General Information

Early TOFC on T&NO

1. T&NO first operated piggyback on May 4, 1953. Pacific Lines would follow almost two months later.
   

2. Tony Thompson
   

Trailers

1. The T&NO started out TOFC service with 32-ft trailers to the best of my knowledge.
   

2. Soon 35-ft. trailers came along (about 1955) and T&NO could still use the forties.
   

3. Congress didn't authorize over-the-road trailers of even 40-foot length until 1958.
   

4. Tony Thompson
   

Flat Cars

1. T&NO used 32' trailers on 40' flats. Probably F-50-4's.
   

2. Paul Lyons
   

3. 
   

4. T&NO's SPT, mostly had 32-ft. trailers, and those would go on 40-ft. flats, so most of the T&NO early TOFC was on 40-footers.
   

5. Tony Thompson
   

6. 
   

7. The T&NO didn't lease 24750-24766 F-70-7's from the Pacific lines for TOFC service until 1954. SSW used some shorter 41'11" flats for TOFC service.
   

8. Tim O'Connor
   

Reference

1. A Morning Sun book has a good photo of one of the T&NO F-70-10's. In the Thompson Freight Car book there is a good photo of T&NO F-50-16 24673 in May 1953.
   

2. 
   

3. In Steve Goen's book about the T&NO, there are some pics of early TOFC service on the T&NO.
   

Early TOFC on PMT

1. PMT Pacific Lines first operated piggyback on July 1953.
   

2. Tony Thompson
   

PMT Trailers

1. The T&NO started out TOFC service with 32-ft trailers to the best of my knowledge. PMT on Pacific Lines had a lot of the smaller trailers, 22 and 24-ft. units. Congress didn't authorize over-the-road trailers of even 40-foot length until 1958.
   

2. Tony Thompson
   

PMT Flat Cars

1. Pacific Lines used 53'6" flats to carry pairs of the 22-ft. and 24-ft. trailers they used for in-town pickup and delivery.
   

2. Tony Thompson
   

3. 
   

4. T&NO did lease some Pacific Lines F-70-10 flats for their own shorty trailers.
   

5. T&NO leased F-70-7's 24750-24766 in 1954-1955, and leased F-70-10's 24767-24796 in 1957-1958.
   

6. 
   

7. Maybe a good data package of drawings/photos would encourage Steve Funaro to do the early F-50-16 TOFC cars.
   

8. Tim O'Connor
   

TOFC History

Coast Pigs

Schedule History    

1. By 1967, 371/372 was off the timecard. About mid year 1970, 373/374 were shifted over to Oakland from San Francisco and 335/336 abolished ( Oakland Zipper.. 373/374 connection) and 373/374 took its place.  373 fell off the timecard in 1975, its traffic moving to the WCOAF, later named LAOAF. 374 still operated, but its schedule was annulled from Oakland to San Jose in 1975 so it could pick up the autos in Warm Springs, running via Hayward and Niles Tower. Schedule was further adjusted in 1977 when it lost its first class schedule and ran extra with all the other trains to San Luis. All the trailer trains 365/366, 375/376, 377/378 and 340 were run extra with the timetable changes in 1977.
   

2. 
   

3. These trains were a small part of a bigger West Coast piggy back picture with Portland/LA service. Down at Burlingame station, these trains zoom by most every evening and it seems the trains got shorter and shorter around 1968-69.
   

4. 
   

5. Primary piggyback operations were shifted to Oakland in the 1960s, and the coast trains, which joined sections together in San Jose, got more and more unbalanced between the Peninsula and East Bay sections.  In the late 1970s IIRC the schedules changed to all extra trains anyway.
   

6. Tony Thompson   
   

7. 
   

8. Unless the shipper/receiver was immediately adjacent to one or both of the ramps (and if overnight delivery was important) the time involved in draying at both ends plus cutoff and grounding time added to the rail transit would  exceed the over the road time for a truckload shipment.
   

9. 
   

10. Besides as San Francisco's commercial and industrial base shrank "everything" wouldn't fill a train.
    

Timetable

1. On the San Francisco Peninsula in the mid 1960's, scheduled southbound piggy back trains 372 and 374. 372 left Mission Bay at around 3:45 PM while the 374 was out around 7:45 PM.
   

