Southern Pacific Lines

Coast Line Division 

“The Route of the Octopus”

 
 

Re-creating Car Fleet Ratios

Modeling Coast Line Freight Traffic: 1948

  1. The following information is derived from the insightful blog of Tony Thompson. It is condensed for the 1948 year period (the year I am modeling).

Criteria

  1. All modelers who attempt to reproduce prototype car fleets, that is which cars to model, and how many, should try to proportion the fleet. If a particular car type was commonplace on the prototype you model, then of course you'll want to model it, whereas a car which was rare or non-existent on your prototype would be a poor choice. An approach to model a car fleet is to start with the proportions of prototype car fleets. This becomes particularly relevant with the car owners which are represented on my layout with numerous cars, namely SP and PFE. There is an old rule of thumb, that home road cars may be a third to a half of all cars, but that seems too high for SP in California, based both on photos and conductor time books. Settle on one third, which is perhaps a credible compromise.


  1. Re-creating accurate ratios of the most common car types is just as important in achieving realism than just modeling prototype details. Note: One can proportion a fleet of S.P. model cars for the Coast Line, according to the proportions found for the entire fleet in 1948 in the ORER or from other sources like a Conductor’s Time Book.


SP Prototype Freight Cars Ratios


  1. SP in 1950 had:

  2. Type      %                 Notes

  3. Box     56

  4. Hoppers     4.5              mostly longitudinal dump ballast cars

  5. Gondolas  20        94% of these were drop bottom type

  6. Tank        4        98% were 12,500 gal. capacity

  7. Reefers        0

  8. Flat        9        most 50’ long, with overhang

  9. Stock           4.5             most 36’ long with low wood roof

  10. Cabooses     2


  12. Tony Thompson


Conductor’s Time Book   (1948-1952)

  1. Calculating the S. P. fleet for modeling purposes came from a conductor’s time book from the 1948-1952 period. The conductor who wrote these data primarily worked only on local trains, and more specifically on haulers, not on through freights or locals doing pickup and delivery of cars. This data cannot reflect overall Coast Line traffic.


  3. With a small sample, distortions are inevitable. One car more or less from some of the roads would greatly alter their standing.


Foreign Freight Cars Ratios

  1. In developing a freight car roster, there are two parts to a problem: the mix of foreign cars, and the proportion of home-road cars.

  2. The basic approach nowadays to this problem is called the Gilbert-Nelson approach, based on ideas first developed by Tim Gilbert and Dave Nelson.


  4. I follow the Gilbert-Nelson idea for my fleet of foreign cars. They had looked at extensive prototype information, particularly conductor’s time books, and realized that there was a pattern: many cars present in trains were numerically in proportion to the size of the owning road’s fleet, regardless of where in the country the data originated. Of course, as they fully recognized, this can only be true of free-running cars like box cars, flat cars and gondolas which are not specially equipped, and is likely true only on main lines. A coal branch, for example, will obviously be quite different. I have settled on about one-third of all freight cars to be home-road cars, based on conductor’s time books for the Coast Line.

  5. Tony Thompson


  7. As an SP modeler, the likelihood of foreign coal-road hopper cars on your layout is pretty small and so neglect it.


Interchange

  1. It’s known that SP had friendly interchange relations with NP, RI and IC (at far ends of the system) in addition to the UP relationship mentioned above. Conversely, ATSF and WP were rivals in the far west, while MP was a strong rival of T&NO in that territory. These railroads relationships affect above ratios.


Lessons Learned

  1. The SP cars in these groups very roughly scale by class sizes, indicating they were essentially randomly selected within their car types. This is what would be expected in most cases.

  2. Tony Thompson


  1. This kind of analysis is slowly being extended to other railroads, in each case looking to see whether I have too few or too many cars. The ultimate goal is a fleet of foreign freight cars which is at the same time representative of each foreign railroad, of an appropriate size, and of appropriate car types. Adhere to the idea of proportioning a model car fleet to prototype proportions.

  2. Tony Thompson



Reference

  1. For a discussion of this issue, see:

  2. “Railroad Freight Car Fleets," in Symposium on Railroad History, by Anthony Thompson, 1990, pp. 27–44.

  3. Copies can be obtained from the NMRA library, Chattanooga, TN,



Specific Car Fleet Proportions

Auto Cars

  1. The SP Coast Line had significant auto parts and assembled automobile traffic. Auto assembly plants in both the Los Angeles area and in the Bay Area received most parts deliveries directly from plants predominantly in the east, but partial loads of parts were sent between plants via the Coast Line.


SP Auto Cars

  1. The intent is to have mostly 50-foot long cars, to reflect post-World War II practice, and (by AAR definition) double-door. Rather less than half should be designated auto parts, just because the bulk of AP traffic arrives directly in LA or the Bay Area.


  1. Proportion SP automobile cars at one model per 1000 cars in the prototype fleet. The table below provides the size of car classes in order to indicate model fleet needs. Details of car information is available in the Southern Pacific Freight Cars, Volume 3: Automobile Cars and Flat Cars (Signature Press, 2004) book. Classes for 1948 and earlier are included. All are 50’ unless noted.


