OK, I have a couple of Black Widow F-7’s. My questions are What type and color cars were in use during this era? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks Joey[:D]
The Black Widow scheme started during the period of the Daylight paint scheme, in 1959, the passenger cars were switched to the all stainless (silver) color with a red band through the name board area across the entire car with SOUTHERN PACIFIC in aluminum lettering.
Visit the following link to get more information:
http://www.geocities.com/espee9164/pass.car.mod.html
Happy Railroading!
The SP had Black Widow FP7’s that were used in passenger service. When they purchased the FP7’s, there were several paint schemes in use:
o - ‘Daylight’ red/orange
o - UP ‘City’ Armour yellow for the ‘Overland Route’ trains
o - Two tone grey for the overnight LA to SF train
o - Stainless with red letterboard for the Sunset Ltd
o - Stainless or painted aluminum with red upper half for the Golden State
o - Pullman Green(or close shade) for older passenger cars
Did I forget anything? They had a lot of paint schemes back in the 50’s! Plain F7’s were used for freight service(maybe there were boiler equipped F7’s, but I have never seen mention of them). The FP7’s later got the standard dark grey with ‘bloody nose’ paint scheme, and passenger cars went to the ‘Sunset’ scheme(baggage cars got the solid dark grey). Most of the ‘Overland Route’ cars stayed in the UP ‘City’ paint scheme to match the ‘City of San Francisco’ train.
Jim
you also forgot “engine black” on the F-7 A and B unit and an upper stripe on the aluminum budd cars…they also used Alco PA-1 A and B units on the Daylight, the Sunset , and the Sunbeam (cotton belt) locomotives after the Lima GS steamers where pulled out of service…the PA-1’s on the ST.L & SW Sunbeam route didn’t use engine black but used SP gray instead …chuck
The Black widow scheme was ended in 1959 when the Cotton Belt GP9’s were delivered in Gray and Red, but many units were not repainted until the mid 1960’s.
The paint scheme started in 1947 with the first F3ABBA sets and continued with future SD7’s and SD9’s. The GP9’s that were delievered in 1956 were still in Black Widow.
The dates below are for the first F3’s SP purchased in 1947 and 1948.
May 1947 to January 1949 F3A SP 6100A, 6100D-6119A, 6119D 40
You can use the Black Widow with Daylight cars on the San Joaquin Daylight out of Bakersfield after steam was pulled off in 1956 on. There are many pictures of Black Widow F’s on the Overland also.