Nostalgia & History > The San Joaquin Daylight at Martinez 1961

The San Jouquin Daylight during its stop at Martinez, California in 1961. The lead unit is already on the Mococo Line ready to head for its all day trip to Los Angeles. Martinez was one of my hangouts for train watching in my teen years many moons ago.

Robert Morris Photography

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Fantastic shot  Bob, I love it !!!

Somewhere in your vast collection of black & whites you have my favorite picture you took at Martinez, a WB passenger with FP7A # 6455 leading

I bought a 8x10 from you in 1999 and it should still be on display at the Chatsworth Metrolink Station where I worked in 1999. Too bad I left it there.

Thanks for everything you post on T.O.

Jay Roberts
Sumner, WA

These were the best days on the SP!

Great photo!

Regards, Jim Evans

The best days on the SP were the '40s and '50s, back before everything began to turn grey, silver, and red, and steam was on the head-end with a round-end obs on the rear...

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

Wonderful photo!  You honed your skills early.
ALLEN

Compared to the present yellow borg anything SP is the golden era.

Did  #6441 have steam lines, etc. for passenger service, or did someone just plunk an F7 freighter on the point?

The pilot bottom center on #6441 appears to me to have an opening for a steam line.  The unit also appears to have a signal line.  Presently, I an using a 10" screen and a magnifying glass to make these observations.  But I believe I am correct.
Further, there is a photo on rrpicturearchives.net of #6441 taken on 7/15/1965 at Martinez CA.  This unit is in the lead on a passenger train.  The numbers in the numberboard appears to be 51; leading the same train in the opposite direction.
Hope this info answers E25's questions.
ALLEN

Simply an outstanding photograph. Classic SP, thanks for sharing it with us. 

~Ryan

Think the Strapac books say 6441 was an F7P--
no steam generator but everything else needed
for passenger trains.

Oh, how SUPERB this photograph is !!!
Thanks for sharing it on T.O.

Fabulous photo... Bob, I haunted the very same place about six or seven years after you!

Yes, the 6441 and its 1953-built siblings 6442, 6444, and 6445 were equipped with 60:17 gearing, boiler controls, steam and signal lines and ultimately rooftop icicle breaker bars, and were constants on 51-52 until the deployment of the SDP45s as single units. Hard to tell, but there looks to be a trailing FP7, which was a common configuration in the mid-1960s: elephant-style F7(P) and FP7 and two B-units.

The consist is interesting, and modelers should take note of the variety! The Daylight-painted Baggage Postal car appears to be one of the skirted trio rebuilt from heavyweight diners at Los Angeles General Shops in the early 1950s. Following that are two nearly-new "Economy Baggage" Class 66-B-2 baggage cars from St. Louis Car Company; those are the recent replacements for a converted heavyweight Horse Express baggage car that was commonly paired with the RPO during the 1950s.

The Chair Baggage that follows is in the post-1958 "Simulated Stainless Steel" scheme; at this resolution it's hard to tell if it's been re-sided with smooth stainless or not, but if it was April 1961 or later, it could have been the first Daylight car completed by the builders, SP 3300 (which survives today). Two pairs of fluted and Daylight-painted Articulated Chair Cars precede a Budd Diner from the 1950 Sunset Limited. Behind that is one of the Sacramento-built Dome Lounge cars, also in "SSS" natural steel trim with painted roof and Scarlet letterboard stripe.

Trailing this D.J. Russell-inspired "Stairway to the Stars" -- an economy answer to the Budd and Pullman-Standard domes of the competition, and arguably more memorable -- is one more Articulated Chair Car set in original Daylight paint and fluting. There's still room for one more Articulated set to be picked up at Lathrop, transferred from the Sacramento Daylight in a switching ritual that would be maintained all the way to 1967.

Run a "circus train" like this on a model layout and see what people say!

~ BZ

timz Wrote:
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> Think the Strapac books say 6441 was an F7P--
> no steam generator but everything else needed
> for passenger trains.

F7P...an interesting model designation.  I've never heard of it (which is not at all surprising, given that there are LOTS of things that I've never heard of!), but it makes perfect sense.  Might this have been a catalogued EMD model number or just a model designation conjured up by the SP, for their own internal use?  TIA.

 

Bob Callahan
Monticello, IN



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/05/15 10:33 by rcall31060.

How times change.  The train is getting ready to run down the Mococo Line to Tracy, a line that is now out of service and may never see trains again.  The train's nocturnal companion, the OWL, used the West Side Line from Tracy to Fresno via Los Banos, and THAT line now has a center segment of it that is abandoned and ripped up.

There's a good chance that all of that train, from pilot to rear markers, has been scrapped.  

As many like to say, it's all crap now.  I think I agree.  

There's an outside chance that much of the train might still exist.

Possibilities include the two F7B units, which could have survived as ex-Steam Rotary Snowplow power. The RPO may be the one of three preserved. Both 66-B-1 Baggage cars could still exist as yard sheds somewhere along former SP lines. The Combine, one of four built, could be one of two still surviving.

Several Articulated Chair Cars exist in varying states of preservation. The ex-Sunset Budd diner may have survived to Amtrak and beyond. The Dome Lounge could be SP 3604, built for this train in 1955, and ending up being rescued from the defunct Minnesota Zephyr dinner train and now residing in Colorado. 

Better odds than not, actually, that much of the train may still reside on the planet in mostly original form. 

~ BZ



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/15 02:25 by Notch16.

>  Might this ["F7P"] have been a catalogued EMD model
> number or just a model designation conjured up by
> the SP

I'm guessing neither. Might be a fan term.

timz Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >  Might this ["F7P"] have been a catalogued EMD
> model
> > number or just a model designation conjured up
> by
> > the SP
>
> I'm guessing neither. Might be a fan term.

Probably so.  Thank you Mr. Z!

Bob Callahan
Monticello, IN