I have a simple question…or may be not that simple.I’m trying to pinpoint a “year modeled” to my layout,trying to be somewhat historically accurate.I’m actually trying to find when Southern Pacific got their heavyweights out of service to replace them with lighter aluminum cars.The infos I found tell me that this happened around 1946 but photos I saw suggest that it may have been sooner like 1942/43.
I have a collection of those heavyweights that I’m trying to find what SP pulled them with.As an example,I have a bunch of these cars (Rivarossi N scale) that are painted to the colors of the Lark train.However,the only pictures of this train I could find featured aluminum cars.Is it that Rivarossi weren’t too accurate with these details?I can find when most steamers entered service so can pretty much guess what SP used at a given time,but the cars are a different matter as they may have been replaced progressively over a few years,wich would make sense.Just curious to know,thanks.
The Lark was converted to lightweight/streamlined cars during 1941 althought the headend baggage-postal and postal storage cars remained heavyweights but streamstyled and painted to match the Lark scheme. GS-3 class locomotives were the typical motive power during this period.
The pre-lightweight (i.e. heavyweight) cars were green.
Depends on the train. I rode the “Owl” from LA to Mojave in mid-1954. My memory (which may be faulty after 57 years) is that the train was all heavyweight and all green. The “West Coast”, which lasted until 1960 was also a train that had heavyweight equipment late in life. Both these trains would have been pulled by F7/FP7 diesels out of LA at least as far as Bakersfield. The train I road had an ABBA set of F7’s. Those were probably replaced with a GS-4 steamer in Bakersfield as steam passenger service lasted north of Bakersfield as late as 1956.
The “Californian” and the “Argonaut” were also trains that had heavyweight equipment well into diesel years. SP had 10 FP7’s, as well as a number of F7’;s (A&B) equipped with boilers. Additionally, some F7’s without boilers were equipped with boiler controls and could be used in passenger service.
Here’s a pic of the “Argonaut” in the 50’s (mislabeled as the “Owl”). As y