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The Southern
Pacific ran commuter trains along the peninsula route (San Francisco to San
Jose) from the early 1900’s until the service was taken over by Caltrain in
1980. SP bought ten 145-seat
double-deck gallery cars from Pullman Standard in 1955. These were followed by 21 more ACF-built
cars in 1956-7, and 15 more PS cars in 1968.
The 1955-57 gallery cars were delivered in dignified two-tone gray
paint, but during the 60’s were gradually repainted solid gray with painted
doors. The 1968 gallery cars were
painted solid gray with unpainted aluminum doors. It was very common to see cars of both paint schemes mixed
together. Consists had 1-8 cars
depending on the traffic demands and the platform length of the stations in the
trip. In the early pre-freeway years,
trains had more cars: rush hour trains also had more cars. Many of the rush hour trains used the old
Harriman-roofed standard coaches (in 1969 SP had 55 standard coaches and 46
gallery cars). The SP gallery cars were
retired by Caltrain in 1985-6 and replaced with stainless steel push-pull cars.
Fairbanks-Morse
trainmasters were the favorite commute power because of their ability to
rapidly accelerate between the frequent commuter stops. Initially the trainmasters were in the black
widow paint shown below, but in the 60’s they were repainted in the scarlet and
gray bloody nose scheme before their retirement in 1972. A similar commuter train for the late 1960s
to early 1970s should be led by a bloody nose trainmaster. EMD GP-9’s were also used. None of these SP gallery passenger cars had
engineer controls, and the locomotive was always in the lead. The later Caltrain cars with an engineer’s
cab greatly simplified operations with push-pull running and no reversal of the
locomotive.
I am not an
SP modeler, and would appreciate any corrections or additions of facts about
the gallery commuter trains.
The beauty
of this train is that a prototype train can be purchased off the shelf without
modification. The trainmaster is from
Atlas. The SP black widow scheme was
released in 2000, and the later SP bloody nose model is scheduled for early
2004. The gallery cars (prototypes made
by ACF and PS in 1956-7) are available from Wheels-of-Time in both two-tone
gray and solid gray. The cars include a
lavatory window at one end. Unlike many
other passenger cars, the gallery cars are prototypical as modeled and painted.
Photo of an SP rush hour commute train in
the 1960s just south of San Francisco. Photo from page 160 of Dorin’s Commuter
Railroads.
The first of these three cars is an old (1970’s?) Rapido model. The other two cars are from Con-cor. The middle car is a regular gallery car, and the last has a control cab (for push-pull operation) and red jewel for side visibility. SP never owned any of the gallery cars with engineer’s cabs. I added road number decals to the Con-cor cars. These Rapido and Con-cor cars with 8 pairs of windows are models of the 161- to 168-seat gallery car Pullman Standard made from 1958-1970 for CNW.
The Southern Pacific gallery cars of the 1968 order from Pullman Standard had 10 pairs of windows per side (with the end window being half-size). The Con-cor/Rapido models thus more closely resemble the Pullman CNW gallery cars of 1958-70, which had 8 pairs of windows per side (see my streamlined smooth-side car web page). The 1969 SP cars were painted solid gray with unpainted aluminum doors, unlike the 1955-57 gallery cars. The Rapido and Con-cor cars are reasonably close to prototype, but are only suitable for post-1967 trains.
Photo of SP gallery car from the 1968 PS order. From page
160 of Dorin’s Commuter Railroads.
REFERENCES
Dorin, Patrick, Commuter Railroads, A pictorial review of the most traveled trains, Superior Publishing Co., 1970.
Ryan, Dennis, and Joseph Shine, Southern Pacific Passenger Trains, vol. 2, Day trains of the coast line, Four Ways West publications, 2000.
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