is that the Pass and the Loop arn't the same without Southern Pacific. Union Pacific on the Palmdale Cutoff is just like a fish out of water, and double goes for the Loop. It's just wrong. I think that we all should put our heads and wallets together and start up a new Southern Pacific and buy back there lines little by little. Who's with me?
All I can say is that the Pass and the Loop arn't the same without Southern Pacific. Union Pacific on the Palmdale Cutoff is just like a fish out of water, and double goes for the Loop. It's just wrong.
I think that we all should put our heads and wallets together and start up a new Southern Pacific and buy back there lines little by little. Who's with me?
I'm Down with that !!!!
Question is: do we start in Southern California or Northern California? I want the Pass and the Loop but what about Donner?
chad thomas wrote:And the first order of bussiness should be to buy back all the tunnel motors and paint them back to bloody nose colors. The second order of bussiness should be to get rid of TWC and bring back the DTC blocks.
DITTO
In all honesty, nothing would get done with a bunch of railfans running Southern Pacific, 'cause we'd all be out taking pictures of ourselves with the fleet.
Tennesse Pass would be open again.
chad thomas wrote:I say the whole darn system. We can spin off the DRGW lines to pay for re-installing the Modoc line and reopening the Pheonix-Welton line. What the heck, lets make the WP rise again while we are at it. I hear Bill Gates invests in railroads, think mabee he'll float us a loan?
Feather River would be nice
zgardner18 wrote: In all honesty, nothing would get done with a bunch of railfans running Southern Pacific, 'cause we'd all be out taking pictures of ourselves with the fleet. Tennesse Pass would be open again.
Not me. I'd be in the right hand seat of a tunnel motor wearing a mile wide smile.
zgardner18 wrote: chad thomas wrote:I say the whole darn system. We can spin off the DRGW lines to pay for re-installing the Modoc line and reopening the Pheonix-Welton line. What the heck, lets make the WP rise again while we are at it. I hear Bill Gates invests in railroads, think mabee he'll float us a loan? Feather River would be nice
Especially if the WPRM rent a loco program was expanded to cover the whole Canyon sub.
I live on the old SP "Rabbit Line" (so named because years ago when it was the Houston East & West Texas the trains would so frequently jump the track) which runs from Shreveport, LA to Houston. The Commerce Street yard alongside the Red River in Shreveport was a classification yard where the Cotton Belt's Shreveport Subdivision off the SSW main line at Lewisville, AR terminated and the SP began. Trains were made up here and engines and crews changed. The UP tore up most of the yard recently leaving only about six tracks. The good news is that this line is much busier now than in the SP/Cotton Belt days. It is now southbound directional running and is part of the main UP line from Chicago, St.Louis and Memphis to Houston and East Texas. The old MoPac line is the northbound leg of this route. Most trains are now runthroughs with a crew change here in Shreveport and it is not uncommon to see 3 or 4 at a time waiting for their clearance to proceed south. Only a few miles from the Commerce Street yard to the crossing of the ex- T&P Dallas to New Orleans main is signalled. The old lower quadrant semaphores were replaced by searchlights about 30 years ago. Except for this short stretch the route both north and south of Shreveport is dark territory. Still see some SP, Cotton Belt and Rio Grande patch jobs here but everything is increasingly Armour Yellow..
Mark
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