Can someone tell me what the usual consist of the SP’s Senator and Governor, local trains that ran between Oakland and Sacramento, was during the '40’s and 50’s
In the mid-late 50’s a GP9 and maybe two Harriman 60’ commuter cars; great day trip was to take the WP, California Zephyr from Oakland to Sacramento via Stockton do some sightseeing and return to Oakland on the SP, Senator. Have fun Rob
From picture I have seen is a Baggage and Coach.
Standard fare was the heavy weight chair car, inter-city and commute Harrimans or a combination of all in tradtional olive and two tone grey, when necessary, light weight chairs were pressed into service -these displayed colors-from DAYLIGHT to Armour Yellow, lounge cars when employed, were of SP orgin-reconfigured from heavyweight chair cars and surplus dining cars.
In earlier times, a full diner was included and, to my knowledge-none of the SP’s hamburger-grill conversions were ever assigned to these trains.
Mail, LCL was conveyed by means of baggage car(s), this would also include company mail. Consists varied by the season from a low of 2 cars to perhaps half a dozen per train. SP had 11 passenger geeps and 2 passenger SD-7’s, cab units were drawn from the passenger pool of 76 Alco PA’s, normally, only a single unit was required for these abbreviated trains.
Steam on these runs ended around 1955, SP typically assigned MT class mountains whenever possible, when these were unavailable, just about anything on the ready track was fair game! Perhaps the most unusual power for the Governor & Senator were the SP type 4-10-2’s, several of which ran out their flue time in Bay Area service.
Matter of fact, I intend to assign one of my SP types to local passenger service.
Dave
The Senator ran eastward and the Governor ran westward. Seen photos taken in the first half of the 1950s where the trains were pulled by either a Pacific or Mountain type locomotive. By 1956, boiler-equipped GP9s were being used.
Thanks for the comebacks, guys. At a small local train show I acquired eight Model Power and Concor ( I think ) Harriman style cars including one RPO, one baggage car, one coffee shop lounge, three chair cars and two observation cars. I wanted them to run with my Athern Genesis MT on my club layout. I proceeded to paint them with a 50 - 50 mix of Floquil coach green and roof brown which yielded a really nice olive green shade and decaled them with Microscale SP heavyweight passenger car decals. After rewheeling them, mounting rubber diaphrams and body mounting Kaydee couplers they made a very satisfying traditional SP consist. The extra observation car was a sixty footer so I assigned it as a division superintendant’s car to run behind freight trains. Your information confirmed that I was on the right track and later I might mix an Overland, Daylight or Lark car into the consist.
Jim how’s about some photos?
Excellent olive paint formula, SP’s common standards did specify a deep brown with the olive, also shared among the PFE for their express cars.
I’m with Mark. PHOTOS!
Excellent choice of models as well, a very credible rendition in my book.
Dave
Hi Mark and West Coast: I’m kinda challenged in the photography department especially since my wife has the chip in the digital full of pix of the cats! I can download digital photos to my computer and then forward them to an e-mail address but I’ve never tried posting on the MRR forums. Any suggestions?
Jim, there are different ways to post photos, but I download to photobucket, shutterfly, snapfish, whatever. Once you picture is loaded there, I double-click to enlarge it, right-click copy, and then right-click paste the photo in the post message.