  1. Class        SP Cars    T&NO Cars    Needs    Car Numbers

  2. A-50-6      1200                                    1        66800-67999

  3. A-50-12      825                                    1        64100-64924        (AAR class XMR)

  4.                    500                                    1        69350-70029

  5. A-50-13      250                                    1        63330-63579        (40’ box car)

  6.                    350                                    1        63747-64096        (40’ box car)

  7. A-50-14      500                                    1        64925-65424

  8. A-50-15      750                                    1        64525-66174

  9. A-50-16      500                                    1        66175-66674        (40’ box car)


  11. Many classes prior to the 1936-37-built Class A-50-12 were well under 500 cars, and whenever T&NO received part of a class of auto cars, it was an even smaller number; after 1925, no more auto cars were built for T&NO.


  1. In addition, some regular XM cars are in parts service, while some “auto cars” (meaning double doors, in AAR parlance) are classified XM or XMR and can be used for merchandise. Cars designated XAP or XAR cannot be used for other than auto parts or automobile shipping assignment. Cars classed XML are largely PD cars or equivalent, and would probably be restricted to auto parts.

Foreign Road Auto Cars

  1. Many parts cars are lettered for appropriate originating roads (C&O, GTW, DT&I, NYC, PM, PRR, WAB) or from pool roads (ATSF, MP, NKP, RI, SSW, SP  and UP) for eastern traffic, as well as SP and ATSF cars for western traffic. 


  1.     PRR   (1 cars)         ATSF  (2 cars)           

  2.     GTW (1 cars)         DT&I (2 cars)            

  3.     C&O (1 cars)         

  4.     NKP  (1 cars)          UP     (1 cars)

  5.     PM    (1 cars)          WAB (1 cars)

  6.     NYC (1 cars)           MP   (1 cars)

  7.     RI     (1 cars)            SSW (1 cars)


  1. With at least 5 SP: Total cars, 20. Probably an additional Cotton Belt car should be added to this list, possibly also C&NW. Most are 50-foot double-door cars, with a few 40-foot double-door cars and 50-foot single-door cars, all of which can be mixed in cuts of auto cars.


Lessons Learned

  1. The reason for listing the auto car models beyond a the 1:1000 proportion of the SP fleet is that there was traffic on the Coast Line in both assembled automobiles and auto parts, and these cars will be used to represent that traffic.


Box Cars

SP Box Cars

  1. In the early 1950s the SP fleet was about 57 percent box cars, so these are by far the biggest part of the topic. A starting point, then, is the prototype roster. A full roster is available in the book on SP box cars (Southern Pacific Freight Cars, Vol. 4, Box Cars, Signature Press, 2006)


  3. I plan to roughly proportion my SP box cars at one model per 1000 prototype cars. Below is a table of the cars and car numbers in each of these classes, along with a column entitled “Needs,” (a rough number of cars I would want to have in my total car fleet), at that ratio of one model per 1000 prototype cars. Here is the table showing how many models I need of each car class in 1948:


  5. Class        SP Cars    T&NO Cars    Needs    Car Numbers

  6. B-50-12    1000                                    1        26360-27359     (40’ pre-AAR box car)

  7. B-50-13    2700                                    2        27360-29609     (40’ pre-AAR box car)

  8. B-50-14    2500                                    2        29640-31539     (40’ pre-AAR box car)

  9. B-50-14                            800              1        52260-53059     (40’ pre-AAR box car)

  10. B-50-15    3100                                    3        14480-15979     (40’ pre-AAR box car)

  11. B-50-15                            800              1        36210-36509     (40’ pre-AAR box car)

  12. B-50-16      500                                    1        53560-54059     (40’ pre-AAR box car)


  14. B-50-18    1750                                    2        32770-34519

  15. B-50-19    1000                                    1        37840-38839

  16. B-50-20    1500                                    2        83240-84739

  17. B-50-21    1250                                    1        81990-83239

  18.                                         750               1        54100-54849

  19. B-50-22      500                                    1        81490-81989        (50’ box car)

  20. B-50-23    1744                                    2        95520-95683

  21. B-50-24      450                                    1        97620-98069

  22. B-50-25    1750                                    2        20500-22249

  23.                                         850               1        54850-55699

  24. B-50-26    1500                                    2        58920-59479

  25.                                       1500               2        55700-57199


  27. B-50-27                                                maybe 1 or 2 cars   (1948?)

  28. B-40-5                                                  1 

  29. B-40-6                                                  1 


  31. The sample contains 139 cars. Of these, 43 are SP cars (and 11 are T&NO cars), making the home road (SP) 29 percent of the total. If the T&NO cars are combined (and certainly SP and T&NO freely shared box cars), the SP system total of 50 cars amounts to 36 percent.

Foreign Road Box Cars

  1. On the basis of photographic evidence, the proportion of home road cars one should model is about a third. That is in fact quite close to the 36 percent just stated, but only with the inclusion of T&NO cars. For SP cars alone, it is below 30 percent.


  3. The remainder of the box cars in this sample are dominated by a few roads. These include:

  4.     PRR (11 cars)            ATSF (3 cars)            C&NW (2 cars)

  5.     GN (8 cars)               B&O (3 cars)             MILW (2 cars)

  6.     Southern (7 cars)       CB&Q (3 cars)          SAL (2 cars)

  7.     NP (6 cars)                MP (3 cars)                UP (2 cars)

  8.     IC (5 cars)                 Wabash (3 cars)

  9.     NYC (5 cars)             CP (3 cars)

  10.     SLSF (4 cars)


  12. Finally, single cars were listed for C&EI, D&RGW, EJ&E, Erie, GM&O, GTW, MKT, NC&StL, L&N, P&LE, RI, SP&S, SSW, T&P, WM, and WP. CN(1 car), more than might have been expected


  14. Two roads with substantial box car fleets, ACL and C&O, do not appear.


  16. There are also some roads which are over-represented. These include GN, about 3 percent of the national fleet but nearly 6 percent of this sample; and SLSF, with 1.8 percent of the national box cars but almost 3 percent of this sample.


