Nostalgia & History > SP's Brill cars

Southern Pacific is well known for its fleet of McKeen gas-mechanical railcars and Budd RDC #10, but in between, they rostered a number of other doodlebugs including six Brill Model 350 cars numbered 2 and 7 - 11 built in 1929-30 (Northwestern Pacific rostered an additional two cars of the same type numbered 903-904).  The Brills weren't as visually striking as the McKeen windsplitters, but they did have more curves than the four EMC Model 148 cars SP also picked up in 1930, and with two 300 hp Hall Scott engines, they were also more powerful.  The decline of local passenger traffic took away their reason for existence, and the revenue careers of both the Brills and the EMC's were over by the end of 1945.  Photos courtesy the Western Railway Museum Archives.

1) Curious about this one - looks like a publicity photo of Brill No.7 at the 3rd and Townsend station in San Francisco, CA with the indicators showing it's assigned to Train 140 to San Jose.  Did SP try out doodlebugs on the commute run?  None of the Coast Division timetables available on Wx4.org during the service lives of the Brills show No.140 as a "motor" schedule.  Brill builder's photos show No.7 equipped with only those impossible-to-reach, high-mounted train indicators on the roof.  Later photos (see below) show them removed with just the windshield-level indicators remaining, so this photo is probably early in the car's career.  Al Rose collection.

2) In 1939, SP train 246 was the Statesman from Oakland to Sacramento, CA.  SP Western Division Timetable 229 of August 1, 1939 doesn't show it as a motor schedule, either, but on September 1, 1939, Chuck Savage caught Second 246 with Brill No.7 and a coach at 16th St. station in Oakland, CA.  The Brill looks vaguely like a longer, internal combustion version of the IER electric cars that plied the upper-level tracks at the station.

3) Definitely a motor schedule was train 345 from Bakersfield to Fresno, CA via Porterville, Exeter, and Reedley.  Brill No.10 awaits its 6:30 a.m. departure time at the Bakersfield station in 1936 in this John G. Graham photo.



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/26 23:03 by Evan_Werkema.

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4) An undated photo at an unknown location (anybody recognize it?) presumably late in life, Brill No.9 has CP sublettering and is fitted with an oversized exhaust pipe(?) in this view from the rear.  Doodlebug Country says it went into maintenance of way service of some sort in 1945.  Al Rose collection.

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Thanks Even for the pictures and history of SP motor cars. For some reason I never thought of them having motor cars, so I learned something new. 

Nice survey, Evan.   Thanks!

Greg Stadter
Phoenix, AZ

Cool collection, didn't know about the Brill cars.  That Bakersfield train caught my attention, and the routing you described makes sense.  I still remember the junction along highway 99 north of Bakersfield and wondering as a kid where the other line headed off to.  Thank goodness for books at the library when I got older!

Nathan

WOW!
Didn't know about this.
To me they look like a motorized Bay Area "sub".
TAH

Thanks for the photos and hisotry. Reference the very high number boards as delivered, to me that would have been me as a railroader thinking "what were they thinking" moment with a few cuss words.

Victor Baird



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/26 20:25 by wabash2800.

I have a brass HO model of one of these cars (I can’t recall who made it) and it has a baggage compartment & door. Apparently there were on 2 SP cars with this door and both were assigned to Arizona.
SR

I read somewhere that the Brills were tried in commute service but couldn’t keep schedule. So they were never a regular thing.

BoilingMan Wrote:
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> I have a brass HO model of one of these cars (I
> can’t recall who made it) and it has a baggage
> compartment & door. Apparently there were on 2 SP
> cars with this door and both were assigned to
> Arizona.
> SR
>
> I read somewhere that the Brills were tried in
> commute service but couldn’t keep schedule. So
> they were never a regular thing.

The Brill gas-electrics were used on the Bowie-Globe AZ run.

Fantastic post !!

Interesting horn in the first photo.

The Brills assigned to the Bay Area were maintained at the Interurban Electric Railway's shops in Alameda, as it was the only shop capable of doing heavy work on traction motors. Watching Charles Smiley Presents' "Electric Rails by the Bay" DVD features many of these cars in storage at the shops along with a host of interesting IER equipment. It also shows the 1938 City of San Francisco set being dragged backgrounds through residential streets to the Alameda shops by an 0-6-0 switcher.

