Southern Pacific Remembered

[Focalplane]

Most of the coaches I own are el cheapos from the 1980s. Great for fast moving layout trains as long as they don’t stop to reveal the lack of detail!

The Daylight coaches don’t even have a manufacturer’s name or logo on the underside:



The silver/crimson set were made by Con-Cor and have been refitted with Kadees:



These look good behind either a black steam loco or a set of Black Widow F7s. There’s one more in the next box.

My third rake comes from Rivarossi and are possibly the best of the three:



Yes, I know they are from the dark side and if you look carefully there are two Challenger dome cars, a result of riding in this dome on a trip. They are probably more accurate in detail and scale and do look good behind a pair of UP E8s. However, off topic!

I have a couple of Heavyweights as well which are very chunky.

I haven’t forgotten the Houston area photos but as the coaches are probably staying behind I need to show them now.

 

[John Bradshaw]

Yes, John, I agree. At one point in its history Houston was served by:

• Southern Pacific
  • Texas & New Orleans
  • St. Louis South Western
• Santa Fe
• Rock Island
• Missouri Pacific
• Missouri Kansas and Texas
• Texas Pacific
• Kansas City Southern
• Union Pacific
• Houston Port Authority

To name a few recognisable names. In fact Union Pacific bought its way in to the area, now it and Burlington Northern Santa Fe dominate.

To be accurate, the Santa Fe avoided Houston, its regional HQ being in Galveston.

In some cases the names linger on. There’s the MoPac Expressway in Austin, for example. And the town of Katy west of Houston is named after the MKT, as is the Katy Freeway (I-10)

I remember the Katy Freeway well, that part of Houston is known as the energy corridor as a lot of offshore and O&G companies have their offices along it. I used to be a regular visitor, there's a Marriott hotel which is in the middle of nowhere but does pretty well because it is well located for a lot of the energy companies.

 

[Focalplane]

I am happy to say that all the energy companies I worked for had offices inside or on the Loop 610. Occasionally I made the dreaded commute out there on I-10, always happy to return home! We took the last passenger train to run along the Katy before they pulled up the rails. UP heritage train pulled by their E8s organized by the Gulf Coast Chapter NHRS. But we departed from one of SP's yards near Washington Avenue, so just on topic!

 

[Focalplane]

Let's start off at the basics! A typical SP SW1500 switcher at Englewood Yard, taken around 1994.



The location is at the western end of the yard, quite a good place to watch trains go about their business. Here's the location data for Google:

29.787430, -95.312393​

As you will see, tracks go off in several directions. This was taken around the end of 1994, before the UP acquisition, so everything in sight carried (rusting) SP livery. Here's a link to a much earlier photo on Flickr:

https://flic.kr/p/23ekVix

 

[Focalplane]

So where is this and what's going on?

The platform and canopy is all that is left of Southern Pacific's Houston Grand Central Station. Adjacent is a small modern Amtrak building where, sadly, passengers have been known to wait 18 hours for their train. I hope this on time record has been improved but the Sunset Route is freight only except for three Amtrak trains in each direction a week. Guess who rules! If I remember correctly, the private car was waiting to be attached to a Westbound Sunset Limited and this would make sense given the switcher is at the eastern end of the private car.



At least two private cars called Houston home and other than thinking this one was once owned by the Southern Railway, I don't have its name to hand. Private cars have to be Amtrak certified, meaning they should be capable of maintaining speed (at lest 75mph) when attached to an Amtrak service. I never did find out what the mileage charges were, even though I had a good friend who worked as a contract steward on many private cars. This was a great way for "celebrities" who feared flying to get around the country. I remember two names, Whoopi Goldberg and NFL commentator John Madden, The market was definitely there and probably still is. Owners register their cars with the American Association of Private Railroad Car Owners (AAPRCO). Once in a while entire trains of private owner cars tour the country, but the normal arrangement is to book a space at the end of an Amtrak express. The private car, by the way, has to be independent of the Amtrak train, particularly where Amtrak uses bilevel stock.




The hi level elevated freeways in the background are the reason the old station was demolished. They are a part of Interstate I-45. The station was close to the city centre as this shows:



Taken from the Amtrak platform!

 

[Focalplane]

Here comes the eastbound Sunset Limited, operated by Amtrak. As usual, two GE Genesis P42s, running back to back (they often are seen one behind the other as well), then a baggage car and the first few bilevel coaches. The approach hardly reflects entering the 4th largest city in the USA! The locos and carriages are in the livery of the day, I think I prefer the simpler new paint scheme. But that's not at stake really, it's a passenger train in Houston!!!!!! The year is 1998.



