I plan on building a layout centered on the Southern Pacific in and around the San Francisco Bay Area in say, 1980. As if that wasn’t enough, I want to include, at varying degrees, (what remained of) the Western Pacific and the Rio Grande. While historical accuracy is not my primary concern, how should I go about constructing a viable and semi prototypical locomotive fleet for these three respective railroads. Though I know generally what I’m going to need, I was wondering if anyone could add a few specific locomotives that would serve my locale and railroads well.
I am rather new to the hobby, though this will be my third layout. Currently I only have two engines, both switchers, and neither will likely be used on my new layout.
Any feedback at all regarding anything I have written about would be appreciated.
In 1980, Rio Grande locomotives with little exception only left home rails on specific run-throughs such as the Kaiser Steel coal trains. Not until the early 1990s did Rio Grande locomotives start intermingling widely on the SP system
WP in 1980 was virtually an extension of the UP, with SD40-2s and C30-7s predominate on WP through freights. Home road GP40s and GP35s handled the locals and some of the junk freights.
SP circa 1980 had a very diverse locomotive fleet; however, certain locomotives such as GP35s and four-axle GEs had highly specific regionality to their use. In the Bay Area in 1980 the SP would be dominated by six-axle, high-horsepower EMDs such as SD40T-2s, SD45T-2s, and SD45s, with SD9s and GP9s on branch line and some local assignments, and SW1500s in the yards. Other types were present but 95% of the locomotives would be of those types.
If worrying about historically scrupulous doesn’t leave you sleepless at night (and why should it on a model railroad!), then D&RGW power would mostly be SD40T-2s and GP40s/GP40-2s, with some SD45s and GP30s.
I had the pleasure of participating in a Operating Session last Saturday night at Joe Fugate’s Siskiyou Line,that hit this nail right on the head! It is an all SP layout that a guest had brought his 3 unit lashup of bright spanking new Rio Grande SD40-2 Tunnel Motors to, and they were a starkly beautiful contrast to the weathered scarlet and grey. They were in use all evening as midtrain helpers in long trains over the summit. Of course they had terrific sound, although it seemed that being new they were just a little touchy on the throttle and a few cars did do the cliff dive when the pushing got enthusiastic! No major damage done but brownie points and much heckling, for sure! A really fun evening! jc5729 John Colley, Port Townsend, WA
WP B-30’s in the green scheme were also visible in the pre-merger dyas of 1980 along with later day EMD switchers though an SW-1 was in Stockton at merger time.
I don’t recall much D&RGW power in the Bay Area in the late seventies, early eighties. UP pool power was mainly SD40’s and SD40-2’s and almost always confined to trailing positions on the SP. Occasionaly D&RGW power did run through on the WP. I do recall solid lashups of Rio Grande GP30’s and GP40’s running through from Roper Yard to Stockton, and once encountered a solid 5 unit Rio Grande SD7 lashup on the Altamont with WP’s hottest intermodal, proving that foreign power made it to Oakland at least on the WP!
Iteresting aside: WP had GE ballast its U boat fleet to maxium capacity, thus they were rarely pooled due to their extreme weight. Equally rare was one on the point while on home rails, one exception to offline use occured in 1979/80 when several were assigned to pool service on the Union Pacific out of North Platte Nb.
Likewise BN power was equally visible via the High Line from Beiber on the WP. normally such power was turned back at Stockton, but we can expand on this in the model world if we rewrite history and turn the power at Oakland. BN power could be anything from SD40F’s, SD40-2’s, C30-7’s, U33C’s and F9 A and B units, rare but not improbable were visits by BN’s remaining West Coast Alco fleet.
The Southern Pacific’s West Oakland yard was in close proximity to that of the WP, nearby was the Oakland Army Depot which maintained a switcher fleet. WP facalities were minimal compared to SP.
Typical SP Bay Area six axle road power embraced such models as the Tunnel motors, SD45’s and SD40’s, common 4 axle power were GP38-2’s and GP20’s and others including rarities such GP30/GP35’s and SD35R’s visitors from the Sunset Route. Commute assigned SDP45’s and GP40P’s would migrate to local freight service on weekends and holidays and thus were comm
Instead of San Francisco why don’t you go right across the bay and model Oakland and the mole. End of passenger operations at a ferry to San Fran. with GS4 Daylights, big yard, big engine terminal. You could at least justify the Cal. Zephyr with WP F units (I think that was where the Zephyr ended)and lots of power choices. Much more variety than the San Fran. side of things but then I model the other side of the country.
That’s right. On the San Francisco side the WP only had a ferry landing and industrial track. On the east side of the bay was where one saw a lot of SP/WP action. The SP and WP paralleled each other south from Oakland (to about the San Jose area, I think) as well as eastward from Niles, passing through scenic Niles Canyon, across Livermore Valley, and over Altamont pass and then up (north) the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys. The railroads also paralleled each other through Nevada and for many years the railroads cooperated and operated their lines jointly so they functioned as double track there.
The Central Pacific (Southern Pacific) Railroad named its Altamont line the Western Pacific. The CP/SP set up a lot of corporate names for each segment of railroad built. The CP lost its battle with the new (and what we commonly think of as the) Western Pacific to prevent reuse of the name.
I am going to model the San Francisco Bay Area, that includes Oakland. I am aware that S.F. didn’t, and still doesn’t have much to offer in the way of trains. I never had any intention on exclusively modeling San Francisco.