  1. D&RGW carried traffic into SP territory and California, photos do confirm the presence of D&RGW box cars in the early 1950s.

Modeling Foreign Road Box Cars

  1. For the D&RGW modeling roster, use the Westerfield single-sheathed box car, representing the 1916-built cars which were a mainstay of the Rio Grande fleet, and a Sunshine kit for the 1941 steel box cars for these car types.

Typical Loads

  1. Grain traffic, during 1948, came in box cars, those paper grain doors. The really new, clean cars would be used for sacked sugar. They would probably do 10 to 15 grain cars and 5 or 6 sugar cars a day. The sugar cars were mostly Union Sugar. They switched at Callender, but that was before they made coke there.

Lessons Learned

  1. The main observation from this sample is the proportion of home-road box cars, around a third.

  2. Tony Thompson


Cabooses

  1. Most of my cabooses will be wood cars of Class C-30-1. But I will have some steel cupola cars.

1948

  1. The C-30-4 cars were delivered with red ends, but no other cabooses seem to have received this end color.

1948

  1. In San Luis Obispo, they had about 30 cabooses assigned.

1951

  1. In San Luis Obispo, they had about 30 cabooses assigned, probably six to ten wooden cabooses used strictly for locals, like the Surf turn, King City turn, Guadalupe local, all wooden cabooses. Steel cabooses were about half and half cupola and bay window. All the steel ones were equipped with electric generators, 1 or 1.5 kW engine generators. That’s also about when the radios started on the Coast Division.

  2. Malcolm “Mac” Gaddis

1956

  1. Thus there were a lot of C-30-1 cabooses with numbers lower than 586 in 1956. The total number of cabooses of this class appears to be 620 cars, 158 of them for NWP, SD&A and T&NO, the balance for Pacific Lines. So with about 165 cars out of about 460 for Pacific Lines being numbered below 586, you have to model a few of these cars among any group of C-30-1 cabooses.


Flat Cars

Fleet

  1. Flat cars made up a mere 3 percent of the national freight car fleet in 1948. Accordingly, flat cars from throughout the U.S.,  though plausible on the west coast, should be relatively rare. SP’s freight car fleet contained fully 10 percent flat cars, far above the national average, and should accordingly be strongly represented in any model SP car fleet.


  3. The most voluminous traffic on the SP for flat cars on the Coast Line in 1948 would have been lumber for the building boom in Southern California and elsewhere in the West. Most of it came from Oregon and northern California. Most rough lumber should travel on SP cars on your layout. (Finished lumber mostly traveled in box cars, so flat cars cannot represent all lumber traffic).


  5. Here is the table showing how many models I need of each car class in 1948:


  7. Class        SP Cars    T&NO Cars    Needs    Car Numbers

  8.     F-40-6      (1.6%)                                 6 cars                           SP’s World War I truss-rod designs

  9.     F-40-7      (1.6%)                                 6 cars                           SP’s World War I truss-rod designs


  11.     F-50-4      (3.3%)                               12 cars

  12.     F-50-5      (3.6%)                               13 cars

  13.     F-50-10    (3.6%)                               13 cars

  14.     F-50-12    (6%)                                  22 cars


  16.     F-70-7                                                  6 cars                          postwar flat cars


Flat Cars with Blackburn Racks (Beet Racks)

  1. Prior to the arrival of the Class G-50-20 composite GS gondolas in 1948, SP moved its sugar beet traffic in Blackburn patent beet racks temporarily attached to flat cars (only in beet harvest season). The flat cars were drawn from a wide variety of classes, and these time book data offer an insight into which ones, and how many.


  3. The time-book data, from 1948 to 1952, shows 79 cars, were all flat cars with racks, amounting to 21.7% of the total sample. These were drawn from many classes but were dominated by these:


  5. Interestingly, there were 8 T&NO cars (2.2%) and 1 Pacific Electric car. Nor a single foreign car is listed among the beet cars.


  7. The data presented here, however, do indicate a way to proportion one’s sugar beet traffic. The caveat is that the Blackburn racks were only numerous in 1948 and somewhat in 1949. There were very few in 1950 and later data. Nearly all the beet racks were moved in large cuts, and even when not so organized, were still listed in the book as beet cars.

  8. Tony Thompson


  10. Prototype photos and a diagram for this appliance are in my book, Southern Pacific Freight Cars, Volume 1: Gondolas and Stock Cars, Chapter 8. (for a photo of a model of one of these arrangements,

  11. See                                                              http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/04/choosing-model-car-fleet-8-gondolas.html 

Flat Cars with Bulkheads

  1. In September 1949, SP began to install these bulkheads on its own flat cars of Class F-70-6. So for 1948, I will not have bulkheads.

Foreign Road Flat Cars

  1. There were surprisingly few foreign flat cars, which nationally are predominantly free-running cars and might be expected to show up more frequently in these data. There are only five foreign cars identified.

