Southern Pacific’s GE 44-tonners

The General Electric 44-ton diesel switcher was sold to railroads large and small, and to industrial users, all over North America, and many survived 30 years or more in service (and a number have been preserved at various railroad museums). Powered by a pair of Caterpillar 190-horsepower diesels, they were easy to maintain, with Caterpillar parts available everywhere. Over time, Southern Pacific and its subsidiaries owned a full dozen of them.

The earliest three 44-tonners owned by SP arrived in the fall of 1942, only two years after the first 44-ton locomotives had been produced by GE. Numbered 1900–1902, they were mostly used in Oregon during the war, and later were tried many places on the SP system. Like others in the earliest production, these had side radiators, unlike the many post-1942 44-ton engines with end radiator shutters. 

(One of the magisterial Joe Strapac books on SP diesel locomotives, Volume 18 in the series Southern Pacific Historic Diesels, is about Alco and GE diesel switchers. He covers the 44-tonners owned by SP, Pacific Electric, Visalia Electric, and Petaluma & Santa Rosa, along with Pacific Fruit Express. It should be consulted for history of the locomotives on all the subsidiaries.)

Here’s a photo from that book (Gordon Spafford photo, courtesy Joe Strapac), taken at Eugene, Oregon on March 15, 1946, with SP 1901 painted in “Tiger Stripe” colors. The side shutters and plain hood end are clearly shown.

In the photo above, note the prominent rerailing frog over the front truck at right. Photos of these locomotives on the SP after the 1940s no longer show these frogs present, so they were not a permanent feature. 

What might this have to do with SP’s Coast Division and in particular, the San Luis Obispo area (which I model)? In the 1953–54 era, SP tried out a variety of diesel locomotives on different parts of the system, including Coast Division, and specifically at San Luis. 

One of my previous posts, with parts of my interview with Malcolm “Mac” Gaddis who worked there in the early 1950s, mentions trying out GE 70-ton engines, Baldwin and Alco six-axle road switchers, and others (here’s a link to that post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/08/san-luis-obispo-operations-3.html ). He mentioned the 44-tonners in another part of the interview. Neither the 44-ton nor 70-ton locomotives could do the desired job in the yard at San Luis Obispo (which is on a grade), and after short stints, they were sent elsewhere — but they did work there.

This is of current interest because Rapido Trains has just introduced a GE 44-tonner in HO scale, and they offer it in SP paint and lettering. Among the body styles they chose to do is the original design, with side radiators, sometimes called Phase I, correct for the SP numbers they have modeled. Here is a photo of SP 1902 at work on my layout, switching cars at Shumala.

The engine runs nicely, has a realistic diesel sound, and handles switching well. It’s shown below spotting a reefer at the Phelan & Taylor packing shed in East Shumala on my layout.

I’m sure the 44-tonners didn’t serve very long in this area of Coast Division, but the times when they were tested does fit my modeling era, so I will operate this one occasionally.

Tony Thompson

Repainting a GS-4 tender

I have an all-black Broadway Limited HO scale model of a Southern Pacific 4-8-4 locomotive, Class GS-4. That is how these engines were painted once the red and orange Daylight paint scheme began to be removed in the early 1950s. But as I received it, the model is lettered in the pre-1946 lettering scheme, with the road name as “Southern Pacific Lines” in relatively small lettering (9 inches tall) and with a small, lower number on the back of the tender. 

Here is a view of one such prototype GS-4 locomotive, taken at Glendale on November 24, 1943. Locomotive 4431 is at the head end of No. 71, the “Coast Mail” and has been repainted black under wartime conditions (Fred A. Stindt photo, courtesy Bob Church). It’s interesting that the tender lettering is located high on the car side, where it had been in the Daylight scheme.

There are not many good photos of the backs of tenders, but the nearly identical SP tender class applied to the GS-6 locomotives were well photographed  by Guy L. Dunscomb at Oakland in March of 1947 (Arnold Menke collection). The small road number beneath the back-up light is evident.

The Broadway Limited model has these characteristics, as you can see below. But for my operating year of 1953, I definitely have to re-letter the tender. Few SP locomotives retained the pre-1946 lettering past the summer of 1947. The problem now is to research what new lettering to apply.

As I think most SP enthusiasts know, in 1946 SP replaced the scheme just shown with a dramatic increase in size of tender lettering (to 20 inches in height) and discontinued the word “Lines.” Details of the 1946 paint and lettering are contained in the Southern Pacific Painting and Lettering Guide, “Locomotives and Passenger Cars,” revised edition (J.A. Cauthen and J.R. Signor, SPH&TS, Upland, CA, 2019). Views of post-1946 locomotives in black paint are numerous, usually including tenders, as shown below (Bob Church collection).

Tender end numbers were enlarged also, and relocated above the back-up light. But it’s surprisingly hard to find an end photo of a black GS-4 tender in post-1946 lettering. Even Arnold Menke’s outstanding chapter on tenders in Bob Church’s Daylight engine book doesn’t have one (Robert J. Church, Southern Pacific Daylight Locomotives, Signature Press, Berkeley and Wilton, CA, 2004). 

