Can someone please tell me what happened with the SP in the last 30 yrs? Im confused with the buying of DRGW, merge with ATSF, and bought from UP. Or if someone could direct me to an online site.
Also, can someone tell me if the silver and red stripe SP streamline cars were the last in passenger service before Amtrak? Who pulled them, Blackwidows or geeps? Thankyou, Ben
Look here – http://www.sphts.org
The Denver & Rio Grande Corporation bought the SP, and was in turn bought by the Union Pacific; so now there are basically only two major railroads in the western United States – Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe.
In the early 1980s, the SP and the SantaFe decided to merge, but this was denied by ICC in 1986. The SPSF started painting units in the famed Kodachrome scheme (red, yellow with black accent) and a large SP or SF on the side with room left for the other two letters of SPSF in the appropriate places.
With the denial of the merger, detractors said SPSF stood for “Shouldn’t Paint So Fast”. [:D]
The SP at this point was basically a bankrupt railroad, so DRGW bought it in 1987, and from 1987 - 1995 started the long haul back to restoration to solvency for the railroad. They decided the SP name had much wider name recognition than DRGW, so they named the new railroad after the SP. In 1992, the speed lettering SP scheme was introduced as a melding of the Rio Grande speed lettering and the SP classic gray and scarlet. [^]
In 1996, the UP bought out the SP, and like always, simply assimulated the SP assets into the UP umbrella, with the UP name and look whiping out all traces of anything left of the SP. [sigh]
Actually SP was purchased by the D&RGW prior to the UP takeover . . To put it in simple terms, SP sought various merger partners over the years AT&SF and Rock Island to name a few . Traditionally, the transportation of produce, citrus and lumber was the lifeblood of the SP. Changing market conditons, outdated infastructure and poor business decisions, recession and deregulation caused the loss of produce and lumber traffic to trucks and other rail competitors, even earlier SP had begun to abandon or sell off most branch lines which had long been vital to SP balance sheets for carloadings which, along with other events, contributed to the irreversable downhill sprial of ridding themself of excess trackage with no regard to customers or of being retained as a future traffic source if market conditions improved.
Enter the Union Pacifc
UP had forseen the windfall it could reap by dominating the chemical transportation trade along the Gulf Coast. Merging the MP/MKT accomplished this to some degree, but SP had always dominated this traffic. UP was intent on preventing any other potential rival from gaining a foothold in this valuable market which was the most coveted of SP posessions.
UP also was also paying close attention to the West Coast intermodal explosion and saw an oppertunity to stick one to the Santa Fe. The WP merger gave them access to The Port of Oakland directly and hence a threat to the Santa Fe dominated Port Of Richmond , UP didn’t get its monies worth by purchasing the WP.
It had always been intended, since the joining of the golden spike to merge the SP and UP into one system, only EH Harriman’s death and the ensuing court battles over control of his empire prevented the great merger of 1908.
SP Passenger equiptment prior to the inception of Amtrak wore the 1959 introduced Silver with Scarlet letterboards as the system standard, though the colors were not new to the SP, replacing the Daylight and two-tone grey colors an
Thanks for the info!
West Coast S…Sooo…for the silver SP cars in the 60’s and 70’s were run by F7’s in grey with bloody nose shceme? Good info, i just got a little lost…thankyou, Bennett
To give more information, SP had 92 F7As equipped for passenger service, along with 72 F7Bs. The F7As didn’t have steam generators, but did have controls and pass-through steam-heat lines. In addition, there were 17 FP7As, all equipped with steam generators.
The SP also had 6 E7As, 12 E7Bs, 1 E8A and 9 E9As. All of the Es were on the active roster until early 1966, but by year-end 1970 all but 2 E9As had been retired.
Ill just use this thread again for another Q! Does anybody know any sites of more SP history, facts, and photos from 50’s to 70’s? Also, by the mid 70’s, what types of diesels did SP have? SD40’s SD45’s Trainmasters, geeps?
Anyone know anything about SDP45’s for SP passenger service, anything diff from SD45’s? Any company, Atlas, Kato, Athearn, make these? Thanks again, Ben
bnsf97,
Here is one of my favorite SP websites http://espee.railfan.net/espee.html This has alot of info, pictures and train rosters through the years. As West Coast S mentioned, SP had those beautiful PA’s that were used till 1967. (That will look nice with those silver and red passenger cars).[:D]
I can’t help you out here, but I want to tell you all that this was very interesting to read. I have just started to read about D&RGW and it’s so cool when all the small pieces fit together.
Love when these topics pop up. did you know that the Central Pacific Railroad first bought SP and kept the SP name because it was larger. DRGW did in fact buy SP, but again kept the SP name. and in reality, SP bought UP, but they kept the UP Exec board, thus the UP name.
therefore the UP is actually the CP (ironic the 2 railroads that first joined the US coast to coast are now one) and the 4 Railroads in question used to be owned by the same man are now one as well.
Not exactly “larger”–Central Pacific used Southern Pacific as an overall holding company. Central Pacific was obliged to pay 5% of their profits to the federal government to pay down their loans for all traffic sent via the “Overland Route” (the Sacramento to Omaha line) but once CP acquired SP, they could avoid this surcharge by sending freight east via their new “Sunset Route” (via Southern California.) Admittedly, the southern route worked better as it was not likely to be blocked by heavy snows (as the Overland route through the Sierras sometimes was) but avoiding paying back the government was an important priority of the CP’s principals.