Incidentally, a bit of Trivia. The Sunset Limited is the Nation's oldest long distance named train, starting way back in the late 19th Century I think. When Amtrak took over they retained its train numbers, #1 and #2, in recognition of that fact.

It could be the same train but it isn't, this was taken in 1997. After leaving Houston (next stop Beaumont) for New Orleans, the train soon accelerates up to a fair speed at this crossing after passing Englewood Yard. The location on Google is, approximately,

29.778829, -95.336620​

 

[Focalplane]

I spent some time driving around the east side of Houston, visiting places like the above post. People asked if it was safe to do so. Well, Houston had a bad reputation which wasn’t entirely deserved. At least police patrol cars were watching out for you, and my wife was able to go for early morning walks in Hermann Park, knowing that several officers would be parked strategically keeping the public safe. Railway police were always polite when I strayed off the public road to get a better shot. After all I wasn’t carrying a spray paint can!

After 9/11 things did get tricky, though, and I was warned away from areas like Pasadena (TX) with refineries and tank farms as possible terrorist targets.

Occasionally something odd would catch my eye, like this in a wreckers yard east of Downtown.



Records show it was a GP35.

 

[Focalplane]

This entry has posed a few problems between 1993 and today. Everything seems to have changed! The photographs are of locomotives lined up alongside the main Sunset Route at Hardy Street MPD/Works. The trouble is almost anything and everything relating to the SP has been bulldozed in the name of progress. I used to drive to a side street, Opelousas Street, park and listen to the CB for activity. On one occasion, an unusual sight indeed:



Five Amtrak F40PH locomotives in a city that only has six Amtrak trains a week passing through. It is probable that they were being retired, the photo says 1997 which fits.

The main Hardy Street site was behind and to the left of the front F40PH, so if we swing the camera to the left:



Welcome to the Southern Pacific of Philip Anschutz, November 1993! This is typical of what Union Pacific acquired three years later

Now, what is there today to remind us of this once great site? The first of many apartment blocks. The number of railway tracks has also diminished to one!. The overpass behind the Amtrak locos also appears to have been rebuilt. But the bend on Opelousas Street is still there!

 

[Focalplane]

Southern Pacific had a regional office in Houston. It was converted into loft apartments after the UP merger. A fine building, it also announced the company to the city with this huge rooftop sign:





I wrote on trainorders.com, in 2009 "The sign was at one time placed on the roof of the SP's Grand Central Station, located where the main post office is now and close to the diminutive Amtrak station. In the name of progress the station was razed to the ground in 1961 to allow construction of Interstate 45 and the sign was removed to the top of the SP office building where it remained until shortly after this photo was taken in 1997. The office building was sold for development as loft residences and the sign had to go. Fortunately the Gulf Coast Chapter of the NRHS was able to take it and it is now displayed at their museum."

I had forgotten the bit about the sign being on the rebuilt Grand Central Station! I do know that the Gulf Chapter rescued the individual letters of the sign but they are no longer mounted atop a building. By the way, take a look at post #8 and the sign is visible in its original location!

Post script! Google Street View shows that the building is now named "Bayou Lofts" and has a replica sign on the roof in the same lettering as the SP sign. The area has certainly been gentrified since I was last there.

 

[Focalplane]

Still in Houston, at Englewood Yard, a decent looking consist of SP locos in 1998. The lead locomotive, a GE C44-9W, No. 8132, was chosen for two models, one by Kato, the other by Lionel. Not that I knew that until today!

 

[Focalplane]

While visiting the Houston Amtrak station one evening, I ran into a fellow NRHS member who worked there as an agent. We were waiting for the Sunset Limited which was running late. Employment back then was never a certainty and he mentioned he was selling some SP artifacts. I bought several and these two remain:





Another glass got broken through being used, this one is now kept in a cabinet. I also bought two acrylic beer tankards which have become crazed through use (dishwasher). They have now been retired. I drink my morning coffee out of UP mugs, knowing that if I drop one it can always be replaced.

 

[Focalplane]

I have more Houston photos coming but they need to be found and sorted. To keep the thread alive here are two photos from San Antonio.