  2.     C&NW  (2 cars)       PRR        (1 car)

  3.     CB&Q    (1 car)        B&O      (1 car)

  4.     NYC       (1 car)        UP          (1 car)


  6. A car or two from T&NO and SSW would also be suitable.


  8. Other roads represented are likely to be either Western road cars, not too far from home, such as GN, NP, ATSF, D&RGW, etc.


  10. Specially-equipped cars (i.e. four-truck heavy duty cars) or specialized cars such as the relatively rare depressed-center cars, are likely to be in assigned service and, if unloaded on the SP from other parts of the country, are likely to return to their owners empty. But general service cars, mostly FM designation, are far more common and ordinarily may be confiscated for loading. the, such as depressed-center or, should be equally rare on my layout.

Modeling SP Flat Cars

  1. Use class F-70-7 fortunately available in a very accurate model from Red Caboose.

Modeling Foreign Road Flat Cars

  1. Use the Proto2000 53-foot flat car to round out your D&RGW fleet.


  1. Specially-equipped cars (i.e. four-truck heavy duty cars) or specialized cars such as the relatively rare depressed-center cars, should be equally rare on your layout. I have one of the Walthers 90-ton GSC drop-center cars, which is accurate for a NYC car, and will likely add a PRR well-hole flat from the F&C resin kit I have for a Class F33 car. These will be used for special loads.

  2. Tony Thompson


Gondolas

  1. Fully 20% of SP’s freight car fleet in the late 1940s was gondolas, about the same percentage as in the national freight car fleet.


  1. Traffic on the Coast Line in gondolas was heavily slanted toward sugar beets, mostly in SP composite gons. But the usual pipe, poles, and structural steel loads, along with crated loads and, many times, lumber loads, are also evident in period photographs of both GB and GS cars. SP, like many Western railroads, used drop-bottom or GS gondolas for many bulk cargoes which would move in cross-hoppers in the eastern U.S.

GB Gondolas (Regular Service Gons) or Mill Gons

  1. As with other free-running cars, around 30 percent of GB gondolas on any layout should be SP cars.

  2. The gondolas not listed among the beet cars were interesting.

  3.     Class G-50-14  (1 car) a tight-bottom or GB gondola

GS Gondolas (Beet Gons)

  1. For sugar beets, after 1948 SP moved the traffic almost entirely in composite GS gondolas. Around 40 percent of GS gondolas on any layout should be SP cars for that period. Large numbers of GS cars were purchased after World War II, especially for sugar beet traffic, which was important on the Coast Line.


  3. The time-book data, from 1948 to 1952, entirely precede the modification to GS gondolas by SP to add side extensions for greater cubic capacity. Thus all the cars contained in this sample are “unextended,” stock gondolas. Sugar beet extensions would not be added to SP’s composite gondolas until 1957.


  5. The sugar beet cars which preceded those GS gons were Blackburn patent beet racks on flat cars, racks which could be removed and stored outside of harvest season. The number of cars identified in the book as “beet racks” or as beet gons was 364 (the term “racks” was an obvious carryover from the Blackburn era, but continued in use for sugar beet cars for decades afterward).


  7.     G-50-9 through -12      (15 cars) or 4% from the 1920s Enterprise GS gondola classes.

  8.     G-50-20 (new in 1948)  composite GS gondolas, purchased largely to replace the Blackburn racks for sugar beets.

Modeling SP GS Beet Gondolas

  1. Recreate a realistically large gondola representation among your own freight cars.


  1. Use the superb Detail Associates SP GS gons and add a few Red Caboose cars. These are all of the post-1940 Enterprise gondola design. Also obtain a number of old Ulrich Class G-50-12 cast metal gondolas, typifying the 1920s Enterprise design and very visible on SP throughout the 1950s.


GS Gondolas (Regular Service Gons)

  1. Gravel, sand and ballast was also shipped in GS cars, as was coal. California is not a coal state, but during 1948, SP relied on coal for fuel in section houses, depots, roundhouses and other on-line structures, as well as for use in caboose stoves. For this period model some coal deliveries.


  1. All others were GS or drop-bottom 1920s Enterprise cars. These were distributed as follows:

  2.     G-50-9    (6 cars)

  3.     G-50-10  (4 cars)

  4.     G-50-11  (2 cars)

  5.     G-50-12  (3 cars)


  7. These frequencies scale fairly well with the numbers of cars in each class. They were very visible on SP throughout the 1940s.

  8.     G-50-15  (2 cars) 1940s Enterprise GS gons

  9.     G-50-18  (2 cars) 1940s Enterprise GS gons


  11. A number were in large cuts of gondolas: ten each loaded with manure for Chualar or Camphor, and six empties destined San Miguel. All SP cars.

Foreign Road Gondolas

  1. Info from interviews and other documents show that domestic coal and coke fuel was used to some degree in California in foundries and other industrial heating applications into the 1950s, and this largely came from the coal fields in eastern Utah/western Colorado. Coal was used on the SP in the 1950s for everything from section houses and cabooses, to depots, foremen’s houses, and sandhouse sand driers). The mines were served by D&RGW, UP, and Utah Coal Route (UCR), and most of this traffic at this time was carried in drop-bottom (GS) gondolas. Try developing a number of such cars to handle your layout coal shipments.