But one of my favorite Don Sims photos does capture exactly that. Here we see GS-4 4448 at Bakersfield, just cut off from the San Joaquin Daylight after its run eastward down the valley. A set of F7 freight diesels will take the train over the Tehachapi. The end lettering is very clear.

This is how I will be re-lettering my GS-4 tender, as I will show in a future post.

Tony Thompson

The new SP Berkshire locomotive models

As I’m sure was the case for many Southern Pacific modelers, the recent announcement by Broadway Limited Imports (BLI) of new HO scale locomotive models of the Boston & Maine Berkshires was of interest. These engines ran for almost 20 years on the B&M, their original purchaser, but in the summer of 1945, both SP and Santa Fe each bought ten of these locomotives from the B&M.  

Why did the two roads make these purchases? The War Department had warned both railroads that with the concluding of the war in Europe, there would be heavy traffic across the U.S., transferring men, supplies and equipment from the European Theater to the Pacific, in preparation for what was expected to be a major campaign invading the home islands of Japan. Thus both railroads went out to acquire additional locomotives. That the atomic bomb would end World War II was, of course, not yet known.

The BLI announcement includes locomotives decorated for both SP and Santa Fe, two engine numbers for each railroad. Below I show the BLI artwork for the SP models. They included the smaller “Southern Pacific Lines” lettering on one engine because when the engines arrived on SP rails in August 1945, that was the official paint scheme. SP changed to the larger lettering and eliminated “Lines” in June 1946. 

Both tenders shown by BLI are the original B&M coal tenders, and indeed the SP locomotives were initially operated with those tenders, exclusively on the Rio Grande Division, SP’s only coal-fired division at that time. But in subsequent years, all ten engines were converted to oil fuel and migrated to California in the spring and summer of 1950. So my first thought was, could I use one of these distinctive locomotives on my layout?

Below I will describe some of the research I did to answer that question. In doing so, I don’t intend to praise or criticize the models themselves, and my goal is only to show the kind(s) of research that is possible with the sources we have. I certainly don’t wish to suggest what anyone else’s purchasing decision should be.

First, it’s worth remembering that these B&M Berkshires were part of the “Superpower” revolution at Lima Locomotive, brainchild of designer Will Woodard, and were capable of impressive horsepower in freight service. Built in 1928, perhaps the main criticism of them would be their retention of Lima’s articulated trailing truck design, something that found favor with few buyers of Lima power.

Second, let’s look at one of these Berkshires soon after SP arrival. (Allan Youell photo at El Paso, 1947, courtesy Guy Dunscomb). Here the very distinctive Coffin feedwater heater on the boiler front stands out (standard SP practice was to paint the entire boiler front aluminum, which is obvious here). The locomotive also still has its B&M trailing truck booster, alligator crosshead, and Baker valve gear. SP had applied train indicators, which BLI has included on the SP models, and blowdown spreaders, which I don’t see in the BLI artwork.

All ten engines remained pretty much like this on the Rio Grande Division from their arrival in August 1945 until the fall of 1949, when they began to be converted to oil fuel and of course given oil tenders. Exact dates and locations of these changes can be found in the Steam Locomotive Compendium (Timothy Diebert and Joe Strapac, Shade Tree Books, 1987).

So the first conclusion about using one of the BLI models is that until the fall of 1949, they ran only on the Rio Grande Division on account of being coal fired. It wasn’t merely unlikely that they would be seen elsewhere on the SP in that period, it was effectively impossible.

So how did these engines look when they had oil tenders? Below I show SP 3500, in a G.M. Best photo at Los Angeles in late 1949. The engine had its oil conversion at El Paso in September, and here it is in California, looking freshly painted. SP preferred multiple-bearing crossheads and Walschaerts valve gear, and any engine not already so equipped was modified. Those two big cylindrical things on the pilot beam are shields over the air pumps. And notice the dry pipe along the top of the boiler, from the superheater in the smokebox to the turret. Booster has been removed.

The tender tank, the upper part of the tender body, is from a retired 4000-series articulated, but it was placed on the original B&M tender frame, and the B&M trucks retained. The reason was to preserve the original arrangement of the drawbar between the engine’s articulated trailing truck, and the tender. For more on this, see Southern Pacific Steam Pictorial, Volume II (Guy L. Dunscomb, Donald K. Dunscomb, and Robert A. Pecotich, Dunscomb Publishing, 1999).

At this point, a second conclusion about the BLI models is that if you want to operate them on a California layout, they need to have oil tenders. It would be an interesting and not impossibly difficult project to built a semi-cylindrical or “whaleback” tender body and put it on the frame and trucks of the BLI models. But this would be getting far beyond an out-of-the-box model, and replacing crossheads and valve gear for the low-numbered engines offered by BLI, even more so.

