California Dreaming - SP/WP in the Bay Area - Niles Junction

Or with UP diner ?

Sven,
I'm afraid I don't have access to my printed information until the weekend and there really isn't much on the internet for the San Francisco Overland. Here's a few ideas.

This video would be early 1950s and looks about right for the era.



This photostream has two images of the SF Overland. There is also an image of the San Joaquin Daylight in a place you might be familiar with: Caliente, CA

www.flickr.com/photos/hunter1828/7098235637/in/photostream/

To answer your specific question about head end, definitely an SP baggage and two UP baggage. Maybe a fast freight boxcar. I don't believe they ran an RPO, at least on the SP route, but I could see a mail storage car.


Hope this is enough to keep you going.

Mark

Sven,

Sorry it's taken so long. The reference I really wanted to reference the Trainline story, but I set it aside in a safe place, only to realize now that I don't remember where that is! I'm still looking and when I find it, I'll upgrade this thread.

For power, PA A-B-A set were generally used, however the Shasta Daylight ran E7 A-B-B sets out of Oakland also, so they are a reasonable possibility. The important thing is the Daylight colors.

For the train end, they generally didn't use an observation car, rather a blunt end sleeper car or just hang a tail light in the vestibule of the last car.

A couple of consists I have in my notes:

West bound 1953 on the UP:
Baggage - UP #3000, UP #3002, SP #3403
Coach - SP #3403, UP #5318, #5304, #529, #5209
Diner - SP #10204
Lounge - #2981
Sleepers - UP 4-4-2, 6-6-4, 10-6, PRR 10-6 or NYC 10-6
Eastern road sleepers in their respective road paint. SP sleepers in Daylight or UP yellow.

East bound on the SP
Baggage - UP HW, SP LW
Coach - UP HW, UP LW, SP LW Daylight *2
Lounge - SP HW diner (converted) SP green
Diner - C&NW HW Diner
Sleepers - as about, plus possible HW 8-1-2

Mark

A while back I was writing about the Overland Limited and promised more modeling details. I finally found my notes and here's an update.

I'm picking the 1955 era. The C&NW dropped the Overland in 1953 but still handled through cars. UP dropped the Overland in July 1955, with through cars going on their City of St. Louis. Thus the Overland became an SP Oakland-Ogden train. While UP wanted all the Overland cars repainted to Armour Yellow in 1952, SP was slow to comply and interestingly the SP Overland wasn't repainted to all yellow until the late 1950s. Finally, the winter of 1955 was a wet year with flooding, making it probable that SP re-routed trains through Niles.

Power: steam would be GS-3, 4-8-2 steam, or PAs. F7s and cab-forwards were used in a pinch and as helpers in the Sierra. A train rerouted through Niles (and the Altamont Pass) would be a cab forward or PAs. There are even images of a PA/cab forward mix.

Head end: Westbound trains frequently pulled up to 5 express freight cars - SP, UP, C&NW, CB&Q, NYC, PRR and Wabash. Baggage cars were mostly SP LW & HW in Daylight, TTG and occasionally a UP yellow. SP never painted any baggage yellow, although they used a yellow baggage/dormitory. Despite my earlier post, the Overland would occasionally host east bound mail storage cars and RPOs as overflow from the Overland mail train.

Coaches, sleepers, diners and lounges were much as I described above. By 1955 the dining cars had been downgraded to café cars and lounges and limited to SP rolling stock. 10-6 sleepers ran until 1957 and were mostly UP. Paint schemes could be UP yellow, Daylight, SP green, TTG and Golden State aluminum plus the less frequent C&NW, Walbash, PRR & NYC cars in their colors..

The SP also ran weekend "Gambler Special" coaches on the end of the train for the Oakland-Reno leg. An interesting modeling note is that due to complaints from sleeper passengers, when these cars were added, the consist was run backwards with the sleeper in front and coaches in back. The Gambler's Special eventually became a train in it's own right and lasted well into the Amtrak era.

In the early 50s, the observation car was replaced by a full length dome lounge car (ex: #3601) to compete with the Zephyr Vista Dome. By 1955 this dome was frequently replaced by a HW diner converted to lounge when the passenger load was light.

I hope this generates a few ideas. As for my self, until AZL brings out their LW cars, I'd model this trains with HW baggage and diners from AZLs Daylight and Sunset sets, UP and SP coaches and sleepers from MTL, all paint scheme offerings and a couple for their fast freight boxcars. I'd love to see AZL produce the TTG and Daylight LWs as well as the many road/train name combinations in Armour yellow, although I'd be very happy to be able to get unlettered Armour yellow.

BTW: My interest in the Overland? My first long distance train ride was on the Overland in it's last Christmas season of operation.

Mark

Well! While I've always been impressed with your railroad research abilities, in this case, with my access to the archives in Sacramento, personal discussions with SP employees of the era, and personal experience on the train, I might have the edge.

So wow me. I'll let you take until the end of NTS 2018.

Mark

And the full train would look like this:

1)



2a)