  1. There were surprisingly few foreign gondola cars, which nationally are predominantly free-running cars and might be expected to show up more frequently in these data.


  3. At least some of the bulk traffic I model will be handled in my car fleet of gondolas, not hoppers.

Modeling Foreign Road GB Gondolas

These are balanced between 40-foot cars and cars of more than 50 feet.

GB Gondolas

GB Gondolas (Regular Service Gons) or Mill Gons

  1. Ratios should be:

  2.     PRR    (3 cars)

  3.     NYC   (2 cars)

       P&LE (2 cars)

  1.     Reading, B&O, DT&I, Erie, Southern, and EJ&E among eastern roads, and ATSF, CB&Q, UP and WP (1 car each)

Modeling Foreign Road GS Gondolas

GS Gondolas

  1. Again, SP, like many Western railroads, used drop-bottom or GS gondolas for many bulk cargoes. In the early 1950s, D&RGW was beginning to buy conventional triple hoppers, and I will not model those GS gons.


  3. D&RGW            (2 cars)           C&O    (1 cars)

  4. UP                       (1 cars)           N&W  (1 cars)

  5. Utah Coal Route  (1 cars)          WM     (1 cars)


  7. Use a 47-foot GS gondola, a brass W&R model and an old Ulrich D&RGW GS gondola to employ as a stand-in is only 40 feet long and thus not at all correct for the D&RGW cars.


  9. Other western roads with GS gondolas on any layout should include (1 car each):


  11. ATSF (Caswell design)

  12. Colorado & Southern

  13. D&RGW

  14. NP

  15. Utah Coal Route

  16. UP


Hopper Cars

  1. SP owned very few hoppers of any kind, with the balance being ballast cars with longitudinal-dumping doors, not traditional twin cross-hoppers.


  3. Chemical shipping was just beginning to make use of covered hoppers in 1953, and grain shipping was off in the future. Also as an SP modeler, the likelihood of coal-road hopper cars on an S.P. layout is pretty small and you should neglect it.

Covered Hoppers

  1. In 1948, covered hoppers were still fairly rare. Nationally, they were less than 2 percent of all freight cars, and at that time were predominantly used for bulk cement service. There shouldn’t be covered hoppers from far-away railroads. And grain or chemical use was off into the future.


  1. From the 1948 - 1952 conductor train book, H-70-4  (4 cars) covered hopper cars  (the square-hatch variety).

Longitudinal Dump Ballast Cars

  1. Company cars will almost all be ballast cars with longitudinal dump doors.


  1. From the 1948 - 1952 conductor train book, the hopper cars were nearly all SP ballast cars. Among the hoppers:

  2.     H-70-2  (6 cars) longitudinal-dumping ballast cars

  3.     H-70-3  (6 cars) longitudinal-dumping ballast cars

  4.     H-50-6   (1 car) longitudinal-dumping ballast cars

  5. Most of these cars either carried sand loads, or were marked as empties for sand loading. Limestone was moved along the Coast Line, both for processing of sugar beets and for use in foundries. The SP ballast hoppers were sometimes used in this kind of revenue service also.

Modeling SP Ballast Cars

  1. As for modeling SP’s ballast cars, the early Hart Selective cars, with very long dump doors, present a challenge. I have modified an Athearn twin as a stand-in, but the slope sheet angle is too low and the doors are oversize to hide the hopper outlets. A correct car would require considerably more modification to the Athearn or other conventional twin hoppers. As a stand-in for Class H-50-6, this can serve in mainline use.


  3. After World War II, SP began to buy welded ballast cars, and changed from their earlier preference for Hart Selective designs to Enterprise ballast doors. The first of these was Class H-70-11, and this class can be modeled with the resin cars long available at Bruce’s Train Shop in Sacramento


  5. Finally, this may be the place to mention SP’s elderly Rodger-Hart convertible ballast cars. By World War II, the survivors had been converted to bottom-dumping only, so were effectively hopper cars dumping between the rails. The old Silver Streak Class W-50-3 HO kit, though about 10 per cent oversize in all dimensions, does effectively model these cars, and correctly has the underbody truss located behind the plane of the car sides, unlike the plastic version by Train Miniature/Walthers.

Conventional twin cross-hoppers

  1. There are a few uses for cross-hoppers. Coal and coke fuel was used to some degree in California in foundries and other industrial heating applications into the 1950s.

Foreign Road Covered Hoppers

  1. Limestone was moved along the Coast Line, both for processing of sugar beets and for use in foundries. Non-SP hoppers, such as ATSF, can be used for this traffic. Other “wandering” twin hoppers would be plausible for such use, such as NP or CB&Q.


  1.    GN      (1 car)         ATSF            (1 car)

  2.    UP       (1 car)         D&RGW      (1 car)

      SHPX   (1 car) private-lease cars, and all of these will operate sparingly.

      NAHX (1 car) private-lease cars, and all of these will operate sparingly.


  1. D&RGW carried traffic into SP territory and California, photos do confirm the presence of D&RGW coal cars in the early 1950s. They were two foreign hoppers, D&RGW 18371, a covered hopper, and PRR 146661, a Class Glca car of AAR class HM were seen on the coast line.

Modeling Foreign Road Hoppers

  1. Limestone was moved along the Coast Line, both for processing of sugar beets and for use in foundries. Non-SP hoppers, such as ATSF, can be used for this traffic. Other “wandering” twin hoppers would be plausible for such use, such as NP or CB&Q.