Classic 1930's carbody styling. Apparently these had an exhaust problem as the engine was inside the general carbody and just had issues.

These show up in the background of photos and TO posts but info is hard to find. Interesting stuff but not a fun ride on a hot California day.

t4p.

Painted red ?

train1275 Wrote:
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> Painted red ?

Standard SP Dark Olive Green with gold lettering like the rest of the fleet. 

Great, thanks.

RE Gas -electrics on the Commutes;
Brill car nos. 7-11 were purchased in 1930 to operate off peak trains on the Peninsula, but proved to be too slow in acceleration to maintain a steam schedule. By 1931 they had joined all of the other 1929-30 built gas-electrics in replacing McKeen Cars. 
See: https://wx4.org/to/foam/sp/motor_cars/SPnon-Mckeen/1929-30SPmotors-ShastaArchives.jpg
Also: pages 1-3 in https://wx4.org/to/foam/sp/motor_cars/gas/gas-electric_docs/SP_G-E_Assignments1930-33_ShastaDivArchives.pdf This file contains SP gas-electric assignments from 1930-33.

Related:
The gas-electrics had their teething problems, but I am not sure if all of them were ever remedied. SP ultimately had a tough time finding assignments for the lower horsepower cars because they could not pull trailers/standard passenger cars and stay on time, the same knock made about the McKeens. The higher horsepower cars often operated with trailing equipment, but this heavy work caused some of the cars to be in need of overhaul in as little as a year after entering service.
See: https://wx4.org/to/foam/sp/motor_cars/gas/gas-electric_docs/SP_G-E_Misc-ShastaDivArchives.pdf

Note that the much maligned McKeen Cars maintained a presence on the SP roster for three decades, twice that of the “modern” gas-electrics.

As far as "Motor" being absent at the head of some SP employee timetable (ETT) schedules, I have never seen consistency in labeling locals as Motor, or not. An explanation might be that certain schedules operated as Motors in slack periods; steam trains when traffic was heavy or when a Motor was out of service for some reason. Actually, I have never found any data indicating why some schedules were labeled Motor in the first place. The only thing that I can figure is that it had something to with union agreements re crew size. In all, ETT's are an uneven indicator of what kind of trains were actually running on the railroad. New trains appeared and old trains disappeared independent of whatever timetable was in effect.
EO
Wx4.org
 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/26 21:07 by EO.

Thanks for the additional info, EO.  Doodlebug Country listed the Brills as diesel-electric, but clearly that wasn't the case.  Interurbans Without Wires has them listed properly as gas-electric.  Thanks also for the document showing dispositions - looks like the cars that went into maintenance of way service were turned into non-powered outfit cars accompanying wrecking derricks.  

Great follow-up, EO. Thanks for drawing those treasures from the well at the Dome. Another great thread, Evan! Thanks for putting together and sharing. 

RE disposition of the cars:

What has continued to plague me for over a decade is the identity of a certain SP-03. I have small collection of train orders pertaining to its meanderings in the vicinity of Watsonville, Gilroy and Holister in 1946, but darn if I have been able to identify what it is. Best guess based on movements is a weed sprayer, but no SP-03 of any variety appears in Ken Harrison's [fantastic] book, so whether it was a converted G-E car, I dunno so far.

RE car colors:

Can anyone actually produce documentation regarding exact G-E colors, or are we just engaging in an assumption based on "common knowledge"? One b&w photo I've seen shows a freshly painted, nearly black SP 5 which is a much darker grey than the rather seedy McKeen Car sitting next to it. AI colorization alternately turns the McKeen Car cherry red or dark olive depending upon command input, but SP-5 remains the same shade of near black, regardless. I therefore wonder if maybe SP 5 was initially painted Pullman Green at the factory, or alternately, did Dark Olive weather to light olive? Likewise, as to when/if the McKeens began being painted Dark Olive, no company documentation has surfaced, so far.

EO
Wx4.org