The
Southern Pacific ran commuter trains along the peninsula route (San Francisco
to San Jose) from the early 1900’s until the service was taken over by Caltrain
in 1982. In 1982, Caltrain took over management of the commute service but
contracted with SP to provide service using the old SP equipment until the
Caltrain Nippon Sharyo gallery cars and F40PH locomotives arrived in 1985.
Caltrain
leased three gallery coaches and a GP9 from SP in 1982, and painted them in a
“rainbow” scheme that was not repeated
in their post-1985 paint scheme. Quoting Matthew Young from the Wheels of time website,
“Starting
in 1978, the California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) entered into
agreement to help and later assisted in growing the operation. In 1982,
CalTrans, leased GP9P 3187 and three 1955 Pullman-Standard SP Bilevels which
were repainted in this early Caltrain "rainbow" scheme. Interestingly,
the three sets of cars and matching locomotive were rarely seen together, but
always mixed with sets of the original SP grays. In the summer of 1985,
Caltrain started to receive new push-pull bilevel equipment and F40PH
locomotives to replace the aging SP rolling stock. Stay tuned for pics on
Wheels of Time of this transition period where you will see the old SP
"subs" with new Nippon Sharyo cars and as well as F40PH pulling ACF
& PS bilevels.”
SP locomotive
power was an EMD GP9 in gray with scalet “wings” at both ends (except for the one
with the experimental Caltrans scheme). They had dual controls so the
locomotive did not have to be turned, but it still had to run around the train
at both terminals.
Thanks
to Wheels of Time, the 1955 SP gallery commuter cars are available in three
paint schemes: the two-tone grey of the original factory scheme, the simplified
solid grey of the 1960s repaints, and the Caltrans rainbow scheme.
The
experimental Caltrain “rainbow” scheme of 1982 applied to a GP9 diesel and a
1955 Pullman Standard gallery commuter car. Matthew Young photo.
The
rainbow Caltrain scheme applied to three gallery commuter cars. The cars
appear to be stored and not in service.
A
commuter train with one of the 1968 gallery cars (with the unpainted aluminum
door) and a gray-and-blue 1982 Caltrain re-paint of a 1955 car, behind an SP
GP9.
A model
“train” with all three of the 1982 Caltrain “rainbow”
repaints of the 1955 SP gallery cars. These would seldom be coupled together
into one prototype train, but call this a pretend publicity train. The GP9
diesel is from Atlas. The first gray gallery car is a Wheels of Time model of
the 24-window 1955-57 gallery car that is true to the prototypes
made by ACF and PS.
The last gallery car is from Con-cor, and represents the 1968 PS car with unpainted aluminum doors. The Con-cor model is of the 16-window, 161- to 168-seat gallery car that Pullman Standard made from 1958-1970 for CNW. The Southern Pacific gallery cars of the 1968 order from PS had 20 windows per side (with the end lavatory window being half-size). The con-cor model is of the 16-window CNW prototype, but is otherwise reasonably close in appearance to the SP cars. I added road number decals to the Con-cor car.
REFERENCES
Dorin, Patrick, Commuter Railroads, A pictorial review of the most traveled trains, Superior Publishing Co., 1970.
Ryan, Dennis, and Joseph Shine, Southern Pacific Passenger Trains, vol. 2, Day trains of the coast line, Four Ways West publications, 2000.
Signor, John, Southern Pacific’s Coast Line, Signature Press, 1995.
