Everything about The Southern Pacific Railroad totally explained
The
Southern Pacific Railroad was an
American railroad. The railroad was founded as a land holding company in
1865, forming part of the
Central Pacific Railroad empire. Southern Pacific's total route mileage has varied significantly over the years. In
1929, the system showed of track (in contrast to of track in 1994). By 1900, the Southern Pacific Company had grown into a major railroad system which incorporated many smaller companies, such as the Texas and New Orleans Railroad and Morgan's Louisiana and Texas Railroad, and which extended from New Orleans through Texas to El Paso, across New Mexico and through
Tucson, to
Los Angeles, throughout most of California including
San Francisco and
Sacramento; it absorbed the
Central Pacific Railroad extending eastward across
Nevada to
Ogden, Utah and had lines reaching north throughout and across
Oregon to
Portland.
On
August 9,
1988, the
Interstate Commerce Commission approved the purchase of the Southern Pacific by
Rio Grande Industries, the company that controlled the
Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. The Rio Grande officially took control of the Southern Pacific on
October 13,
1988. After the purchase, the combined railroad kept the Southern Pacific name due to its brand recognition in the railroad industry and with customers of both constituent railroads. The Southern Pacific subsequently was taken over by the
Union Pacific Railroad in
1996 following years of financial problems. The railroad is also noteworthy for being the defendant in the landmark
1886 United States Supreme Court case
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad which is often interpreted as having established certain
corporate rights under the
Constitution of the United States.
Timeline
- 1851: The oldest line to become a part of the Southern Pacific system, the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos, and Colorado Railway begins construction between Houston, Texas and Alleyton, Texas.
- 1865: A group of businessmen in San Francisco, California, led by Timothy Phelps, found the Southern Pacific Railroad to build a rail connection between San Francisco and San Diego, California.
- September 25 1868: The Big Four purchases the Southern Pacific.
- 1870: Southern Pacific and Central Pacific operations are merged.
- June 1873: The Southern Pacific builds its first locomotive at the railroad's Sacramento shops as CP's 2nd number 55, a 4-4-0.
- November 8 1874: Southern Pacific tracks reach Bakersfield, California and work begins on the Tehachapi Loop
- September 5 1876: The first through train from San Francisco arrives in Los Angeles, California after travelling over the newly completed Tehachapi Loop.
- 1877: Southern Pacific tracks from Los Angeles cross the Colorado River at Yuma, Arizona. Southern Pacific purchases the Houston and Texas Central Railway.
- 1879: Southern Pacific engineers experiment with the first oil-fired locomotives.
- March 20 1880: The first Southern Pacific train reaches Tucson, Arizona.
- May 11 1880: The Mussel Slough Tragedy takes place in Hanford, California, a dispute over property rights with SP.
- May 19 1881: Southern Pacific tracks reach El Paso, Texas.
- December 15 1881: Southern Pacific (under the GH&SA RR) meets the Texas and Pacific at Sierra Blanca in Hudspeth County Texas to complete the nations second transcontinental railroad.
- January 12 1883: The Southern section of the second transcontinental railroad line is completed as the Southern Pacific tracks from Los Angeles meet the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway at the Pecos River. The golden spike is driven by Col. Tom Pierce, the GH&SA president, atop the Pecos River High Bridge. The line now extends to San Antonio and Houston along the Sunset Route.
- March 17 1884: The Southern Pacific is incorporated in Kentucky.
- February 17 1885: The Southern Pacific and Central Pacific are combined under a holding company named the Southern Pacific Company.
- April 1 1885: The Southern Pacific takes over all operation of the Central Pacific. Effectively, the CP no longer exists as a separate company.
- 1886: The first refrigerator cars on the Southern Pacific enter operation; the loading of refigerator cars with oranges, first performed at Los Angeles, California on February 14, contibuted to an economic boom in the famous citrus industry of Southern California, by making deliveries of perishable fruits and vegetables to the eastern United States possible.
- 1886: Southern Pacific wins the landmark Supreme Court case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad which establishes equal rights under the law to corporations.
- 1898: Sunset magazine is founded as a promotional tool of the Southern Pacific.
- 1901: Frank Norris' novel, The Octopus: A California Story, a fictional retelling of the Mussel Slough Tragedy and the events leading up to it, is published.
- 1901: Union Pacific Railroad acquires control of Southern Pacific. In the following years, many SP operating procedures and equipment purchases follow patterns established by Union Pacific.
