Nostalgia & History > Southern Pacific haulers

What kind of trains were the SP's haulers? I remember a source that indicated what they were online, but now I cannot find it. I'm an easterner, so the SP is all kinds of strange to me.
Cheers,
Nick

Posted from iPhone

Haulers were Transfer Runs, some went from one Yard to another, others went further out to another yard in a distant city.

==Jim Baker

Another name for a "drag freight"

weren't some haulers assigned jobs?

eljay Wrote:
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> weren't some haulers assigned jobs?


Yes

WCLAD, West Colton to Taylor Drag, one of few times I ever saw the "D' symbol on the
always rapid SP.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/12 16:22 by rehunn.

rehunn Wrote:
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> WCLAD, West Colton to Taylor Drag, one of few
> times I ever saw the "D' symbol on the
> always rapid SP.

You know it was a slow boat to Taylor when "D: was added

eljay Wrote:
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> weren't some haulers assigned jobs?


On the PE and SP most haulers were assigned jobs with job descriptions. Just as an example, out of City of Industry there was the Anaheim Hauler and Buena Park Hauler. The Anaheim Hauler took all of the traffic from the mainline set outs to Anaheim, and the Buena Park did the same with the Buena Park traffic plus the traffic that went to Los Nietos for the LNS crews to distribute on their various branches. Those two haulers ALWAYS had some of the LA Division's highest seniority. The same applied to the PE crew, such as the haulers out of Butte St.(today's "J" yard. There were two Long Beach Haulers, a Torrance Hauler (although he did some switching of industries before reaching Centralia, where they would set out the traffic for the El Segundo switcher, and then on to Torrance to set out traffic for the Torrance switcher. After departing Torrance with all of the outbound traffic the Torrance switcher had for the hauler, they would return to Centralia to pick up the outbound traffic from the El Segundo switcher. Another job that was a switcher and semi hauler, was the Santa Monica AirLine job, as he would do all the industries from Nevin to Sentous yard in Culver City. At Culver City, the crew would set out the inbound traffic for the Culver City job, and take the outbound traffic back to Butte St. All of these jobs were assigned jobs with regular crews.

V

SLOCONDR

Back in the 1970's, when I worked a night shift job in El Monte, I would sometimes go down to the SP tracks at the Arden Dr. crossing to see if there was any action. One early AM I found a train on the siding; the crew had cut the crossing, so apparently they were going to be there a while. I got to talking with the brakeman who was standing by the cut; turned out he was an ex-Pacific Electric motorman, and three of the four crewmen were PE veterans. He told me about running one of the last Red Car trains (two or three 5050-class cars) inbound from the San Fernando Valley. It was late at night, and drizzly weather had made the tracks slippery. He was coming down from Cahuenga Pass into Hollywood and, when he tried to stop for a traffic signal, the train slid for about two blocks before stopping. Fortunately it was late at night so there was little if any street traffic.

One other question, did haulers have a train symbol, if not how were they identified?
Cheers,
Nick

NGotwalt Wrote:
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> One other question, did haulers have a train
> symbol, if not how were they identified?
> Cheers,
> Nick


In those days the SP and PE used common names for jobs... I worked a job out of Taylor that was called the Amoco Street hauler. We hauled from Taylor to Amoco on the Wilmington Line. An engine was dispatched from 8 th St. Yard and would run down the line to meet us after our rearend cleared the switch they would couple up. We would cut off our engine and away they went back to 8th Street. The jobs all had a run number that went on the timeslip... but we always called the haulers by name.

In the 80;s the haulers from Wes Colton were symboled

WCANY West Colton- Anaheim
WCCIY West Colton - City of Industry

for example...

The UP always called their jobs by run numbers...


a

SanJoaquinEngr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> NGotwalt Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > One other question, did haulers have a train
> > symbol, if not how were they identified?
> > Cheers,
> > Nick
>
>
> In those days the SP and PE used common names for
> jobs... I worked a job out of Taylor that was
> called the Amoco Street hauler. We hauled from
> Taylor to Amoco on the Wilmington Line. An engine
> was dispatched from 8 th St. Yard and would run
> down the line to meet us after our rearend cleared
> the switch they would couple up. We would cut off
> our engine and away they went back to 8th Street.
> The jobs all had a run number that went on the
> timeslip... but we always called the haulers by
> name.
>
> In the 80;s the haulers from Wes Colton were
> symboled
>
> WCANY West Colton- Anaheim
> WCCIY West Colton - City of Industry
>
> for example...
>
> The UP always called their jobs by run numbers...
>
>
> a

Jim,

Vern Freeman, Joe Steiner and I were on the 8th St job. I'll tell you the story of Joe one of these days.


V

SLO