I’m interested in adding a train to my collection that would include the equipment and livery that was used during my first train trip. This would have been an excursion from Martinez, CA to L.A. Union Station in either 1962 or '63 with an eventual stay in Anaheim for a visit to Disneyland. Since I was only 5 or 6, I don’t have a lot of memory of the details. I’m pretty sure that the lead locomotive was an F7 painted in “bloody nose” but have no recollection of the cars. I know we left early in the morning and got into L.A. after dark. I’m modeling in HO and would appreciate any advice or resources anyone might be able to provide.
The trip home was on the Santa Fe after a bus ride to Bakersfield. I could use advice on this also.
You might look through the links below. I do not follow that types of passenger cars SP had because I am not willing to spend the large amounts of money for the few correct cars that are made or scratch build or kitbash since I am modeling in the 1990s and have Daylight painted F7s.
You can scratch the Lark from your possibles list. It was an overnight train between LA and San Fran on the Coast. Your description sounds good for the San Joaquin Daylight. You probably made the connection at Martinez from some Portland to Oakland train, most likely the Cascade which ran overnight (and then some) between Portland and Oakland. You’re in luck, sort of, because PSM is bringing in a model of the Coast Daylight and the SJ Daylight used many of the same cars. Your main problem is going to be 2 cars that were “signature” cars on the SJD but never ran on the Coast daylight. They would be an 80 ft heavywieght RPO and a heavywieght baggage, both painted in Daylight colors. In the time frame you’re dicussing the RPO would be a heavywieght with a clerestory roof (as opposed to the hywt, turtle back roofed bagg/RPO that was used until the late 40s) A really close aproximation can be gotten by crossing the body from an AHM RPO (the Pennsy prototype) and replacing the low arch roof w/ a clerestory roof from the AHM heavywieght coach and then painting it in Dalight colors. The cleresory roofed 80 ft. baggage car is problematic since it had 3 doors per side and nobody’s made anything close. A good substitute might be a Roundhouse Harriman 60’ baggage, again, painted Daylight. You’re right on the motive power being “Black Widow” F-7s (Actually FP-7s in the 6440 number series). Depending on where you’re modeling and the length of the train they would be AB or ABB (Oakland to Bakersfield) or AAB or AABB (Bakersfield to LA). The “elephant parade” configuration was due to the fact that a helper was added at Bakersfield, continuing the practice from steam days.
I don’t know if this is going to do any good since the thread was buried four pages deep when I went back to check and see if anybody made any corrections on what I had but, here goes anyway. I don’t know exactly when SP went from multi color psgr car to the “Sunset” el cheapo but the engines went to red and gray in the late fifties or early sixties and there was an extensive transition period where you could see Black Widows and Rudolphs mixed in power consisits (but the enameled Southern Pacific logo from the nose of the Fs disappeared almost instantaneously). If your train is into the late color scheme period it presents a problem because the SP ran their tavern/full length domes on the San Joaquin Daylight (but not on the Coast for some reason). I know of nothing that comes close unless you can find a brass one on ebay or somewhere.
As for the “radio antenas” on the roof of the F units (and Alco PAs but not Es for some reason), they weren’t antennas but were “icicle snappers” to prevent icicles in tunnels from damaging the glass in the dome cars. They were also added to some frt engines during the period of open top deck auto carriers.
Thanks for the excellent info. You’ve answered a couple of burning questions yet given me a couple of more to ask. First of all, is “Rudolph” aka: “Bloody Nose” because I haven’t run across that term in my research so far. Also, I’ve seen the “radio equipped” sign painted on several but not all of the F units from that era on the Espee website. Was it standard? It seems to be hit and miss in the pictures I’ve seen. The reason I’m so certain that the lead engine on the train I took my journey on all those years ago was a “bloody nose” is because I remember the “SP” logo on the nose.
That’s Rudolph as in “the Red Nosed Reindeer”. I checked in a reference book and the scheme was adopted in 1958 but took a while before everything was painted. I would assume the psgr cars would be in the same time frame. As for the “radio equiped” I would guess that, as radios became universally applied to cab units the need to identify which units were suitable for the lead position in the power consist would vanish.
Add to Jim Rice’s and Mark Pierce’s excellent info: the new paint standard was officially adopted in June, 1958, following a period of experimentation that included the “Halloween” (black and orange). The new “general service” paint scheme included the red and gray (aka, “Bloody Nose” or “Rudolph”) paint on all locomotives and the stainless (or simulated stainless–paint) passenger car with red letterboard stripe (aka, “tomato stripe”). Baggage cars, particularly the “economy baggage” were in dark gray, as were the cars of the San Francisco-San Jose commuter fleet.
Photo evidence points to “fairly rapid” repainting of equipment that got to San Francisco (corporate headquarters). By around 1960, 18 months after the change in paint standard, it “appears” the Coast Line premier trains were mostly repainted. This applies particularly to the Coast Daylight and Lark. Repainting of equipment for other trains was less rapid. Tom Dill’s color photo book on the Shasta Route shows the Shasta Daylight at Klamath Falls, ca 1962, with a mix of mostly Daylight paint on the Chair cars, “tomato stripe” on food service cars (including the dome) a gray baggage and “bloody nose” PA’s. Significant in that photo was the dome car which served on the Shasta in the summer and on the San Joaquin Daylight in the winter. Apparently, many of the trains originating from Oakland (Shaasta, San Joaquin and Overland Routes) were judged “lesser” even though their departure point was only four miles across the SF Bay.
With their more frequent maintenance cycles, it appears the passenger locomotive fleet was repainted fairly quickly–a couple of years–probably by sometime in 1960. Of course there were exceptions. The ex-T&NO passenger GP-9’s are a prominent one–they came west in 1962, still in “Black Widow” paint. Note that freight locomotives persisted in “Black Widow” paint for a very long time, with a number of SD-9’s entering the Sacramento Shops rebuild program in the 1970’s, still in “Black Widow” paint. Si