Southern Pacific locomotive usage

F

FiveFlat

New Member
Dec 26, 2005
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Freight or passenger, or mixed, matched? Were the locomotives painted in daylight scheme ONLY used for passenger? How about the Blackwidow scheme?

PA-1's
???


E8/E9
Only pictures of these I've seen were in the daylight scheme hauling passenger cars



F7A/B
I'm pretty sure I've seen pictures of these in blackwidow hauling freight.
 
Espee Info for you!

PA-1's on the espee I believe ran only with passenger trains and mail trains, however SP used any power that was on hand for frieght trains, so there may have been a RAREoccurrence of a PA in a frieght.

Usually SP ran them in PA/E7B/PA consist, at least on the coast line. The Alco PA's were liked on the shasta daylight primarly because of their big GE traction motors. They ran on all lines on passenger and mail trains.

The SP only had one E8, and it wore the daylight scheme for most of it's life, then the scarlet/gray scheme. SP had 9 E9's, read more about them here:

http://espee.railfan.net/spe-09.html
As for the F units, I believe they were used mostly for freight, if not entirely. SP had one of the largest fleets of F units anywhere, along with the santa fe.
The black widow scheme is correct, and very beautiful looking, espically on those units :thumb: Run what you like, enjoy yourself! :D

http://espee.railfan.net/spf07a.html

Also look around this, site, it's a wealth of information about the Southern Pacific, and the RioGrande, a later parent company to the late, great Southern Pacific.

Enjoy! ;)
 
I've done alot of looking around that site in the last couple days but almost all the photos only show the locomotive and you can't quite see the train.
Thanks though! I'm definately not trying to be exactly prototypical, but I wouldn't want to be pulling cattle behind a Daylight E8 if it never really happened I guess.
So would these silver SP overnights be correctly placed behind a blackwidow F unit?
unit_around_bend.jpg
 
You bet! :thumb: Also see if you can find a pair or a quartet of GP9's in the black widow scheme (if you like hood units thatt is!), they also pulled the Overnight Trains. Later on, they were replaced by the Overnight TOFC service.

Another thought: SP also ran a quite unique train: beet racks, they were gondolas with High sides added on to them to increase their sugar-beet carrying capacity. :)

Yet another SP load was loooong trains of ice reefers! This is a great train to model too, and your F-units would feel at home here.:thumb:

Not to mention the wonderful industry modeling opportunities!:thumb:
 
MilesWestern said:
You bet! :thumb: Also see if you can find a pair or a quartet of GP9's in the black widow scheme (if you like hood units thatt is
Yet another SP load was loooong trains of ice reefers! This is a great train to model too, and your F-units would feel at home here.:thumb:

Not to mention the wonderful industry modeling opportunities!:thumb:
Click to expand...
Check out the photo in this link:
http://espee.railfan.net/nonindex/f-unit_photos/6314_sp-f7a-don_jewell.jpg
if you want to see an example of Miles' ideas, all at once! (An Espee F-unit in m.u. with a hood unit at the headend of the third section of a reefer block. If that doesn't give you inspiration, nothing will!) jawdrop

Paul
 
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