Southern Pacific Lines

Coast Line Division 

“The Route of the Octopus”

 
 
General Information AAR Car Designations Class “S” – STOCK CAR TYPE S – Car for transportation of livestock. SM   single-deck stockcar SP   poultry car Details Double Decks After 1925, almost all SP double-deck stock cars had fixed or permanent second double decks. Trucks Most SP stock cars kept their Vulcans trucks all their lives. Tony Thompson Paint Trucks Prior to WW II, SP usually painted trucks black. After the war, they tended to paint everything body color, i.e. boxcar red on cars which had that color body. Numerous postwar builder photos show trucks the same color as the car body. Tony Thompson Underframes Prior to WW II, SP usually painted underframes black. After the war, they tended to paint everything body color. Tony Thompson Lettering & Numbering References SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg. 274-275 For a lettering diagram after 1946 see: SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg. 301 Modeling Stock Cars Red Caboose RC Stock Car Trucks The trucks supplied with the Red Caboose SP stock cars track poorly. replace them all with Tichy Bettendorfs (#3025) and metal wheel sets. Work fine. Use Intermountain 33" wheel sets. Ream the trucks open a little. Logan Bertolette Some of the RC models came with Andrews trucks, totally wrong for SP stock cars in any era. Replace the Red Caboose trucks with Vulcans, as that is what most of them wore their entire lives. In later years, some did get AAR cast-steel trucks, so such trucks are okay on these cars too. Tony Thompson Red Caboose makes 3 piece trucks, but many of the kits come with 1 piece trucks from other sources. Also, Red Caboose models sometimes come with metal wheelsets that appear to be from the same source that supplied Front Range with metal wheels. They are horrible, but can serve as scenery in your engine shop. The 3 piece trucks usually run fine with Reboxx wheel sets. Tim O'Connor Lettering & Numbering Put the white lines above SP and below the car number on the sideboards to back date the car. The width of the white lines were one inch wide. Tony Thompson Decals 1” stripes were available for years from Champ and were included in many freight sets from all makers and could be cannibalized. Tony Thompson Westerfield For those of you that haven't assembled a Westerfield SP Harriman stock car kit, you have missed out on one of the more rewarding bits of museum quality and prototypical modeling this hobby has to offer from a kit. Weight for Stock Cars To add weight to these cars you are going to have to pop something off to get inside. Pry off one of the doors. Insert sheet lead (or some other sheet material here in California. You'll need to glue the door back on, but it popped off pretty easily. Use an Xacto #17 chisel which slipped under the door and give some leverage. With access to the interior via the door, sheet material or tire tape-weights can be installed. Operating doors are generally a non-issue. Bill Decker For weight, find some fine bird shot like lead #12 shot (.05 inch diameter) or, if they still make it, lead shot Dust. Use a load of lead cattle to weight some stock cars and they work well. Put three or four in each car to bring them up to the NMRA RP for car weight. Try adding some A-Line moldable lead weight between the underbody floor stringers, and perhaps in the center sill as well. http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/116-13010 Rob Sarberenyi If you want to save a lot of money on the lead weights with the adhesive backing they are available at auto parts stores (NAPA comes to mind first) for probably 20 cents on your hobby dollar (sorry A Line). Just ask for wheel balancing weights that get applied to your wheels when you balance your tires, you can purchase them by the box. Paul LaCiura A British two-pence coin is a perfect weight and width for fitting inside a car body - one glued over each truck. I can do finer weighting with smaller one-pence coins. Brian Moore Pennies make handy little weights where space is not much of an issue, like the inside of a boxcar. Weighting RC stock cars. The RC stock cars are too light, particularly when placed between heavier 40' cars. Get them up to 4 oz weight, but 3.5 oz may be okay since they are shorter than 40'. Sheet lead can be cut into small pieces and mounted under two cars. The weight of both cars is now 3.5 oz, which is theoretically fine based on traditional weighting approach of 1 oz. per 10' of car. May not be NMRA standard, but it has worked for 30+ years. Also, I don't