  1.   Reading      (1 car)          ATSF            (1 car)

  2.    NP             (1 car)          CB&Q         (1 car)


  1. For the D&RGW you can use hopper cars for Utah coal, a pair of MDC triple hoppers (not quite correct but adequate stand-ins). Also use an InterMountain early covered hopper.


  3. There is photographic evidence for hoppers from anthracite carriers such as Reading showing up in California.


  5. InterMountain currently produces a superb model of the square-hatch cars. These InterMountain cars don’t require much work to be ready to roll, just a bit of cement spillage on a nearly new car like this one, so adding to the fleet will be easy.

  6. Tony Thompson



Reefers

Pacific Fruit Express (PFE)

  1. The core of my reefer fleet are the cars of Pacific Fruit Express (PFE). I take proportions of the model fleet from the prototype car fleet. Accordingly, my PFE car fleet is proportioned by (approximately) one model for each 1000 cars in the prototype PFE roster, thus a total of around 40 model cars. This was a big number but not unreasonable for my total car needs and space. Within these 40 model cars, I am trying to achieve a close approximation of the number of cars per prototype class, again at one model per 1000.

  2. Tony Thompson


  1. You can proportion a fleet of model PFE cars for the Coast Line, according to the proportions found for the entire PFE fleet in 1948 or 1953 in the ORER.  Omit very small car groups as well as a few unusual cars which might be hard to model. I listed rebuild car classes by both capacities, so "R-30/40-18" means the combination of R-30-18 and R-40-18 cars. Here's the result.


  3. 1948                                                    1953

  4. R-40-25                                            R-40-25         3    #2001-5000

  5. R-40-25                                            R-40-25         3    #5001-8000

  6. R-40-26                                            R-40-26         2

  7. R-30-12/13                                       R-30-12/13   0

  8. R-40-4                                              R-40-4           1

  9. R-40-10                                            R-40-10         5

  10. R-40-14                                            R-40-14         1

  11. R-40-20                                            R-40-20         1

  12. R-40-23                                            R-40-23         2

  13. R-30/40-18                                       R-30/40-18   2

  14. R-40/40-19                                       R-40/40-19   2

  15. R-40/40-21                                       R-40/40-21   2

  16. R-30/40-24                                       R-30/40-24   2

  17. R-30/40-16                                       R-30/40-16   3

  18. R-30/40-8                                         R-30/40-8     1

  19. R-30/40-9                                         R-30/40-9     7

  20. R-50-1-3/4                                        R-50-1-3/4    0

  21. R-70-2                                               R-70-2          1

  22. R-50-5                                               R-50-5          1

  23. Total                                                  Total           39 models


  25. This definitely provides guidance in what to build or buy, and almost more important, what NOT to build or buy. 

Side Note

  1. On the Watsonville - Salinas Hauler during 1948 to 1952, these were naturally reefers in most cases, but they also handled trains of loaded and empty cars of sugar beets destined to and from Spreckels. 76%, were PFE cars. Much more surprising was that 122 cars, or 11%, were ART cars.

Logos

  1. On a 1953 layout, around half the PFE cars should have B&W logos, and most of the rest with the 2-emblem color scheme. Single-emblem schemes would be rare in a fleet.

Modeling Reefers Fleet

  1. PFE in the two California regions had about 75% of carloadings, with the balance going to SFRD. This of course is for the region, not for any particular town, but for those outside the region, this would represent the approximate division of cars that would be arriving with loads from California and Arizona loading locations. To put this in modeling terms, let’s say you model loads coming out of California and Arizona, and you want to roster at least one model SFRD car. To maintain the proportion of carloadings just described, you would then need three more PFE cars to cover all western carloadings.

  2. Tony Thompson


  4. The great majority of all these carloads went east, not up and down the west coast, so only a small fraction of all carloads among these large numbers would have constituted traffic to and from the Pacific Northwest.  Inbound loads were barely 5%. That means, if you are modeling California or Arizona, carloadings would be almost entirely outbound, with very few perishable loads arriving. Nine out of every ten cars unloaded from any of these owners would return empty rather than loaded with a backhaul.

  5. Tony Thompson

                                                                            http://arvedgrass.com/pfe-r-40-23-part-0-choosing-a-representative-fleet/



  2. Other Railroad-Owned Reefers

  3. SP had friendly connections with both NP and IC, both of which owned their own reefers, and these can be expected to show up to some extent in California; but the organizer of reefers to deliver to shippers was PFE, not SP. The PFE had arrangements with some other reefer owners to share cars back and forth, in each company’s off season, and these included ART, BAR, FGE, and to some extent MDT. That is why it was very interesting for me to analyze the conductor’s time book for the Salinas Subdivision of the Coast Division.


  5. There was a large presence of ART cars in the particular seasons reported in the time book analyzed (it’s known that use of foreign reefers on the lines of SP and UP was very seasonal). Photos of California yards and trains do show both ART and MDT cars; and in early fall, pretty much the peak harvest season in the Far West, BAR cars were commonly seen. Conversely, there was a concerted effort on the parts of both SFRD and PFE not to load each other’s cars, but to return empties promptly to their owner.