- 1903: Southern Pacific gains 50% control of the Pacific Electric system in Los Angeles.
- March 8 1904: SP opens the Lucin Cutoff across the Great Salt Lake, bypassing Promontory, UT for the railroad's mainline.
- March 20 1904: SP's Coast Line is completed between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, CA.
- April 18 1906: The great 1906 San Francisco earthquake strikes, damaging the railroad's headquarters building and destroying the mansions of the now-deceased Big Four.
- 1906: SP and UP jointly form the Pacific Fruit Express (PFE) refrigerator car line.
- May 22 1907: Coast Line Limited of the Southern Pacific Railroad derailed west of Glendale, California. Several deaths and injuries. Cause linked to anarchists.
- 1907: With Santa Fe, Southern Pacific forms Northwestern Pacific, unifying several SP- and Santa Fe-owned subsidiaries into one jointly owned railroad serving northwestern California.
- 1909: The Southern Pacific of Mexico, the railroad's subsidiary south of the U.S. border, is incorporated.
- 1913: The Supreme Court of the United States orders the Union Pacific to sell all of its stock in the Southern Pacific.
- December 28 1917: The federal government takes control of American railroads in preparation for World War I
- 1923: The Interstate Commerce Commission allows the SP's control of the Central Pacific to continue, ruling that the control is in the public's interest.
- 1929: Santa Fe sells its interest in Northwestern Pacific to SP. NWP becomes a wholly-owned subsidiary of SP.
- 1932: The SP gains 87% control of the Cotton Belt Railroad.
- May 1939: UP, SP and Santa Fe passenger trains in Los Angeles are united into a single terminal as Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal is opened.
- 1947: The first diesel locomotives owned entirely by SP enter mainline operation on the SP.
- 1947: Southern Pacific is reincorporated in Delaware.
- 1951: Southern Pacific subsidiary Southern Pacific of Mexico is sold to the Mexican government.
- 1952: A difficult year for the SP in California opens with the City of San Francisco train marooned for three days in heavy snow on Donner Pass; that summer, an earthquake hits the Tehachapi pass, closing the entire route over the Tehachapi Loop until repairs can be made.
- 1953: The first Trailer-On-Flat-Car (TOFC, or "piggyback") equipment enters service on the SP.
- 1957: The last steam locomotives in regular operation on the SP are retired; the railroad is now fully dieselized.
- 1959: The last revenue steam powered freight is operated on the system by narrow gauge #9.
- 1965: Southern Pacific's bid for control of the Western Pacific is rejected by the ICC.
- 1967: SP opens the longest stretch of new railroad construction in a quarter century as the first trains roll over the Palmdale Cutoff through Cajon Pass.
- 1976: SP is awarded Dow Chemical's first annual Rail Safety Achievement Award in recognition of the railroad's handling of Dow products in 1975.
- 1980: Now owning a 98.34% control of the Cotton Belt, the Southern Pacific extends the Cotton Belt from St. Louis to Santa Rosa, New Mexico through acquisition of part of the former Rock Island Railroad.
- 1984: Northern portion of subsidiary Northwestern Pacific sold to independent shortline Eureka Southern Railroad which begins operation on November 1.
- 1984: The Southern Pacific Company merges into Santa Fe Industries, parent of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, to form Santa Fe Southern Pacific Corporation. When the Interstate Commerce Commission refuses permission for the planned merger of the railroad subsidiaries as the Southern Pacific Santa Fe Railroad SPSF shortens its name to Santa Fe Pacific Corporation and puts the SP railroad up for sale while retaining the non-rail assets of the Southern Pacific Company.
- October 13 1988: Rio Grande Industries, parent of the Rio Grande Railroad, takes control of the Southern Pacific Railroad. The merged company retains the name "Southern Pacific" for all railroad operations.
- 1992: Northwestern Pacific is merged into SP, ending NWP's existence as a corporate subsidiary of SP and leaving the Cotton Belt as SP's only remaining major railroad subsidiary.
- 1996: The Union Pacific Railroad finishes the acquisition that was effectively begun almost a century before with the purchase of the Southern Pacific by UP in 1901, until divestiture was ordered in 1913. Ironically, although Union Pacific was the dominant company, taking complete control of SP, its corporate structure was merged into Southern Pacific, which on paper became the "surviving company"; it then changed its name to Union Pacific. The merged company retains the name "Union Pacific" for all railroad operations.