Power

1. These trains were powered by new GP 20's, 30's,35's and U25B's. Later consists of LA Passenger Pool F's were used.
   

2. 
   

3. A photo of a TOFC train with "75" in the train indicator boards shows it is being pulled by a GP9 #5605. The caption reads "Much of the premier piggyback traffic on Southern Pacific in the 1950's moved on the relatively fast Coast Line. This photo shows GP9 #5605 with such a train, operating as a section of No. 75, near Moss Landing, California (just a few miles from Watsonville Junction) on an afternoon in June 1958."
   

Golden Pig Service

1. Golden Pig service began around 1982. An old SP Bulletin from ‘82  announced their arrival. The original Golden Pig trailers were Fruehauf's in the SPLZ 250000 series. 
   

2. 
   

3. The "Golden Pig scheme" was the idea of former AVP Intermodal Joe Neal. We started receiving new 45' trailers shortly after he was appointed AVP Intermodal some time in the early 1980's. No already owned trailers were painted and decaled with the "Golden Pig" graphics just newly acquired vans. When new they were washed at Los Angeles 10 to 15 per day for about 6 months before the washing program was stopped. At the same time of the introduction of the "Golden Pig" trailers the SP also had bottled some "Golden Pig" sun tan lotion that we handed out to our customers.
   

4. 
   

5. Pig service ended around 1992 or 93. The trailers lasted a lot longer than that however. As to a reason, it is likely SP was trying to cut costs and it was cheaper to lease private party trailers rather than maintain their own fleet- a trend most railroad companies have followed along with.
   

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7. The last time one saw a Golden Pig van was the spring of 1999. It was sitting at a Residence Inn in Oklahoma City and used by the construction that was doing some work there for long term storage.
   

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9. Most Semi trailers would outlive you & I combined if desired by the owners. Typically they get replaced by more modern designs that are longer (as length limits increase in states) and lighter (aluminum frames) to carry heavier loads, multi axles (to distribute weight), positive camber decks (arched) to carry weight on lighter frames, etc.. They are not designed special for tofc service (except Swift roadrailers).They are constantly being designed to decrease unladen weight so as to carry heavier loads.
   

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11. In the 1960s the average life of a trailer was about five years. PFE built "much better" ones, hoping to get ten years life. You may be confusing economic life with physical life; and of course when used as a storage facility and not having the wear and tear of highway use, life is naturally open-ended.
    

Special Flat Cars

SP PS-4PB flat cars

1. Pullman-Standard (in the post PS-1,2,3,4 &5 era) used the moniker PS-4 for any flat car built by them. This included "ordinary" 50/60' flats, the 60' flats built only for Trailer Train and their 85/89 line of intermodal and rack flats.
   

2. 
   

3. The SP never bought new PS-4 "ordinary" PS-4 flats from Pullman-Standard.  Since so few were actually built, SP probably didn’t acquire any. Trailer Train got a large number of 60' TTX flats (in fact, the 60' non-fishbelly PS-4's [which were by far and away the bulk of their 60' flat car production] ONLY went to them). Maybe SP got some on the secondary market.
   

4. 
   

5. The SP did, however, get three lots of 89'4" flats known to Pullman-Standard as PS-4PB (PB meaning piggy back?).
   

6. SP 517119-517140
   

7. SP 517179-517210
   

8. SP 517300-517363 for Stac-Pac service. 
   

TOFC Structures

TOFC Ramps

Portable TOFC Ramp

1. Portable TOFC ramps were used for TOFC service at several locations including: San Luis Obispo, San Diego, Santa Barbara, etc.
   

Reference

1. In Trainline #108, pg. 24 is a photos of one of them.
   

Permanent Ramp

1. It was just a concrete ramp where flats were spotted, then loaded circus style. These were "minor ramp locations," which were a simple but permanent ramp. They were located at Chico, El Centro, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, San Jose, etc.
   

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3. The SLO ramp was adjacent to the team track just east of the old freight station (north of the north end of the freight house platform).
   

4. Tony Thompson
   

1. The Santa Barbara ramp is just east of Santa Barbara Street mountain side of the tracks. It is hard to see as this is now a storage yard. This was the site of the freight station in Santa Barbara and the ramp was just behind it. Neither are functional as TOFC ramps any more.
   

2. Bruce Morden
   

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