Railroaders' Nostalgia > SP Employee Roster PDF's

I've just now placed a new page on my website which contains quite a few old SP employee rosters, 1925-1960, plus a smattering of other related items, such as a 1972 SP Police Academy class roster. They're scanned largely from old commercial time books, and are mostly Coast Division T&E & yardmen. The 1925 rosters also include clerks (even baggage & warehouse men) and selected crafts on the Western, LA & San Joaquin Divisions, SP-owned San Jose Railways (streetcars) and Penisular Interurban, plus Pacific Coast Ry. The 1960 Coast includes Santa Maria Valley. Most are in PDF format.

Some of these rosters were scanned from timebooks and such loaned by others, and others will appear as kind people lend me their books for scanning. I'm particularly interested in scanning rosters from divisions other than Coast, and other crafts, such as M/W. Coming next is 1985 Sacramento Division rosters.

I scanned the existing rosters as a supplement to the Ernie Kiesel Collection of Southern Pacific Photographs (from History San Jose), which I have not been able to work on much, due to a sore keester (a complication of running engines, I guess) which won't allow me to sit down for long (dammit!). As I've stated previously, it nevertheless will be online before most of you go senile, or more importantly, before *I*go senile.

http://wx4.org/sp_employees/pages/rosters/sp_rosters.html

Regards,
EO
The 1925 roster has a roster of Western TBM's "qualified as bagagemen operating dynamo". What's the deal there? I seem to recall SP experimenting with some sort of proto head end power located in a baggage car, but I believe that this was some years earlier. Did the Overland Limited have HEP?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/16 08:44 by hogheaded.

hogheaded Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> The 1925 roster has a roster of Western TBM's
> "qualified as bagagemen operating dynamo". What's
> the deal there? I seem to recall SP experimenting
> with some sort of proto head end power located in
> a baggage car, but I believe that this was some
> years earlier. Did the Overland Limited have HEP?

Short answer, yes.

​Arthur Dubin notes in "Some Classic Trains" that a predecessor of The Overland Limited, the Golden Gate Special was inaugurated December 5, 1888. "The special
​contained five unique electric-lighted vestibuled Pullman cars....." . The electric light apparatus was contained in a combination baggage car that also contained 
​a barbershop and gentlemen's bathroom. The 1902 version of the O.L. had electricity with the apparatus located in the buffet car. In 1913 a C&NW buffet car
​built for the O.L. ...."provided head-end power with dynamo". A diagram on p.183 shows the generator located within a baggage compartment of the buffet car.

Charlie

I wonder if the McKeen cars had any special qualifications?  Not sure if they were used on the Western Div.

sphogger

Charlie, thanks for the illumination (get it?) about the dynamos. I Googled, and about the first thing that came up was Don Strack's extensive article about them on Utah Rails:   http://utahrails.net/pass/dynamos-hep.php.

George, I suspect that the main qualifications to man a McKeen car were the ability to use a monkey wrench and the strength to get out and push. Passengers occasionally had to provide "helper service" for the McKeens on the Santa Cruz-Felton school trains, a long-departed Felton resident once told me. As for the "Western", don't know. I'd love to know if any powered Oakland-to-San Jose locals, myself.

EO
below, dynamo trains,, June 1918

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TO's member westbound has kindly associated three names to faces in the 1972 Police Academy photo:

Vern Finwall
R H "Dick" Hadsell
G M "Gene" Depuy

EO

I see two of the men that took good care of me when I was a kid riding, Roy Ables an Eddie Bremer.

Better late than never: Thanks for the ID's, boys! I'll amend the Web page accordingly.

EO