Famous accidents
Anarchists were blamed for a deadly railroad accident in 1907. The Coast Line Limited of the Southern Pacific Railroad was heading for
Los Angeles, California, on May 22, 1907, when it was derailed just west of
Glendale, California. Passenger cars reportedly tumbled down the embankment. At least two were killed and others injured. "The horrible deed was planned with devilish accurateness," the
Pasadena Star News reported at the time. It said spikes were removed from the track and hook placed under the end of the rail.
The
Star's coverage was extensive and its editorial blasted the criminal elements behind the wreck. "Diabolism Incarnate" is how they headlined the editorial. It read: "The man or men who committed this horrible deed near Glendale may not be anarchists, technically speaking. But if they're sane men, moved by motive, they're such stuff as anarchists are made of. If the typical anarchist conceived that a railroad corporation should be terrorized, he wouldn't scruple to wreck a passenger train and send scores and hundreds to instant death."
A few weeks later, an attempt to derail a Southern Pacific train near
Santa Clara, California, was foiled when a pile of railway ties was discovered on the tracks. In the early hours of June 1, 1907, a work train crew found that someone had driven a steel plate into a switch near
Burbank, California, intending to derail the
Santa Barbara local.
Locomotive paint and appearance
Like most railroads, the SP painted the majority of its
steam locomotive fleet black during the 20th century, but after the 1930s the SP had a policy of painting the front of the locomotive's
smokebox light silver (almost white in appearance), with graphite colored sides, for visibility.
Some express passenger steam locomotives bore the
Daylight scheme, named after the trains they hauled, most of which had the word
Daylight in the train name. This scheme, carried in full on the
tender, consisted of a bright, almost vermilion red on the top and bottom thirds, with the center third being a bright orange. The parts were separated with thin white bands. Some of the color continued along the locomotive. The most famous "Daylight" locomotives were the
GS-4 steam locomotives. The most famous Daylight-hauled trains were the Coast Daylight and the Sunset Limited.
Well known were the Southern Pacific's unique "
cab-forward" steam locomotives. These were essentially
2-8-8-4 locomotives set up to run in reverse, with the
tender attached to the smokebox end of the locomotive. Southern Pacific used a number of
snow sheds in mountain terrain, and locomotive crews nearly asphyxiated from smoke blowing back to the cab. After a number of engineers began running their engines in reverse (pushing the tender), Southern Pacific asked
Baldwin Locomotive Works to produce cab-forward designs. No other North American railroad ordered cab-forward locomotives, which became a distinctive symbol of the Southern Pacific.
During the early days of
diesel locomotive use, they were also painted black. Yard
switchers had diagonal orange stripes painted on the ends for visibility, earning this scheme the nickname of
Tiger Stripe. Road freight units were generally painted in a black scheme with a red band at the bottom of the carbody and a silver and orange "winged" nose. The words "SOUTHERN PACIFIC" were borne in a large serif font in white. This paint scheme is called the
Black Widow scheme by railfans. A transitory scheme, of all-over black with orange "winged" nose, was called the
Halloween scheme. Few locomotives were painted in this scheme and few photos of it exist.
Most passenger units were painted originally in the
Daylight scheme as described above, though some were painted red on top, silver below for use on the
Golden State (operated in cooperation with the
Rock Island Railroad) between Chicago and Los Angeles. Also, silver cars with a narrow red band at the top were used for the
Sunset Limited and other trains into Texas. In 1959 SP standardized on a paint scheme of dark grey with a red "winged" nose; this scheme was dubbed
Bloody Nose by railfans. Lettering was again in white. During the failed
Southern Pacific Santa Fe Railroad merger in the mid 1980s, the "Kodachrome" paint scheme (named for the colors on the boxes that the
film came in) was applied to many Southern Pacific locomotives. When the Southern Pacific Santa Fe merger was denied by the
Interstate Commerce Commission, the Kodachrome units were not immediately repainted, some even lasting up to the Southern Pacific's end as an independent company, complete with the big letters "SPSF", which colloquially came to be referred to as "Shouldn't Paint So Fast." The
Interstate Commerce Commission's decision left Southern Pacific in a decrepit state, the locomotives were not repainted immediately, although some were repainted into the
Bloody Nose scheme as they were overhauled after months to years of deferred maintenance. After the 1988 purchase of Southern Pacific by
Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad owner Philip Anschutz, the side lettering on repainted locomotives was changed from SP's serif font to the Rio Grande's "speed lettering" style. The Rio Grande didn't retain its identity, as Anshutz felt the Southern Pacific name was the more dominant and recognizable.