Apparently records aren’t clear about which engines lost their boosters and when, but at least three did (boosters were out of favor at SP by this time, and many SP locomotives that had been built with boosters lost them in late steam days). Eventually all the engines also lost the prominent Coffin feedwater heaters, which very dramatically changed their appearance (Santa Fe also replaced those heaters.) Below is shown SP 3504, photographed by Guy Dunscomb at Modesto, California in April 1950.

Where did these engines operate after they came to California in 1950? I happen to have an SP Locomotives Assigned pamphlet for March 31, 1950. At that time, all ten of the Berkshires remained in service, but only two were still on Rio Grande Division, SP 3506 and 3509. All the others had been assigned to the San Joaquin Division.

So a third point to be made is that the Berkshires were assigned to Jan Joaquin Division, and we know they remained there until they began to be scrapped. The strict meaning of this is that you would only want one of these engines if you model San Joaquin Division, but in fact engines did sometimes run through on other divisions, or have break-in runs after shopping on other than their home division, so one could stretch the geographic restriction to some extent. Since I model Coast Division, some rationale like that would have to be applied.

Lastly, as batch after batch of EMD F units continued to arrive on SP in 1950 and beyond, more and more steam freight power became surplus, especially “oddballs” like the Berkshires. All the Berkshires were vacated from the roster between the late fall of 1950 and mid-summer 1951 (individual dates are in Diebert & Strapac).

Thus my fourth and final point is that these distinctive locomotives were gone from the SP by August 1951. I model 1953, so it would require more than a small time warp for me to operate a BLI Berkshire. I’m still kind of tempted, but I would certainly have to face up to removing the Coffin feedwater heater and buying or building a tender, not trivial projects. 

But as I already remarked, I am not trying to tell anyone else what to think about these models. Particularly those with the “collector” itch  (something I suffer from myself) may find these hard to resist. 

Tony Thompson

PNR-NMRA 2023

Coming less than a month after the annual convention of my home NMRA region, Pacific Coast Region (PCR), the convention of PNR (Pacific Northwest Region) was held last weekend in Tacoma, Washington. This is the adjoining region to the north of my own, not terribly far away, and I often attend the PNR meeting as well as the PCR. 

As I’ve stated before, I like to report on these meetings because of a long-held conviction, 40 years in the making, that regional NMRA conventions are fun and worthwhile attending. (My report on this year’s PCR meeting is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/05/pcr-nmra-2023.html .)

The PNR convention this year was kind of a mixed bag, with, unfortunately, a sub-par hotel, but there was good content in the convention activities, and an interesting neighborhood around the hotel. Just a block below us was the railroad depot facilities for both Amtrak and regional rail, both the Sound Transit light rail (street cars) and heavy-rail regional service (the Cascades and Sounder trains). Here’s a Sounder with its distinctive Bombardier bi-level coaches.

Incidentally, that’s our hotel at the top right of the photo!

As always, for me the clinic program at the convention was a major time consumer, and there were a number of good ones. Below I show Rich Mahaney, who gave a bunch of different talks, during his presentation on modern tank cars. I also gave a talk in the program.

I am always interested in the contest room, since you can depend on seeing some outstanding models. This convention was no exception. For me, the star this time was Donald Rose’s large-scale model of a narrow-gauge, outside-frame 0-6-0 of the Oahu Railway.

And the closer you looked, the more you saw. Below is a view into the cab, with all the piping and valves that were installed. This was a pretty impressive model.

 

Finally, I had the chance to scratch another of my many itches, discovering the Tacoma Book Center just a block from the hotel. The view below is just one of 12 aisles. I love places like this and could probably have spent all day there quite happily — and would equally probably spend a pile of money, and have to buy another suitcase to take all those wonderful purchases home!

As always, an enjoyable NMRA regional convention. Despite a few problems, congratulations to the organizers, who I know put in a considerable amount of time and effort to make one of these events happen. And to state it one more time, if you’ve never attended one of these conventions, it’s worth a try.

Tony Thompson

Alco S-2 and S-4 switchers

Southern Pacific was one of the best customer for the Alco (American Locomotive Company) diesel switcher. This began during World War II, when the War Production Board dictated which diesel models each manufacturer could produce, and how many. GM’s Electro-Motive Division (EMD) was restricted to production of FT road diesels, and Alco to the production of diesel switchers. SP, needing all the switchers it could get, obtaining 57 of them during 1942-44.

After the war, EMD prioritized building road diesels (F3 and F7 models), and deliveries of their switchers had long lead times. Again, SP continued to purchase Alco switchers because they could be delivered sooner, even though they would have preferred the EMD models. Their fleet of Alco S-2 models, beginning with the 57 mentioned above, grew to 122 by 1950.

(For a thorough history of all the Alco switchers that SP owned, I recommend Joe Strapac’s Volume 18 in his magisterial series, Southern Pacific Historic Diesels, Shade Tree Books, 2013. I will freely quote from his information in this post.)

