Southern Pacific Railroad

The date is a little unclear. I believe this movie was originally produced in 1946 featuring steam power, then remade in color featuring diesels in 1949 or later. Something like that. If someone knows the true story, let me know.

Three cheers for the red and orange! In the years before Donald J. Russell got his mitts on the Espee (and began systematically dismantling their fabulous passenger train network), this WAS the friendly SP.

Freight F units wore the classy “Black Widow” paint scheme, whilst Passenger train diesels wore the flashy “Daylight” dress pulling matched consists throughout the southwest.

Our film is a snapshot of life along the SP Lines including snow fighting operations in the Sierra Nevada. From lower-quadrant semaphores to early CTC installations to rebuilding rolling stock, Southern Pacific did it all their own way. Let’s check out this colorful carnival of transportation. (Apologies for the fuzzy YouTube print.)

It hasta be Shasta. SP Train #9, the Shasta Daylight was a Portland to Oakland streamliner. Mount Shasta looms in the background as an Alco PA locomotive leads the way south (west in SP parlance).

Freight paid most of the bills, though, including SP X6190 leading a set of EMD F7 locomotives through the Sierras.

Southern Pacific’s “Golden Empire” covered a huge swath of the American Southwest with friendly connections to places far and wide; Most first-generation diesels received attractive metal nose signs such as this one.

The red and orange was splashed on anything that moved including this 2-unit “Detector Car”, a delivery truck and, of course, their famous San Francisco to Los Angeles “Daylight” trains.

SP thought BIG. Whether it was the new-in-1944 Pecos River bridge, Houston Passenger Terminal opened in 1934, fleets of massive 4-8-8-2 Cab-Forwards or the engineering marvel of Tehachapi Loop, there was no larger system in the West.

Probably the harshest job on the railroad was track worker. Extremes ran from clearing track in blistering heat and sand storms, to using fire to unfreeze switches in the snow.

Centralized Traffic Control (CTC) was a recent innovation for SP in the 1940’s. From a remote location, the dispatcher could flip a lever and route one train into a siding to allow an oncoming train to pass.

The ever-resourceful Espee knocked apart old wooden box cars and rebuilt them with steel sides. Slap on a coat of paint, stencil the logo and reporting marks on the side, making that car better than new.

Allies UP and SP (both ex-Harriman roads) jointly formed a pool of refrigerated box cars (reefers) called Pacific Fruit Express.

And now, on with the snow!

The first line of snow removal was the flanger, pushed or pulled through moderate drifts with extendible “wings” to shove the white stuff further back from the track.

For bigger jobs, SP called in the steam-driven rotary snow plows. The huge steel-tipped rotating wheel would throw snow far off the right of way.

Whether cab-forward steam or a 4-unit set of F7’s, the show must go on.

When Union Pacific Railroad purchased the Southern Pacific in 1996, an EMD SD70ACe diesel locomotive was painted, blending the two famous paint schemes of Black Widow and Daylight. Note the Southern Pacific Lines logo on the nose of the unit! (UP #1996 photo from UP.com)

For comparison, observe the two paint schemes side by side as the Shasta Daylight overtakes a side-tracked freight.

The streamlined City of San Francisco charges past trackside California Poppies while the engineer keeps a sharp lookout for signals as our story comes to a close.

If you’d like to view the feature I reviewed yourself, the links are below:

Part I

Part II

That is, if it’s still on YouTube.

This is the entire picture (29 minutes):

Here’s what IMDb has to say about This Is My Railroad:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3253924/

If you have ANY information about this movie you’d like to share, please contact me at: Lindsay.Korst@gmail.com, or leave a comment.  Thanks and enjoy the blog!

THE END