  1. Analyzing the reefer reporting marks contained in a conductors train book, there are altogether 1102 refrigerator cars listed. Not surprisingly, 839, or 76%, were PFE cars. Much more surprising, at least to me, was that 122 cars, or 11%, were ART cars. I knew PFE used ART cars in peak seasons, but would not have thought the proportion was this large.


  3.     ART (122 cars), or 11%

  4.     MDT (41 cars, or 3.7% (plus 8 cars from MDT subsidiary NRC)

  5.     FGEX (30 cars (2.7%),

  6.     NWX (13 cars) (1.2%)

  7.     WFEX (12 cars) (1%).


  9. The biggest sharing company with PFE was ART. The amount of MDT was pretty small, likewise FGE and NP. Santa Fe reefers (SFRD) were not loaded online but an occasional few did travel on SP rails, as MANY photos confirm. You are right that BAR in some seasons was prominent.

  10. Tony Thompson


  12. The top five owners were:  (The counts include produce and meat reefers.)

  13.     Pacific Fruit Express Co.                 - 39,005

  14.     Santa Fe Railway                             - 14,824

  15.     Fruit Growers Express Co.              - 12,542

  16.     American Refrigerator Transit Co.  -   9,126

  17.     Merchants Dispatch Transportation-  7,976

  18.     Western Fruit Express Co.              -   5,655


  20. Also represented were a few cars each from BAR, BREX, NADX, NP, REX, SFRD, URTX, and WRX. The total of all these cars with minority reporting marks was 42, or about 4%.


  22. Finally, there should also be a certain number of passenger reefers, AAR Class BR. The BR cars of course include PFE cars but also express cars from others in the REA pool, including REX, GN and NRC cars, along with MILW cars which were seen in SP trains in California.

  23. Tony Thompson


  25.     REX (2 express cars)

  26.     PFE (2 cars) heavily-insulated or frozen food cars

  27.     FHIX (2 cars) heavily-insulated or frozen food cars


  29. The occasional train this conductor worked which was out of peak season did show nearly all PFE cars, and the two BAR cars seen were also in those “low-season” trains.


  31. The proportion of foreign or non-PFE cars shown in the above results is a maximum for traffic year-round. Nevertheless, it’s evident that my main need for empty reefers to be loaded, beyond the obvious predominance of PFE, will be for ART and MDT cars, with a few FGEX and WFEX cars and maybe a NWX car.

  32. Tony Thompson

PFE’s Western Pacific Reefers

  1. With less than 1000 WP cars at the time I model (1953), I need a maximum of one of these cars in my fleet. The modeling strategy of  one PFE car per 1000 prototype cars, as a simple way of obtaining a realistically proportioned model fleet. As a 1953 modeler, I could choose to model either a 50,000-series reconditioned car or a rebuilt 55,000-series car.

  2. Tony Thompson


  1.     WP PFE (1 car)  7.7% of the PFE fleet.


Privately Owned Reefers

  1. Leased cars include URTX, NRC, GARX, NADX and so on, owned by produce shippers and others. Have several cars in these leased categories, and you probably won’t need more.

Empty Reefers

  1. Concerning "odd sprinkling," of cars, anything goes. FGE cars could be seen as empties heading north to the nearest interchange point. PFE agents would vigorously seek out empties for return westward. Reefers did get loaded westbound with cargoes like pharmaceuticals and magazines, and they could be ANYONE's reefers. Awfully few such cars were made empty in the West, and moreover were usually in poor condition, such that PFE (or SFRD) did not want to furnish them to their customers. Remember, these cars were not under per diem rules, they were paid on mileage.

Lessons Learned

  1. In conclusion, the conductor train book discussed above, noted that the surprising finding that only about three-fourths of the refrigerator cars were PFE cars, but that this reflects conditions at peak harvest time. Most of the year PFE was able to cover nearly 100 percent of its car needs with its own fleet.

  2. Tony Thompson

Modeling Meat Reefers Fleet

  1. You will need a few for inbound loads to the wholesale grocer warehouse on your layout. The major meat packers in 1948, were as follows: Swift, Armour, Wilson, Cudahy, Rath and a very small fleet of Morrell.


  1. A comment on the size of the meat cars: the great majority were 37 feet long, although after World War II several of the companies did begin to add 40-foot cars to their fleets.


  1. “Billboard era Reefers” could not have survived past 1937 and thus, strictly speaking, cannot be operated on a 1948 layout.


Stock Cars

  1.     At that time there little livestock on the Coast, a few cars. Stock traffic on the Coast Line by the 1950s was not extensive, but did include both animals being moved to slaughterhouses, and inbound breeding stock. There was only limited traffic in animals being moved between seasonal pastures.


  1. Stock cars in the 1950s were sometimes in surplus, and as observed in the “Equipment Instructions” document (described in my post “Modeling freight traffic: Coast Line, 1953-Part 4”), divisions were instructed to store surplus cars.


    You should have SP  (6 cars)

Foreign Road Stock Cars

  1. Foreign stock cars would not be common except for direct connections. Study of SP photographs in southern and central California has shown me the following foreign cars on line: ATSF, CB&Q, D&RGW, MKT, NP, T&NO, T&P, and UP. The T&NO is only formally a foreign road and its cars would be expected to be freely mixed with SP stock cars.