Southern Pacific road switcher diesels were well-known by
railfans for several distinct features beyond their paint schemes. The units often featured elaborate lighting clusters, both front and rear, which featured a large red
Mars Light for emergency signaling, and often two sets of twin sealed-beam headlamps, one on top of the cab between the number boards, and the other below the Mars Light on the locomotive's nose. The Southern Pacific, starting in the 1970s, employed cab air conditioning on all new locomotives, and the air conditioning unit on top of the locomotive cab is quite visible. Southern Pacific also placed very large snowplows on the pilots of their road switchers, primarily for the heavy winter snowfall encountered on the
Donner Pass route. Many Southern Pacific road switchers used a Nathan-AirChime model M3 or M5
air horn, which formed chords which were distinct to Southern Pacific locomotives in the
western states.
The Southern Pacific, and its subsidiary
Cotton Belt, were the only operators of the
EMD SD45T-2 "Tunnel Motor" locomotive. This locomotive was necessary because the standard configuration
EMD SD45 couldn't get a sufficient amount of cool air into the diesel locomotive's radiator while working Southern Pacific's extensive snow shed and tunnel system in the Cascades and
Donner Pass. These "Tunnel Motors" were essentially EMD SD45s with radiator air intakes located at the locomotive carbody's walkway level, rather than EMD's typical radiator setup with fans on the locomotive's long hood roof pulling air through radiators mounted at the top/side of the locomotive's body. Inside tunnels and snow sheds, the hot exhaust gases from lead units would accumulate near the top of the tunnel or snow shed, and be drawn into the radiators of trailing EMD (non-tunnel motor) locomotives, leading these locomotives to shut down as their diesel prime mover overheated. The Southern Pacific also operated
EMD SD40T-2s, as did the
Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad.
Unlike many other railroads, whose locomotive numberboards bore the locomotive's number, SP used them for the train number until 1967, when they adopted the other railroads' "standard"...except for the SP's San Francisco-San Jose commute trains, which maintained the display of train numbers for the convenience of passengers awaiting their trains. The other major railroad which used locomotive numberboards for train numbers into the late 1960s was SP's trancontinental partner, Union Pacific.
Toward the end of the railroad's corporate life, Southern Pacific locomotives were known for being very dirty. Some
railfans jokingly observed that the railroad's heavily used locomotives were only washed when it rained.
Union Pacific recently unveiled
UP 1996, the sixth and final of its Heritage Series
EMD SD70ACe locomotives. Its paint scheme appears to be based on the Daylight and Black Widow schemes.
Passenger train service
Until
May 1,
1971 (when
Amtrak took over long-distance passenger operations in the
United States), the Southern Pacific at various times operated the following
named passenger trains:
49er
Argonaut
Arizona Limited (operated jointly with the Rock Island Railroad)
Beaver
Californian
Cascade Limited
City of San Francisco (operated jointly with the Chicago and North Western Railway and the Union Pacific Railroad)
Coast Daylight
Coast Mail
Coaster
Del Monte
Fast Mail (Overland Mail)
Golden Rocket (proposed, was to have been operated jointly with the Rock Island Railroad)
Golden State (operated jointly with the Rock Island Railroad)
Grand Canyon
Klamath
Lark
Oregonian
Overland
Owl
Pacific Limited
Peninsula Commute (operated until 1985, now Caltrain)
Rogue River
Sacramento Daylight
San Francisco Challenger (operated jointly with the Chicago and North Western Railway and the Union Pacific Railroad)
San Joaquin Daylight
Senator
Shasta
Shasta Express
Sunset
Sunset Limited
Tehachapi
West Coast
Locomotives Used for Passenger Service
Steam Locomotives
2-8-0 Consolidation
2-8-2 Mikado
4-4-2 Atlantic
4-6-2 Pacific - see SP 2472
4-8-2 Mountain
4-8-4 Golden State/General Service - see SP 4449
Diesel Locomotives
ALCO PA
EMD E2
EMD E7
EMD E8
EMD E9 - see SP 6051
EMD FP7
FM H-24-66 "Train Master"
EMD GP7 - SSW only
EMD GP9 - see SP 5623
EMD SD7
EMD SD9 - see SP 4450
GE P30CH - leased from Amtrak
EMD SDP45
EMD GP40P-2
Preserved locomotives
There are many Southern Pacific locomotives still in revenue service with railroads such as the Union Pacific, and many older and special locomotives have been donated to parks and museums, or continue operating on scenic or tourist railroads. Among the more notable equipment is:
4294 (AC-12, 4-8-8-2), located at the California State Railroad Museum, Sacramento, California
4449 (GS-4, 4-8-4), located at the Brooklyn Roundhouse, Portland, Oregon
2472 (P-8, 4-6-2), owned and operated by the Golden Gate Railroad Museum, Redwood City, California
2467 (P-8, 4-6-2), on loan by the Pacific Locomotive Association, Fremont, California to the California State Railroad Museum
1518 (|EMD SD7), located at the Illinois Railway Museum, Union, Illinois
4450 (|EMD SD9), located at the Western Pacific Railroad Museum, Portola, California - former commute train engine
For a complete list, see: List of preserved Southern Pacific Railroad rolling stock.