The Alco S-2 was a 1000-horsepower locomotive with sturdy General Electric traction motors. One of its distinctive spotting features was the truck design used, a proprietary one known as Blunt. Many Alco customers believed this truck to be superior on rough or degraded track. But others were bothered by the differences from the so-called “AAR switcher truck” used by other builders, and eventually Alco agreed with AAR requests and replaced the Blunt trucks with the General Steel Castings version of the AAR switcher truck.

Below is a nice in-service sot of an Alco S-2 at Ogden in September 1952 (Wilbur C. Whittaker photo). I should mention that this is a slightly oddball S-2, in that it is one of only a few S-2 engines built in 1944 that had horizontal radiator shutters at the front. Otherwise it’s a good view of the right side of an S-2. This is, of course, the famous “Tiger Stripe” scheme of orange stripes on a black body.

For a good view of the left side of an S-2, and to show some other details, I include below a color view taken in San Francisco on June 20, 1957. (Dave Sweetland photo, Al Chione collection). The white portions of the handrails are evident, as is the tan canvas sun shade on the cab. This engine has vertical radiator shutters, as did nearly all S-2 models. Incidentally, the “radio-equipped” lettering on the cab side arrived in the mid-1950s, after my 1953 modeling era.

To model these very numerous switchers on the SP, I chose SP 1389, a switcher assigned to Coast Division in July 1952. My model is an Atlas Model Railroad Co. product from before the days of DCC. I made a few modifications to the stock model, painted and lettered it, and wrote an article for Railroad Model Craftsman magazine about the project (the issue of May 1988, page 54 to 57). More recently, a decoder and sound have been added. Here is a photo of this model.

The Alco replacement for the Model S-2 was the Model S-4. It was in most respects identical to the S-2, but had AAR switcher trucks. Cab and body were still riveted construction, and many details were identical to the S-2. Below is an Alco builder photo from November 1951, of part of an order delivered to SP that year. In contrast to the 122 S-2s on SP, there would eventually be 64 S-4s purchased.

For models, Atlas has just recently released a run of Alco S-4s including the SP Tiger Stripe version. I signed up for one, and nowadays, of course, it comes with DCC and sound. I simply added a coat of flat finish and used acrylic washes to tone down the paint (and to darken the stack). Here’s the engine spotting up a freshly loaded car to be iced, in my town of Shumala.

These are interesting switchers and an integral part of SP locomotive history in the transition era. I’m glad to add an S-4 to my switcher fleet, and look forward to its use in my next operating session.

Tony Thompson

My fourth 2022 operating weekend

 Usually I hesitate to try and schedule an operating weekend between Thanksgiving and New Years, but this year I felt I should try, given that the local San Francisco Bay Area will host a “BayRails” event next March. This is the usual timing, March in an odd-numbered year, and since we naturally missed out on 2021, this will be the first one for awhile. Many of us, including me, are trying to get the layouts into as good a shape as possible.

Of course one should always take the time occasionally to walk the layout and scrutinize the condition of everything, preferably taking notes the while (I call such notes a ‘walking-around list,” as I have described before; see for example this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2022/10/my-walking-around-list.html ). But perhaps an at least equally informative test is to hold an operating session, thus the scheduling of mine this past weekend.

Slightly to my surprise, I was able to sign up full crews for both Saturday and Sunday (I had thought I  might have to hold just a single session, because people tend to have full calendars for the holidays). The first day, the crews were Seth Neumann, Dave Falkenburg, John Rodgers, and Jim Radkey. Below you see Jim (at left) and John, working at Shumala; Jim was the conductor here, and you can see a batch of waybills in his hand. He is, of course, wearing season-appropriate headgear.

Meanwhile, Seth and Dave were hard at work switching Ballard. In the view below, that’s Seth at right. I think Seth was conductor on this shift, and you can see his clipboard, and switch list, in front of him. He seems to be marveling at the move his engineer, Dave, has just made with a freight car.

One change in this session is that the Guadalupe Local was pulled, not by its usual Southern Pacific Consolidation, but by a Baldwin road-switcher. By the year I model, 1953, these Baldwins had about worn out their welcome on this part of the SP, and would soon migrate into the urban areas of southern and northern California, and the Oregon branches, but here is one of them, still in use in this area.

Then on Sunday the essentially identical session was run, that is, with the same switching assignments, but different crews. Below you can see Lisa Gorrell (at left) and Richard Brennan working Shumala. Lisa was enjoying the conductor’s job here, and it looks like she and Richard are discussing their next move.

On the other side of the layout, Tom Swearingen (left) and Ed Merrin were switching at Ballard. In this location, I think Ed was the engineer; you can just see the top of the throttle he’s holding.

The sessions went pretty smoothly (and of course the layout gremlins discovered on Saturday were mostly excised before the Sunday session — a standard experience for a layout owner). The crews had fun, and I had fun watching all the new and original approaches to switching challenges. And I found a few things that need improvement before BayRails. That met all my desires and druthers for these sessions!

