Nostalgia & History > Some SP PA's

Can anybody identify the locations for me. I received these 120 negatives from Joe Schmitz of Huntington Park, CA

#1.....6024 @ Oakland ?
#2.....6045 @ Merced ?
#3.....6039 @ ??????

Thanks for looking and if you can identify #3 please do so. Also if #1 and 2 are incorrect please correct me

See you down the tracks


Jay

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#2 isn't Merced.

Out

What is the item above 6024's headlight? Don't recall ever seeing that before.

tomstp Wrote:
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> What is the item above 6024's headlight? Don't
> recall ever seeing that before.

Is that where the forward-facing cameras are located? Oh wait! Wrong era.

It's the radio antenna!
Pete

fehorse1 Wrote:
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> It's the radio antenna!
> Pete


I could be wrong, but think the poster was asking about that "box" attached to the headlight housing.....not the antenna on the roof next to the horns. Ive never seen such a thing either. AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

Could be sockets for MU cables - never seen one like that on the SP PAs either...

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

Strapac's books have pics of those big
MU boxes on some PA noses, but don't think
anyone knows how many units got them.

tomstp Wrote:
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> What is the item above 6024's headlight? Don't
> recall ever seeing that before.


SP 6024 is from class DP-9 (SP 6023-6027), delivered in the spring of 1952. Mr. Strapac's "Southern Pacific Historic Diesels Volume 9 - Alco PA/PB Passenger Locomotives" has a chapter on these units, entitled "Esthetic Disaster Strikes". He comments (P. 51): "The designer of the PA, Ray Patten, probably never saw what SP's engineers did to his work of industrial art, and it is probably just as well. Installation of the two-cable nose multiple-unit receptacles resulted in this monumental butchering of the PA's elegant lines."

According to Strapac, the receptacle doors and some of the sheet metal were removed in the late '50s, "leaving a gap-toothed parody of an original elegant concept." Later classes of SP PAs kept the nose-mounted receptacles, but without the objectionable housing.

Best,
RL Cabin

Numbers 2 and 3 say Tulare to me, not sure why.

I was trying to think of places with an adjacent elevator and Tulare was one
of my thoughts as well.

Out

callum_out Wrote:

> #2 isn't Merced.

Page 240 of Henry Bender's Southern Pacific Lines Standard-Design Depots lists only four locations where SP built colonnade-style depots with wooden arches between the columns as on the structure to the left:

Melrose: 1906-1949
Merced: depot 1900-1927, used as REA building 1927-1973 after new brick colonnade depot was built
Palo Alto: 1896-1940
Redlands: 1898-1957

Merced is the only one that lasted long enough witness PA's in scarlet and gray, and for that matter the only one that SP train 51 would have passed. The lack of a station sign on the roof would be consistent with the structure's use as an REA building. The brick Merced depot would be out of the frame to the left.

Evan, that might be BUT the overcrossing in the frame appears to be at ninety degrees and
there are none such in Merced. There is no large elevator in Merced or has there been to
the best of my knowledge and the trackside structures also don't match Merced. I'm not
saying it can't be Merced but it just doesn't look to be.

Out

Heres a 1968 shot of the Merced depot taken from the SJ Daylight. According to Jack Burgess's Yosemite Valley book, this was the second SP station built at Merced. Why it still had semi-maintained platforms in '68, I don't know, as the Daylight stopped at the later colonnade depot. Its REA sign may suggest the answer. I can't recall its location in relation to the later depot.

-E.O.

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callum_out Wrote:

> Evan, that might be BUT the overcrossing in the
> frame appears to be at ninety degrees and
> there are none such in Merced. There is no large
> elevator in Merced or has there been to
> the best of my knowledge and the trackside
> structures also don't match Merced.

Here are a couple of Richard Kampa photos from the Western Railway Museum Archives showing SP 4460's second-to-last excursion westbound in front of the newer brick depot at Merced in October 1958. The train's position in 75170 is a bit further west than the PA-powered train in photo 2, blocking the view of the REA building, and no overpass is visible in the distance in either photo (it may not have been built yet). However, the cantilevered searchlight signal at the end of the platform is there, a bit of the elevator is visible just behind it (more clearly visible in 75171), the open-front metal shed on the right is there, and the track layout matches photo 2.

hogheaded wrote:

> Heres a 1968 shot of the Merced depot taken from the SJ Daylight. According to Jack Burgess's Yosemite Valley book, this was the second SP station built
> at Merced. Why it still had semi-maintained platforms in '68, I don't know, as the Daylight stopped at the later colonnade depot. Its REA sign may suggest
> the answer. I can't recall its location in relation to the later depot.

The wooden arch colonnade depot, in use as an REA building in your photo, was just east of the later brick colonnade depot and just west of the M St. crossing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/14 01:22 by Evan_Werkema.

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Evan's got the indisputable straight dope,
as usual. Turns out the US 99 overpass in
Merced was built 1961-62.