First a word about the city. It’s the fun place to go in Texas, the Riverwalk is brilliant, the missions, including the Alamo, the Tex Mex food (Mi Tierra being my favourite). It is also Amtrak’s “junction” as two coaches join the westbound Sunset Limited after they arrive on the Texas Eagle from Chicago. Likewise there are two through coaches on the return journey.

The passenger depot is in classic SP style:



But it’s the interior of the main hall that is stunning. We visited in 2002 and not much was going on there but it has lots of potential. (According to Google Maps it is now a wedding chapel and/or nightclub.



The plinthed loco is off to the right of the station building. I feel sure I took a photograph but as yet not found. It's an Mk-5 class Mikado, no. 794, one of only 5 SP Mikados remaining. There is a photo on Google Maps.

 

[Focalplane]

A word about existing Southern Pacific Stations. Looking at the recently added depot at San Antonio you might be thinking what an interesting station for Amtrak to use. Unfortunately, Amtrak doesn’t use the station, it has been leased out to cafés, nightclubs and so on.

So when the Texas Eagle arrives from Chicago the last two coaches will be added to the Westbound Sunset Limited. If the latter is late (!) then where do the passengers wait? Google Street View has the answer, on the platform!

The exceptions tend to be Amtrak’s termini, such as New Orleans and Los Angeles. The cost of leasing space is, clearly, not worthwhile for three trains a week each way. Even for San Antonio which is the terminus for the Texas Eagle, this doesn’t seem to justify space in the original station building.

Does anyone reading this thread have more up to date information on Amtrak travel over the old Espee?

 

[lag503]

Paul

This is great, I'm a bit of an SP fan to say the least.

I have only 1 photo of an SP liveried loco, I took this in July 2014, I was travelling on the train from Chicago to Sacremento and we stopped for quite a while in Salt Lake City, even though we were already 8 hours late by this point, and this went through still in SP liverey with UP patches 18 years after the merger.

Richard

View attachment 165908

There's still stragglers like this around and in service today, just last Friday an incredibly bleached out Cotton Belt GP60 (i think it was UP-patched 1004) came through Tamien leading another (sparkling yellow) ex SP Geep and a train of HiCubes...

C,-w

 

[Focalplane]

I had to find out where Tamien is! My knowledge of the California area of SP is non existent except from books and maps. The southbound Daylight would be getting up to speed there!

 

[Focalplane]

A quick update. Photo sorting has been started and a few more SP photos prepared ready for scanning. As it may be a while before they are posted, I was reminded of one of those strange events that occur in the business world - a reverse takeover.

We tend to think of the UP/SP merger as the “big one”, but earlier Philip Anschutz pulled off a bigger shock to the railroad world. As the principal owner of the Rio Grande, he engineered the acquisition of Southern Pacific into the Rio Grande but kept the SP name. If memory serves me well, this occurred in 1988. I am sure this angered many Rio Grande fans at the time, but what really got to SP fans was the way in which the combined company was run. By 1996 the SP was basically worn out. Yet in these 8 short years the value of the SP rose four fold. The takeover by the UP was a near disaster with insiders in Houston confiding that the two railroad’s computer and dispatch systems were found to be incompatible. As a result the economy of the western US suffered a transport slow down which affected the nation’s economy until things were sorted out. Today there is no doubt that the UP is a well run company, served by a huge patriotic campaign and, no doubt, its heritage programme. More on the latter will follow once this thread has run its course.

 

[Focalplane]

Earlier I showed the depot at Marathon, TX, on blocks on its way to become a museum (except it looks like it didn't happen). This photo is of an SP depot that did become a museum. The town is Hondo, closer to San Antonio. The main Sunset Route is off to the left so I wonder if the building was moved away from the tracks before becoming a museum. There's also an antique semaphore signal post.



The wording reads "Railway Express Agency" which is how most rural folk received their goods ordered from the big cities!

Hondo is located here:

 

[Focalplane]

I just checked Street View and there are better images for someone wanting to model the depot. Also, if you travel west on Highway 90 (using the computer!) you will see a BNSF eastbound freight come into view before the highway veers off to the left. That view could change in years to come. The museum, by the way is for Medina County, Texas.

 

[Dog Star]

There's also an antique semaphore signal post.

Might this show a train orders signal?

 

[Focalplane]

I think it depends on the era. By the time of the diesel dawn on the SP, most signaling (dispatching) was probably by radio. Hiwever, when steam predominated I imagine basic signaling was the reason for their existence. But again, anyone with more knowledge is welcome to comment.