Tony Thompson

Power balancing

 By “power balancing.” I refer to movements of motive power across one division to another, or even from division point to division point within a division, to bring motive power assignments into balance. This is a more likely occurrence with big power than with small power, and there are plenty of prototype photos of big power operating “light,” that is, without a string of cars. 

(We keep in mind, of course, the definition of a “train,” from the book of rules: “An engine, or more than one engine coupled, with or without cars, displaying markers.” So contrary to what modelers sometimes think, the presence of a caboose has nothing to with making it a train — though of course, a caboose is handy for displaying markers.)

The most common reason for light movement of engines is helpers returning from an assignment, thus commonly seen on mountain grades. Below is a Southern Pacific example I’ve always liked, a Wilbur C. Whittaker photo near Yuba Pass on the west side of the Donner grade, in the summer of 1950: a pair of cab-forwards coupled together, making a train.

But there are lots of other examples. In my interviews with Malcolm “Mac” Gaddis, who worked at San Luis Obispo in the early 1950s, he mentioned that on the Coast Division, power balancing often involved 2-10-2 locomotives, and he even described a 2-10-2 cab ride he made during such a move, from Santa Barbara back to San Luis. (To see that account, use this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/08/san-luis-obispo-operations-4.html ).

Here is an example of such a move, photographed by John Shaw on a rainy New Year’s Day, 1956,  2-10-2 no. 3672 turning on the Watsonville Junction wye to return light to San Luis, where it was assigned for years. Note the slicker-clad brakeman on the rear tender step, and the snazzy two-tone pickup truck. (You can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish.)

One of the comments by Mac Gaddis that I enjoyed was this one: “I’ve always been on good terms with dispatchers, and I would call up and ask ’em, with some locomotive move like three light engines moving, ‘what’s going on?’ They would say, ‘Oh, we’re balancing power,’ and I’d say, ‘That covers anything, doesn’t it?’ ”  For more on that part of the interview, see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/06/san-luis-obispo-operations-2.html .

This is tempting to reproduce in model form. I’ve written about this possibility and others, under the title “Big locomotives on small layouts,” which you can find at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/03/big-locomotives-on-small-layouts_17.html . In that post, I showed both “cab hop” (meaning engine and caboose) and dynamometer car trains. Both are perfectly credible and well-documented on the SP prototype. But light engines can also be modeled in operation.

 Below I show my Broadway Limited Class AC-4 cab-forward no. 4107, running westward light, just passing milepost 270 on my Coast Line layout.

And I like the idea of two or more light engines running together, as Mac Gaddis mentioned. For example, I can run two of my Class C-9 Consolidations, nos. 2763 and 2752, on such an eastward move, probably to Santa Barbara. (No. 2763 is a Balboa brass model, 2752 a Key engine.) In this view, they are passing the Shumala engine terminal.

Including light engine moves is an interesting extension of mainline activity on my layout. Though I only have space to model a short segment of the Coast main line, I like to have range of options for each operating session.

Tony Thompson

Handout: modeling transition-era SP motive power

 This handout is to provide background and readily available on-line resources in support of the talk, along with printed book and magazine resources. The primary foundation for this presentation was my article in Model Railroad Hobbyist for February 2019, entitled “Developing a realistic loco fleet.” It was part of the “Running Extra” portion of the issue, can be downloaded at: www.mrhmag.com . 

A point of emphasis in the talk is appropriate prototype locomotives to model, nearly all based on known locomotive assignments. One of my favorite SP locomotives is Class C-9 Consolidation 2829, shown here at San Luis Obispo, where it was assigned for years (Dallas Gilbertson photo).

But of course one draws inspiration from elsewhere on the Southern Pacific; most locomotive types operated on numerous divisions across Pacific Lines. An obvious example is the “signature” SP steam power, the cab-forward. The image below, taken west of Roseville in June 1956 (Jack Bowden photo) shows a freshly painted 4163 with a reefer block.

I begin my sources of additional information to supplement the talk, with a fair number of my blog posts on these topics. In most cases, the link includes enough of the post title to inform you of what is included. These have been listed chronologically.

General discussion about SP motive power rosters:

https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/04/choosing-1953-locomotive-roster.html

Steam motive power modeling:

https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/05/sp-steam-power-in-early-1950s.html

https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/02/southern-pacific-f-unit-diesels.html

https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2016/12/locomotives-for-layout.html 

https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2018/07/sps-whaleback-tenders.html

https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-sp-4-8-2-from-athearn.html

https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/03/sd-locomotives-on-sp.html

Diesel chronology and modeling:

https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/03/modeling-diesel-locomotive-chronology.html

https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/06/modeling-diesel-locomotive-chronology-2.html

https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2022/05/diesel-chronology-modeling.html

https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2022/08/baldwin-road-switchers.html

There are a great number of books containing excellent historical information and considerable photo coverage of all the kinds of motive power I discussed. As I showed in the talk, there are lots of titles about the entire SP, but for my Coast Division topic, these are especially valuable, and each is included in the list below:

I will admit in the following list, to being more rather than less inclusive, in the interest of completeness. Many of the items shown are out of print, but are readily found for sale from on-line book dealers.

