Model Railroading > Bringing Back The SP, Coast Piggyback, 372 & 374

My current old time memory project.
As a youth living on the San Francisco Pennisula SP commute line, a daily adventure was to
be trackside at 4:15 in Burlingame or 4:20 in San Mateo to watch Overnite Coast Piggyback Train #374
thunder by. A few years later I would drive to Burlingame at 8 PM to view the evening train, #374.
Power for these trains in the mid 1960s varied with a lot first generation power but by 1965, 2nd generation
GP35s, U25Bs, and occasional GP20's and 30s were in command. In the late 1960s solid blocks of
LA passenger pool F7s & FP7s powered the trains.
After #372 was dropped due to low demand, #374 continued but sometimes with only one unit and a few cars.
Here are few photos at the Randall Museum model railroad in San Francisco of my beginning attempts to model 
these trains and short movie clip taken by the late Tom Hallendorf of #372 on different days in San Mateo from 1966.
Regards, Jim Evans
 

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I started by trying to use old Athearn piggyback cars with couplers attached to the trucks which detrailed a lot
running on the old 50 year old track on the Randall layout, 
Replaced these with new Walthers cars with body mounted couplers  and have had no problems.
Regards, Jim Evans



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/04/23 09:32 by FiveChime.

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Looking good Jim, keep the SP alive!

Dave 

Lookin good!

Wow, what a hot little train... what do we have 2 or 3 cars per locomotive? And several are empty!

Thanks for the fantastic video too.

Kirk

Thanks for sharing.

Why so much power for such a short train? Blocks of cars picked up or set out on the way? Used to balance motive power quickly? 

Victor Baird

SP probably lost their shirt running 371-372 at the end

Open auto racks are a cool memory Jim. Thanks for stiring them up. Like the cover of the Spring Trainline magazine.

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My understanding is they had a pick up at San Jose and often headed south from there with a much longer train.
Regards, Jim Evans

Great model photos and videos of the prototype!

Rich

85-foot trilevel auto racks in 1952??? '62, maybe?

I think that may refer to an article inside the publication rather than a date for the photo...

Victor Baird

CPR_4000 Wrote:
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> 85-foot trilevel auto racks in 1952??? '62, maybe?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/04/23 19:46 by wabash2800.

Nice bunch. Road the old open auto racks a number of times in the sixties. Occasionally you could find an unlocked car and get comfortable.
JB

wabash2800 Wrote:
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> Thanks for sharing.
>
> Why so much power for such a short train? Blocks
> of cars picked up or set out on the way? Used to
> balance motive power quickly? 
>
> Victor Baird

There is always the exception. In my Sr year in High School, I took Photography. The School was only a block from the WP mainline near the Oroville Depot. If you were listening, you could hear trains blowing for the grade crossing at Mitchell ave leaving Oroville Yard and book on down to the bridge street over crossing. So I zipped down with my Pentax double lens reflex to capture the Eastbound. It was  Red Ball East with 12 GP40s, 9 Trailer on Flats and Caboose blazing at track speed plus a couple with smoke blasting out of quite a few. WP had a 6 unit power max rule, so the second 6 were along for the ride but the engineer definitely wasn't using the fuel saver selector. I was so caught up int the action that I didn't even get a shot off.

I hopped the WB piggyback out of Santa Barbara a couple times in my reckless youth. I picked warm nights in the late summer with a full moon. (It was still pretty cold rounding Pt Conception!). At SLO I’d Greyhound back, arriving in SB at dawn.
SR

I tried to get the most out of being young and stupid. My Mom used to say, “That kid’s got more luck than sense”.

Thanks for the explanation Jim. That makes a lot of sense.

Victor Baird

FiveChime Wrote:
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> My understanding is they had a pick up at San Jose
> and often headed south from there with a much
> longer train.
> Regards, Jim Evans

FiveChime Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My understanding is they had a pick up at San Jose
> and often headed south from there with a much
> longer train.
> Regards, Jim Evans
Yes, but would have been cheaper to rubber them over to Oakland, which they did later in 8/70

The 4:52am article has to do with the Tehachapi earthquake, not a story on auto racks.

Dave 

Great GM video on SP dedicated unit trains of piggy back cars here. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTtcPxSag50



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/04/23 21:21 by dmaffei.

At 10:15 in the linked video, it looks like a loaded tri-level autorack was humped.  I didn't realize they could hump them.