Southern Pacific Steam Train Galore

The Southern Pacific Transportation Company (reporting mark SP), earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually called the Southern Pacific or (from the railroad's initials) Espee, was an American Class I railroad. It was absorbed in 1988 by the company that controlled the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad and eight years later became part of the Union Pacific Railroad. Like most railroads, the SP painted most of its steam locomotives black during the 20th century, but after 1945 SP painted the front of the locomotive's smokebox silver (almost white in appearance), with graphite colored sides, for visibility. Well known were the Southern Pacific's unique "cab-forward" steam locomotives. These were 2-8-8-4 locomotives set up to run in reverse, with the tender attached to the smokebox end of the locomotive. Southern Pacific had a number of snow sheds in mountain terrain, and locomotive crews nearly asphyxiated from smoke in the cab. After a number of engineers began running their engines in reverse (pushing the tender), Southern Pacific asked Baldwin Locomotive Works to produce cab-forward designs. No other North American railroad ordered cab-forward locomotives. Unlike other railroads whose locomotive number boards bore the locomotive number, SP used them for the train number until 1967. (SP's San Francisco-San Jose commute trains continued displaying train numbers for the convenience of passengers.). The other railroad that used locomotive number boards for train numbers into the 1960s was SP's transcontinental partner, Union Pacific. May 1, 1971 Amtrak took over the long-distance passenger operations. The Southern Pacific merged with Union Pacific on Sept. 11, 1996. Identified engines in this video: 4211, 4220, 4172, 2477, 1282. The 4211 and 4220 in this video are AC-10 class 6.000hp locomotives. The last Cab Forward in revenue service was 4-8-8-2 4211 which hauled freight from Oakland to Davis and then to Roseville with only a caboose on November 30th, 1956. In November, 1957 4274 was brought out of retirement to make the last run of a Cab Forward over Donner Pass from Sacramento to Sparks and back. In 1960 the last Cab Forward to be scrapped was AC-10 4243. On May 7, 1981 AC-12 4294 was designated a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark. Bi-level coaches After inspecting the Burlington's Budd bilevel cars from Chicago, the Southern Pacific purchased bilevel commute coaches, first from Pullman-Standard in 1955, with a larger follow-on order from American Car & Foundry in 1957. In the early days of commute operations, SP MT class 4-8-2 steam locomotives could be seen pulling new bilevels. Originally, painted in two-tone gray, SP introduced solid dark Lark gray in the 1960s. These cars lasted until new Nippon Sharyo equipment for Caltrain replaced the last of them in 1985. These cars could often be seen mixed in sets with "Harriman" coaches -- typically, the "Harriman" coach was always on the San Jose (south) end of the train which was the "smoker" (where one could "light up"). These 145-seat ACF coaches were numbered 3710 to 3730. They brought a new level of service to the San Francisco suburban operation. They were equipped with engine-driven Frigdaire AC system, steam heat from the locomotive, remote controlled opening and closing of doors by one person for the entire train, wide doors which eased boarding and deboarding, and a 50-seat increase in capacity over existing cars. They all rode 4-TD-4 trucks with 33" diameter wheels. Locomotive #2477, Class 7, only 2 units build by Lima, base: San Jose Locomotive #1287, Switcher, Class S-14 0-6-0, 10 units build by Houston Shops Locomotive #4172, cab forward, Class AC-7 4-8-8-2, 26 units build by Baldwin Locomotive Works, The AC-7 class locomotives were all scrapped shortly after their removal from service. The first to be scrapped was 4155 on November 26, 1954, while the last was 4172 on April 24, 1959. SP Network: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Utah Dates of operation 1865–1996 Successor Union Pacific Corporate Offices: San Francisco Year: most likely 1957 -last days of service for AC-10 Class steam locomotives and the introduction of the dark Lark Grey bi-level coaches.