Church, Robert J., Cab-Forward (Revised Edition), Central Valley Railroad Publications, Wilton, CA, 1982.
   
Church, Robert J., The 4300 4-8-2’s (Revised Edition), Signature Press, Wilton, CA, 1996.
   
Crossley, Rod, Chasing the SP in California, 1953-1956, SP Historical & Technical Society, Upland, CA, 2011.
   
Diebert, Timothy S., and Strapac, Joseph A. Southern Pacific Company Steam Locomotive Compendium, Shade Tree Books, Huntington Beach, CA, 1987.
   
Dill, Tom, Southern Pacific’s Scenic Coast Line, Four Ways West Publications, La Mirada, CA, 2003.   

Dunscomb, Guy L.,  A Century of Southern Pacific Steam Locomotives,  2nd Edition, Guy L. Dunscomb and Sons, Modesto, CA, 1972.
   
Garmany, John Bonds, Southern Pacific Dieselization, Pacific Fast Mail Publications, Edmonds, WA, 1985.
   
Gilbertson, Dallas, California Rails 1950, Four Ways West Publications, La Mirada, CA, 2008.
   
Menke, Arnold, “The Compendium Companion,” A. Menke, Bisbee, AZ, various editions.
   
Southern Pacific, Annual Report, San Francisco, 1954.
   
Strapac, Joe, “Three Decades of Southern Pacific F Units,” Trainline (magazine of the SP Historical & Technical Society), issue 66, Winter 2001, pp. 8–25.
   
Strapac, Joseph A., Southern Pacific Historic Dieselss, Vol. 4, “SD7 and SD9 Locomotives,” Shade Tree Books, Bellflower, CA, 1997.
   
Strapac, Joseph A., Southern Pacific Historic Diesels, Vol. 8, “Alco Roadswitcher Locomotives,” Shade Tree Books, Bellflower, CA, 2001.
   
Strapac, Joseph A., Southern Pacific Historic Diesels, Vol. 10, “EMD Freight F Locomotives,” Shade Tree Books, Bellflower, CA, 2003.
   
Strapac, Joseph A., Southern Pacific Historic Diesels, Vol. 11, “Baldwin Switchers and Roadswitchers,” Shade Tree Books, Bellflower, CA, 2005.
   
Strapac, Joseph A, Southern Pacific Historic Diesels, Vol. 18, “Alco and GE Diesel Switchers,” Shade Tree Books, Bellflower, CA, 2013.
   
Strapac, Joseph A. Southern Pacific Diesel Locomotive Compendium, Vol. 1, Pre-1965, Shade Tree Books, Bellflower, CA, 2004.
   
Thompson, Anthony, “Modeling a Southern Pacific Alco S2 with tiger stripes,” Railroad Model Craftsman, Vol. 56, No. 12, May 1988, pp. 54–57.
   
Thompson, Anthony W., and Signor, John R., Coast Line Pictorial, Signature Press, Wilton, CA, 2000.
   
Thompson, Tony, “Southern Pacific Diesel Locomotive Chronology,” Trainline (magazine of SPH&TS), issue 29, 1992, pp. 18–23.  

Thompson, Tony, “Notes on Modeling Espee F Units,” Trainline (magazine of SPH&TS), issue 66, Winter 2001, pp. 25–29.
   
The books and magazine articles listed above will provide a far more complete picture of my subject than it is possible to do in a single talk. I hope these resources prove valuable.

Tony Thompson

The new SPH&TS book on 4-8-0 locomotives

 The Southern Pacific Historical & Technical Society (SPH&TS) has just published an excellent book for those of us interested in motive power. Entitled Southern Pacific 4-8-0 Locomotives, it’s authored by the late Tom Dill and by Joe Strapac. As always, Strapac’s masterful hand in selecting photos, providing technical specifics, and laying out a handsome volume, are at the fore. But Tom Dill’s superb photo collection and operating experience were an essential part of the project too.

Here’s the cover. You can buy the book at the SPH&TS website (visit it at: https://sphts.org/shop/ ) if your local hobby shop — where of course you should shop first — doesn’t carry it. I recommend that you order it from SPH&TS.

It’s an 8 x 11.5-inch hardbound book, with 208 pages, richly illustrated with photos from the long careers of many of the SP 4-8-0’s. People may not realize that SP owned 80 engines of this wheel arrangement, and some lasted to the end of steam, mostly on account of low axle loadings required on many Oregon branch lines.

The book contains twelve chapters. Seven of them are devoted to the individual classes of these locomotives, TW-1 to TW-8 (there was no Class TW-5), “TW” of course for “Twelve-Wheeler.” There is another of Arnold Menke’s outstanding chapters on tenders, and there is a complete locomotive roster including dates for such things as the conversion of the original cross-compound steam distribution to simple.