  1. The proportion of foreign stock cars shown below:

  2. UP         (3 cars)

  3. T&NO  (3 cars)

  4. NWP     (1 car)

   ATSF, D&RGW, NP and T&P cars  (1 each)


  1. D&RGW carried traffic into SP territory and California, photos do confirm the presence of D&RGW stock cars in the early 1950s.

Modeling Foreign Road Stock Cars

  1. The sides of the modernized Rio Grande cars look a lot like the Athearn stock car, but as is well known, the Athearn stock car’s diagonal-panel roof has a reversed panel arrangement, and in any case is too new for the D&RGW cars, as are the Improved Dreadnaught ends of the Athearn model. Simply cut the sides from an Athearn stock car and from an Athearn box car with corrugated ends. The Rio Grande cars had corrugated ends, not Dreadnaught ones like the Athearn car. Carve off the Athearn molded-on lettering boards, and model a single broken board just left of the door. Use as a stand-in.



Tank Cars

North American Tank Fleet

  1. In the entirety of the North American freight car fleet, tank cars were about 8 percent of the total number of cars in the late 1940s. The great majority of these were in private ownership and thus primarily in lease service.


  3. The bulk of the privately-owned cars were the property of the “big three” leasing companies, General American (GATX), Union Tank (UTLX), and Shippers Car Line (SHPX), with other lessors such as North American (NATX) far down the list. The major exceptions were big oil companies like Sinclair, Shell, Phillips, Tidewater, and Gulf. Texaco’s cars were part of the GATX fleet by 1950 (though many still carried TCX reporting marks), and UTLX continued to provide most tank cars needed by the various “baby Standards” across the country.

  4. Tony Thompson

Southern Pacific Tank Fleet

  1. A noteworthy part of Southern Pacific's freight car fleet until the 1970s was the 12,500-gallon tank cars. The distinctive size of these cars, large among American tank cars prior to the 1950s, made up 98 percent of SP tank cars in the early 1950s.


  1. A minor fraction of the national fleet was in railroad ownership. SP only used about a quarter to a third of its tank cars in company fuel service, with the remainder available for commercial use.

Tank Car Ratios

  1. Among the tank cars from the 1948 - 1952 conductor train book, eight were SP cars:

  2.     O-50-9    (1 car)

  3.     O-50-11  (1 car)

  4.     O-50-14  (1 car)

  5.     O-50-6    (2 cars)

  6.     O-50-13  (3 cars)

  7. It was interesting that some of these SP cars were empty but identified as destined to Manteca, presumably for loading.

Foreign Road Tank Cars

  1. There were also 12 privately owned tank cars, with reporting marks:

  2.     AOX                 (Associated Oil Company)

  3.     CDLX               (California Dispatch Line)

  4.     GATX  (3 cars)  8000-gallon cars

  5.     SHPX   (5 cars)  8000-gallon cars

  6. Information about tank cars can be hard to find, because listings in the Official Railway Equipment Registers are often superficial. Most were marked as “molasses to Spreckels,” which either means empties for molasses loading at Spreckels, or inbound molasses purchased by Spreckels to supplement their own production. The latter is more consistent with how the time book appears to be constructed.


  8. There was also:

  9.     AOX    (1 car)   (Associated Oil Company)   fuel oil to Spreckels, a 10,000-gallon car.

  10.     CDLX  (3 cars) (California Dispatch Line)    all AAR class TMI (insulated but non-pressurized). CDLX did roster a number of    

  11.     asphalt cars, and these might be among them.

  12. Tony Thompson


Modeling the Tank Fleet

  1. SP modelers do need SP tank cars for both fuel and other cargoes. There should be two kinds of needs for tank cars on your layout. One, of course, is to serve industries on the layout. The other is for cars which appear in mainline trains but will not have destinations on the layout.     

Petroleum-Product Cars

  1. In the first category, tank cars for on-layout industries, use both petroleum-product cars for bulk oil dealers (i.e., Associated, Union, Richfield, and Standard of California) and non-petroleum cars. Roster about four cars for each of the bulk oil dealers on my layout, meaning Associated (AOX, TWOX, TIDX), Richfield (ROX), Union (UOCX) and Standard (UTLX) cars. For some of these, you’ll need custom decals and artwork. One of my dealers, Associated, is modeled as selling LPG for home use, so high-pressure LPG cars are needed there. For mainline oil company cars, use Sinclair, Continental, and Phillips.

Chemical Cars

  1. Use chemical cars for a chemical repackaging company. Chemical repackaging may simply involve packaging of bulk material, but may also involve blending or even formulating the chemicals to be packaged. The variety of inbound cargoes thus can be considerable.     

  2. Tony Thonpson

Wine Cars

  1. The latter include wine cars for a winery. Wine cars were almost all leased cars. Modelers think first of six-compartment cars, though in fact cars with one, three and four compartments were also common. A major Western lessor of these cars was California Dispatch Line (CDLX), along with GATX, NATX and SHPX. Unfortunately, these are currently hard to model. Many of them were 6000 gallons or less, almost always jacketed, and there simply is no suitable starting point today for such cars.


 
Southern Pacific Lines Modeling an S.P. 1948 Car Fleet
Re-creating Fleet Ratios Modeling Coast Line Freight Traffic:, 1948 Conductor’s Time Book (1948-1952) Specific Car Proportions Auto Cars Box Cars Cabooses Flat Cars Gondolas Hopper Cars Reefers Stock Cars - Tank Carts
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