Nostalgia & History > SP's Harrimans at the Midnight Hour

No, I'm not referring to the time I posted this. My slide is dated 6-15-85 and SP SDP45 3207 is headed westward across 4th Ave. in San Mateo with eight Harrimans in tow bound for the City. Doesn't appear to be just another commute, though. The units' road number, rather than the train number, is in the numberboards and the sun angle suggests it is mid to late afternoon--an eight car train westbound at that hour would be highly unusual(it's June so its not a Stanford football extra). My sequence of slides show it not stopping in San Mateo and, while hard to tell, it looks like there are no passengers aboard. At this date new F40's and stainless steel galleries are entering service changing the look of the SP/Caltrain Peninsula service forever. Is this a funeral train? Were Harrimans stored in the City prior to leaving the property or in San Jose(or both)? And, yes, the Kentucky Fried Chicken is still there.

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Great shot. By the way does anyone know what electrical changes were made to the SDP45s so that they could perform in line with the H24-66s they replaced?

Was it the "Farewell to the Harrimans" fan trip I remember riding around that time? Can't remember the railfan group that put it on. They ran four trains of Subs and I think 3207 was pulling one of them.

espee99 Wrote:
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> Great shot. By the way does anyone know what
> electrical changes were made to the SDP45s so that
> they could perform in line with the H24-66s they
> replaced?

I don't know the answer to that, but I do recall that the SDPs were not run in multiple with the FMs.

Acceleration was important in commute service, so the SDPs may have been modified to load faster, at a cost of some horsepower.

dmaffei Wrote:
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> Was it the "Fairwell to the Harrimans" fan trip I
> remember riding around that time? Can't remember
> the railfan group that put it on. They ran four
> trains of Subs and I think 3207 was pulling one of
> them.

Did a little online research and 6-15-85 was indeed a Saturday so I'm guessing Dave is right about the farewell run. Why else would I be up on the old San Mateo parking structure on a perfectly good Saturday.......

As I recall, Geep 3195 was on the point of the southbound operation, 3207 ran it north, then an F40 returned the subs to San Jose.

Thats a good point, too bad we can't see the other end of the train in the photo.

Did a little research(which I should have done initially) and the two roundtrips that day operated with the following power:
SJ-SF SP4450-4451
SF-SJ SP3195-3193
SJ-SF SP3207
SF-SJ CDTX900

None of the trains had any power on the end. The two Cadillacs are seen departing Millbrae in the shot below on the morning's first run. Intermediate stops were made, including this one at Millbrae.

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Units used were 4450/4451 north, 3195/3193 south, 3207 north, and 900 south.


FiveChime Wrote:
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> As I recall, Geep 3195 was on the point of the
> southbound operation, 3207 ran it north, then an
> F40 returned the subs to San Jose.

Ahem...

Make that east and west, please!

No train on the SP ever ran north or south.

Remember? Any train going away from San Francisco was eastbound. Any train going towards San Francisco was westbound.

Heres the SD9 powered train entering tunnel 2.

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Heres the Geep train at tunnel 3.

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espee99 Wrote:
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> By the way does anyone know what
> electrical changes were made to the SDP45s so that
> they could perform in line with the H24-66s they
> replaced?

See this thread:

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,1009171,1009448#msg-1009448

Pullman Wrote:
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> Ahem...
>
> Make that east and west, please!
>
> No train on the SP ever ran north or south.
>
> Remember? Any train going away from San Francisco
> was eastbound. Any train going towards San
> Francisco was westbound.
>
Which created a funny situation. The SP train "West Coast" ran from Los Angeles to Portland.
>

Bring back the "West Coast"!

dmaffei Wrote:
"They ran four
trains of Subs ----"


Why the name "sub" ?
Another dumb Hoosier question.

Thanks

Mark

Markedup Wrote:
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> dmaffei Wrote:
> "They ran four
> trains of Subs ----"
>
>
> Why the name "sub" ?
> Another dumb Hoosier question.
>
> Thanks
>
> Mark
>
>
>

Sub is short for suburban coach. The SP ordered quite a few of them from Pullman in 1923 specifically for use on the peninsula commute service. Here's a link to more info from the GGRM website:

http://www.ggrm.org/about_the_museum/passenger/sp2091.htm

For some old girls, they rode very well right up to the end.

DaveE

My favorite, this one adorns my bedroom wall.

photobob Wrote:
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> Heres the Geep train at tunnel 3.

That's true, but these weren't SP trains. And I think Caltrain has always referred to their trains as northbounds and southbounds.


Pullman Wrote:
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> Ahem...
>
> Make that east and west, please!
>
> No train on the SP ever ran north or south.
>
> Remember? Any train going away from San Francisco
> was eastbound. Any train going towards San
> Francisco was westbound.
>
>
>

Probably in the timetables for the purposes of the general public who wouldn't know the RR directions, but as far as East/West goes that changed in 1996 when the UP started to refer to things as north and south.

PullmanPorter Wrote:
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> That's true, but these weren't SP trains. And I
> think Caltrain has always referred to their trains
> as northbounds and southbounds.
>
>