One very small quibble. On page 162 appears the photo shown below, an Allan Styffe image at San Luis Obispo from March 1952. I might raise two points about the photo caption: first, it says that “This is the only black-and-white image yet found showing a twelve-wheeler at this location . . .” It also states that the locomotive was soon thereafter moved to Oregon and was retired thirteen months later, which would be April of 1953.

Now as to the statement about this being a singular B&W image, obviously the authors weren’t aware of Malcolm “Mac” Gaddis’s photographs, of which I once borrowed all the negatives and made prints for my own use (with Mac’s generous permission). Below I show one of them, also of SP 2918 at San Luis Obispo. Mac worked at San Luis for several years in the early 1950s.

Now of course no author can find every photo out there, and I don’t really have any criticism of Dill and Strapac for not having checked into the Gaddis photos. But there is a second point: Mac’s date for his photo is August 1954. I know Mac kept track of his dates, because when I interviewed him, he pulled out a stack of little booklets in which he had written down photo dates. The  engine obviously was not in Oregon in August 1954, nor was it retired. Nevertheless, author Strapac’s citation of SP locomotive records is better information.

But as I said, these are really tiny quibbles. It’s an excellent book, and I’m still enjoying reading in it and studying photographs. And yes, this is definitely one of those books that repeatedly brings the nose down to the page to examine details. 

I was especially pleased that they included one of my favorite photos from Wilbur C. Whittaker, a 1937 photo by the young Wilbur along the shore between Watsonville and Santa Cruz, with a single-car Train 187 behind SP 2923. Marvelous eye for composition!

As you can tell, I really like this book and heartily recommend it. And I’m delighted the SPH&TS is serving its audience with such an excellent publication. Congratulations all around!

Tony Thompson

Baldwin road switchers

To me, it’s an interesting footnote in locomotive history that Southern Pacific was quite a customer of Baldwin diesel road switchers, almost from when they were first introduced. Baldwin, of course, was eventually not terribly successful in the diesel locomotive market, but they had road switcher models before either Alco or EMD did. SP eventually owned over 80 of them, plus ten to T&NO (see Joe Strapac’s Volume 11 in the series, Southern Pacific Historic Diesels, “Baldwin Switchers and Roadswitchers,” Shade Tree Books, 2005). 

And we know that they were used out of San Luis Obispo, according to Mac Gaddis, who worked there. For a portion of one of my interviews with him, see this link: http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/08/san-luis-obispo-operations-3.html ). The area of California that I model is only about 20 miles south of San Luis Obispo (for more about my layout locale, see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/08/conveying-ones-layout-locale.html .)

The first of SP’s 6-wheel Baldwin road switchers were model DRS-6-4-1500, meaning “Diesel Road Switcher, 6 axles, 4 motors, 1500 horsepower,” only three units, arriving in 1948. They were followed by 6-motor units, DRS-6-6-1500,  numbered 5203–5212, in 1949. Though delivered in full “Tiger Stripe” paint, as were ordinary switchers, they soon received aluminum end paint. Below is a 1950 photo of SP 5212 on the ready track at Taylor Roundhouse (Stan Kistler).

There was a Stewart HO scale model which was quite close to these early DRS-6-6-1500 engines, and my model was re-detailed, painted, crewed and given a decoder by Al Massi. Here it is passing the Shumala depot with the Guadalupe Local:

In 1954, after my modeling year of 1953, SP decided that these were really road locomotives, and the orange striping went away over the next four years, engine by engine, to be replaced with normal road power “Black Widow” silver and orange wings. Here’s an example, a photo at West Oakland in 1959 (Don Hansen photo).

Apparently SP was pretty happy at first with the DRS 6-6-1500 locomotives, because in early 1950 they received 14 more, SP 5213–5226. Externally they were quite similar in most respects to the preceding group of locomotives; probably the most visible aspect for modelers is that they had dynamic brakes, with open grilles over the resistor grids in the short hood.

By the summer of 1950, Baldwin  upgraded this locomotive to 1600 horsepower with a new supercharger, and designated it as model AS-616.The first models produced went to SP, delivered from September 1950 to spring 1951, 28 units numbered SP 5228–5249. In the fall of 1951, SP began to take delivery of yet another order, this time 29 units, SP 5250–5278. Again, all were delivered with the modified “road” version of the Tiger Stripe scheme (aluminum ends), but in 1954, all began to be repainted into the Black Widow style of road service power.

I have a Hallmark brass model of the Baldwin AS-616 locomotive, with dynamic brake grilles on the short hood (as it should have), and I painted and lettered it myself, as SP 5249. Below it’s shown with the Surf Local returning westward to San Luis Obispo, here just passing the Shumala engine terminal.

The trouble here is that this would be an awfully early repaint in my 1953 modeling year. This engine is a good puller, but I may sell it on, as not really correct for my era — much as I like the paint scheme.