Company officers
Presidents of the Southern Pacific Company
Timothy Guy Phelps (1865-1868)
Colonel Charles Crocker (1868-1885)
Leland Stanford (1885-1890)
Collis P. Huntington (1890-1900)
Charles Hayes (1900-1901)
E. H. Harriman (1901-1909)
Robert S. Lovett (1909-1911)
William Sproule (1911-1918)
Julius Krutschnitt (1918-1920)
William Sproule (1920-1928)
Paul Shoup (1929-1932)
Angus Daniel McDonald (1932-1941)
Armand Mercier (1941-1951)
Donald J. Russell (1952-1964)
Benjamin Biaggini (1964-1976)
Denman McNear (1976-1979)
Alan Furth (1979-1982)
Robert Krebs (1982-1983)
D. M. "Mike" Mohan (1984-1996)
Chairmen of the Southern Pacific Company Executive Committee
Leland Stanford (1890-1893)
(vacant 1893-1909)
Robert S. Lovett (1909-1913)
Julius Krutschnitt (1913-1925)
Henry deForest (1925-1928)
Hale Holden (1928-1932)
Chairmen of the Southern Pacific Company Board of Directors
Henry deForest (1929-1932)
Hale Holden (1932-1939)
(position nonexistent 1939-1964)
Donald Russell (1964-1972)
(vacant 1972-1976)
Benjamin Biaggini (1976-1983)
Predecessor and subsidiary railroads
Arizona
Arizona Eastern Railroad 1910-1955
California
California Pacific Railroad (Cal-P line Sacramento - Martinez, California)
Central Pacific Railroad
Northern Railway SP Subsidiary
Northwestern Pacific Railroad
Sacramento Southern Railroad
San Diego and Arizona Railway
San Diego and Arizona Eastern Railway
West Side and Mendocino Railroad (Willows - Fruto, California)
San Francisco and San Jose Rail Road
South Pacific Coast Railroad
Oregon and California Railroad
Western Pacific Railroad (1862 - San Jose, California to Sacramento, California)
Texas
Austin and Northwestern Railroad
Galveston Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway
Houston and Texas Central Railroad
San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway
Texas and New Orleans Railroad
Successor railroads
Arizona
Arizona Eastern Railway (AZER) since 1988 from SP
San Pedro and Southwestern Railroad (SPSR) 2003-2006 line abandoned
California
California Northern Railroad
Eureka Southern Railroad
Napa Valley Wine Train
Niles Canyon Railway
North Coast Railroad
San Diego and Imperial Valley Railroad
San Joaquin Valley Railroad
Ferry service
The Central Pacific Railroad (and later the Southern Pacific) maintained and operated a fleet of ferry boats that connected Oakland with San Francisco by water. For this purpose, a massive pier, the Oakland Long Wharf, was built out into San Francsico Bay in the 1870s which served both local and mainline passengers. Early on, the Central Pacific gained control of the existing ferry lines for the purpose of linking the northern rail lines with those from the south and east; during the late 1860s the company purchased nearly every bayside plot in Oakland, creating what author and historian Oscar Lewis described as a "wall around the waterfront" that put the town’s fate squarely in the hands of the corporation. Competitors for ferry passengers or dock space were ruthlessly run out of business, and not even stage coach lines could escape the group's notice, or wrath.
By 1930, the Southern Pacific owned the world's largest ferry fleet (which was subsidized by other railroad activities), carrying 40 million passengers and 60 million vehicles annually aboard 43 vessels. However, the opening of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in 1936 initiated the slow decline in demand for ferry service, and by 1951 only 6 ships remained active. SP ferry service was discontinued altogether in 1958.
Further Information
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