run cars longer than 60' and most of my freight cars are 40' or less. I have not been successful in prying a door off a stock car to get more weight inside. As stated before, one of the two weighted stock cars has the side frames glued and the other does not. Lou Adler Many of the Chinese built models are held together with CA, which can be loosened with Debonder. Tim O'Connor Livestock Figures (plastic) Nearly all major model rr manufacturers make livestock figures including: Atlas; Bachmann; Dyna Model; Greenway Enterprises; Life Like/Walthers; Musket Miniatutres and Model Power among others. They are plastic,but with some"weathering"they could be more realistic. Livestock Figures (metal) Some HO figure manufacturers make white metal cattle, both standing and laying down. From old Walthers catalogs (for such things): Bowser They used to include a set of four assorted cattle, including one in repose. Finishing Touches #675-161 Cows (6) unpainted 2 bucks in 92' Dyna-Model Products 260-1508 steers 260-1509 beef cows 260-1510 milk cows 260-1511 bull and calves 260-1512 longhorn steers All are unpainted apx (5), adding a 1 to the end is a part number for painted (Like 260-15101 Milk cows) Modeling Stock Car Interior Glue sawdust all over a sheet of lead and slide it in as a floor, touch of glue on bottom.Then it would look like straw in the car. Adding animals is an option. CS-Class Stock Cars CS -11 & -11A Stock Cars SP #75500-75599 SP #75600-75749 SP #75750-75949 SP #75950-76149 SP #76150-76299 SP #76600-76749 SP #76900-77449 SP Stock Car CS-11 was one of 200 built by Barney & Smith in 1901 and this car has some photo was taken some time between 1901 and 1905. Tom VanWormer There is a photo of an SP stock car with arch-bar trucks on the pre-Harriman CS-11 and CS-19 cars. References SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg . 257 CS-19 & -19A Stock Cars SP #76300-76599 SP #77450-77649 There is a photo of an SP stock car with arch-bar trucks on the pre-Harriman CS-11 and CS-19 cars. References SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg . 257 Early Harriman Stock Cars S-40-2 stock cars SP #75000-75199 SP #77650-77749 Lettering & Numbering For a lettering diagram see: SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg. 274 For a lettering diagram after 1946 see: SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg. 301 Drawing Southern Pacific Freight Cars, Volume 5: Hoppers, Tank Cars, pg. 405 References SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg . 259 S-40-3 stock cars SP #74420-74469 SP #74520-74639 SP #75200-75279 Lettering & Numbering For a lettering diagram see: SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg. 274 For a lettering diagram after 1946 see: SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg. 301 References SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg . 259, 261 Standard Stock Cars S-40-4 stock cars SP #75280-75329 SP #74640-74739 The S-40-4 cars had the single I-beam style of Bettendorf underframe when built. The Freight book points out on page 262. They were the only stock cars so built. It seems that these S-40-4 stock cars must have been the last freight cars with the single I-beam Bettendorf center sill in the late 1940's. Lettering & Numbering For a lettering diagram see: SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg. 274 For a lettering diagram after 1946 see: SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg. 301 These had an extended letterboards for 1946-52 with SP spelled out, lines above and below reporting marks. Reference Richard Hendrickson wrote a chapter on GN freight cars in Pat Dorin's book Great Northern Lines East and it includes a number of good photos of stock cars. Here’s a link to two photos of the GN stock car: http://community-2.webtv.net/@HH!C9!EF!A2C637F7DAB0/priscillafink/doc2/ Article by Richard Hendrickson January 1989 issue of Model Railroading. Prototype photos and plans of a SP stock car March 1950 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. The RMC drawing appears to be generic) and do not provide any more info or significant photos than are in the book. All good recommendations, though. Tony Thompson  Photos of HE&WT stock cars and article by Cyril Durrenberger May 1998 issue of Mainline Modeler. SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg . 264-266 Modeling S-40-4 Stock Cars Accurrail The Accurail stock car is a uniquely GREAT NORTHERN design. It is based on Great Northern series 55750-55849, 55850-56049, and 56050-56248, rebuilt 1955, 1956, and 1957 from USRA DS boxcars in the 23494-24993 series. There isn't any other close prototype to match this kit. Tony Thompson       Red Caboose RR-39002, SP Car (*see T-87/35) Paint Color of the early classes S-40-4 / 5 / 8 / 9. Star Brand (PBL) sells two different shades of SP freight car paint. STR-31 is called Sunburn and it is much lighter with a redder tone to the finish. STR-30 is a darker shade with brown overtones matched to an actual paint sample. STR-30 was the Common Standard paint colors established early the last century which would have covered your imported models. Jimmy Booth painted one of the Sn3 PBL SP boxcars with the paint and applied weathering. You can see his beautiful work at http://www.p-b-l.com/PBL2002/main-ns.html Lettering & Numbering These had an extended letterboard for 1946-52 with SP spelled out, lines above and below reporting marks. Decals Speedwitch The decals towards the bottom of the page here are perfect for the car. http://www.speedwitch.com/Decals.htm S-40-5 SP #73349-73798 They came with Vulcan trucks. By the 1950's these would have been replaced. Lettering & Numbering For a lettering diagram see: SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg. 274 For a lettering diagram after 1946 see: SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg. 301 References SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg . 265, 267, 268, 269, 285 Modeling S-40-5 Intermountain The notice from IM shows the TNO cars to carry the numbers of the ones transferred to Texas around 1956-57, per Tony's book. Since I model an earlier era, The 62xxx series was on the original issue of those cars. Charles Etheredge Decorated for SP, NWP, T&NO is here http://www.intermountain-railway.com/RF0111HOS-40-5StockCars.htm Red Caboose Trucks and Wheels Swap the Red Caboose trucks and wheels with Eastern Car Works trucks (Vulcan) with the IM wheelsets. Or swap the Red Caboose trucks for Kadee Vulcan trucks. It's not the wheels, it's Red Caboose's trucks. The problem on Red Caboose's truck is with the pivot between the bolster and side frames. It's reminiscent of the same issues encountered with Front Range's HO scale trucks with the same pivot many years earlier. One "problem" though is you can't change-out Kadee's wheels with their plastic axles, with North West Short Line (NWSL) 88-tread semi-finescale precision machined metal wheels with insulated metal axles. The Kadee trucks short out on layouts. Unfortunately, Kadee's trucks don't exactly have the best rolling characteristics, but in some cases they're the best stand-ins available until better trucks are released by someone else. Kadee's 50-ton truck isn't exactly right for this car, the trucks should be 70-ton capacity. Many (but not all) HO scale 70-ton trucks are roller bearing and not plain bearing trucks. ("friction" bearing, but they should correctly be referred to as plain bearing trucks). Both InterMountain and Reboxx wheels are also good replacement wheel sets. Paint Color of the early classes S-40-4 / 5 / 8 / 9. Star Brand (PBL) sells two different shades of SP freight car paint. STR-31 is called Sunburn and it is much lighter with a redder tone to the finish. STR-30 is a darker shade with brown overtones matched to an actual paint sample. STR-30 was the Common Standard paint colors established early the last century which would have covered your imported models. Jimmy Booth painted one of the Sn3 PBL SP boxcars with the paint and applied weathering. You can see his beautiful work at http://www.p-b-l.com/PBL2002/main-ns.html Lettering & Numbering The Red Caboose car is lettered in the post-1952 scheme. It is numbered #73367. S-40-8 SP #73945-74419 Details Trucks The S-40-8 and -9 classes were built with Bettendorf T-section trucks and largely kept them all their lives. Some photos after World War II do show cast U-section trucks as replacements. Tony Thompson #73735 is a Class S-40-8 car, originally built for Arizona Eastern with T-section trucks. Tony Thompson In later years, stock cars did sometimes receive ARA or AAR cast steel replacement trucks. It is certainly reasonable to have a post-WW II car so equipped. Tony Thompson Lettering & Numbering For a lettering diagram see: SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg. 274-275 For a lettering diagram after 1946 see: SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg. 301 References SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg . 265, 272, 273, 276 SP Stockcars S-40-8/9/10 wood MM April 1984 Modeling S-40-8 HO Scale drawing SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg . 283 Paint Color of the early classes S-40-4 / 5 / 8 / 9. Star Brand (PBL) sells two different shades of SP freight car paint. STR-31 is called Sunburn and it is much lighter with a redder tone to the finish. STR-30 is a darker shade with brown overtones matched to an actual paint sample. STR-30 was the Common Standard paint colors established early the last century which would have covered your imported models. Jimmy Booth painted one of the Sn3 PBL SP boxcars with the paint and applied weathering. You can see his beautiful work at http://www.p-b-l.com/PBL2002/main-ns.html S-40-9 SP #74740-74989 Details Trucks The S-40-8 and -9 classes were built with T-section trucks and largely kept them all their lives. Some photos after World War II do show cast U-section trucks as replacements. Tony Thompson Lettering & Numbering For a lettering diagram see: SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg. 274-275 For a lettering diagram after 1946 see: SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg. 301 References SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg . 265, 276-279 The best article on SP Stock Cars in the modeling press is the article about the S-40-9 that appeared in the April 1984 issue of Mainline Modeler. Modeling S-40-9 HO Scale drawing SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg . 283 Westerfield This is a great kit. Tony Thompson Paint Color of the early classes S-40-4 / 5 / 8 / 9. Star Brand (PBL) sells two different shades of SP freight car paint. STR-31 is called Sunburn and it is much lighter with a redder tone to the finish. STR-30 is a darker shade with brown overtones matched to an actual paint sample. STR-30 was the Common Standard paint colors established early the last century which would have covered your imported models. Jimmy Booth painted one of the Sn3 PBL SP boxcars with the paint and applied weathering. You can see his beautiful work at http://www.p-b-l.com/PBL2002/main-ns.html S-40-10 SP #70770-71119 Lettering & Numbering For a lettering diagram see: SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg. 274-275 For a lettering diagram after 1946 see: SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg. 301 References SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg . 265, 281-283 MM April 1984 - SP Stockcars S-40-8/9/10 wood Modeling S-40-10 HO Scale drawing SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg . 283 Other Stock Cars S-40-11 SP #70620-70769 SP #70450-70599 SP #70300-70449 Lettering & Numbering For a lettering diagram see: SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg. 274-275 For a lettering diagram after 1946 see: SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg. 301 References SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg . 292, 300 S-40-13 SP #15750-15987 References SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg . 300, 302 S-70-1 STMFC Pig Palace (now: SP Stock Palace) Though not Pig Palace in name, the SP built two very large double deckers in 1964. They were 70' cars, and refer to the SP 89' Hydra-Cushion "Stock Palace" cars... SP 780000 & 780001 shown on the FCSS page on Richard Percy's site: http://espee.railfan.net/sp_fcss/sp_fcss-18.html According to Tony Thompson's Book "Southern Pacific Freight Cars, Volume 1: Gondolas and Stock Cars," these two cars were built experimentally in 1964. They were 91 feet long outside and 17 feet high at the roof. Pictures are on Page 306 and 307 of Chapter 14 and both cars were vacated from the roster in 1974. References SP Freight Cars, Volume 1, Gondolas and Stock Cars, pg . 306, 307 Modeling S-70-1 AHM They shortened them for their weird model. They were S-70-1.   http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/116-13010http://community-2.webtv.net/@HH!C9!EF!A2C637F7DAB0/priscillafink/doc2/http://www.p-b-l.com/PBL2002/main-ns.htmlhttp://www.speedwitch.com/Decals.htmhttp://www.intermountain-railway.com/RF0111HOS-40-5StockCars.htmhttp://www.p-b-l.com/PBL2002/main-ns.htmlhttp://www.p-b-l.com/PBL2002/main-ns.htmlhttp://www.p-b-l.com/PBL2002/main-ns.htmlhttp://espee.railfan.net/sp_fcss/sp_fcss-18.htmlshapeimage_3_link_0shapeimage_3_link_1shapeimage_3_link_2shapeimage_3_link_3shapeimage_3_link_4shapeimage_3_link_5shapeimage_3_link_6shapeimage_3_link_7shapeimage_3_link_8
Southern Pacific Lines Modeling S.P. Stock Cars
General Info Modeling Stock Cars Weight for Stock Cars Livestock Figures CS-Class Stock Cars - CS-11 CS-19 Early Harriman Stock Cars S-40-2 S-40-3 Standard Stock Cars S-40-4 S-40-5 S-40-8 S-40-9 S-40-10 Other Stock Cars S-40-11 S-40-13 S-70-1

Photo courtesy of Brian Moore