We know that Baldwins were the only SP road switchers in the early transition era, and even by my modeling year of 1953, the Baldwins greatly outnumbered the first new orders for Alco and EMD engines of that type, which all arrived during 1953. So it’s essential that I have at least one in my layout operation. Heck, I may even need another one in Tiger Stripes to replace the 5249!

Tony Thompson

Modeling cab aprons

 This post is about including cab aprons on model steam locomotives. So what the heck is a cab apron? (I hear you mutter.) For railroad terminology, I go to the Cyclopedias, in this case the Locomotive Cyclopedia for 1925, the 7th edition published by Simmons-Boardman. On pages 108 and 109 are a drawing of a generic Mikado (2-8-2) steam locomotive and the names of 324 different components of the locomotive. 

Below I show just the cab portion of this drawing. Note at the right edge of the cab that an item 211 is called out, Below the drawing I show the entry in the list of names, for no. 211. It’s the cab apron. This is a steel plate, hinged at the cab edge, which provides the walkway between engine and tender. Attached to only one of them, it allows the tender to move relative to the locomotive, for example in curves, while maintaining a walking surface over the gap.

This part is needed in model steam locomotives in particular, because we typically couple locomotives and tenders at considerably greater distances than the prototype (because of our far sharper curves in model track). Below is an example of such an apron, in this case on a Key brass model of an SP Consolidation. The apron is brass, and has masking tape underneath to ensure against electrical shorts.

When an apron is not included in the model, it certainly emphasizes the gap between engine and tender, as you see below on SP 2575, a Sunset model of an SP Class C-9 Consolidation with a whaleback tender (shown on the turntable at my layout’s Shumala engine terminal). We normally view our models from a somewhat overhead perspective, making these gaps more obvious.

To add aprons like this, I have usually used sheet styrene, 0.010-inch thickness, though the exact thickness isn’t important. Styrene gets you away from the electrical risks of a brass apron. I have just used ordinary Scotch mending tape to form a hinge underneath the apron. 

In HO scale, a locomotive cab is about an inch wide, though each individual cab has to be examined to see where the apron should be located. Usually the gap is around a quarter-inch. I usually make the apron a bit wider than that, maybe 5/16-inch. They are painted flat black.

Below are some examples of various aprons I have made. The one at upper left, with rounded corners, is the design I mostly use. The two bottom examples have diagonal corners of different size. All are an inch wide and roughly 5/16-inch high.

With an apron like the rounded-corner one shown above, I corrected the appearance of SP 2575, pictured above on the turntable. Here it is with its styrene apron.

Though these aprons are a detail, and a model one at that, since on the prototype they are quite narrow, I really think they improve appearance. And like so many “errors,” once you have noticed them, it becomes impossible to “not see” them. I’ve enjoyed adding aprons to my locomotives that didn’t have them.

Tony Thompson

Bay Area Prototype Modelers 2022

The annual Railroad Prototype Modelers (RPM) meeting held in the San Francisco Bay Area has naturally been on hiatus through the pandemic, but on June 18, it returned at last. I have always enjoyed attending this event, the Bay Area Prototype Modelers (BAPM) meeting, and this was no exception. What a pleasure to see the familiar sign on arrival at our usual site in Richmond!

As usual, there were many excellent models on display, and I photographed a few that especially struck me for quality or distinctive treatments. For example, there was a group of box cars by Jesus Peña, who said he had never had the courage to try weathering, until he saw a Michael Gross video (and here’s a link to one of Michael’s articles: http://mrhpub.com/2017-01-jan/online/html5/index.html?page=154&noflash ) using artist’s pencils, and decided to try it. His results looked really nice to me. Here is one of his cars, a Class BX-37 box car, ATSF 141923.

One example of a modern freight car treatment that I liked was by Robert Forsstrom, a grain hopper that’s not only gotten dirty, but has been patched and given new reporting marks, along with some graffiti. Very nice looking combination of treatments.

Another display I really liked was Richard Mitchell’s locomotives. In particular, he has used the Mantua/Tyco Pacific (essentially the B&O Class P-7e) as the basis for a number of railroads’ heavy Pacifics. Most receive new cabs, to get a prototypical shape and thin walls. Below is a striking example, the T&NO “Sunbeam” power, but in addition, he displayed a C&NW “400” engine, the streamlined B&O P-7d, a GM&O Class P-167, and the prototype, B&O P-7e.

Lastly, I want to show one of a very nice series of models “in progress,” always a most informative way to see the work that is done. These were by Rick Selby, and the particular example I show below is based on the SP 60-foot box cars of Class B-100-44, 100 cars built by Pacific Car & Foundry in 1978. 

Rick began with the Athearn Genesis 60-foot FMC box car kit. Roof and ends were removed on a milling machine, and Cannon & Co. Plate C ends were added, then extended to Plate F height with styrene. The new roof was built with styrene to match the PC&F prototype. A nice looking model and as I mentioned, always interesting to see work in progress.

I will stop here, and will have more to show in a future post, additional models that I really enjoyed seeing at this year’s BAPM.

Tony Thompson