Southern Pacific Lines - 1954

[bxmoore]

 

Some panning shots of the eight trains sitting in my storage tracks, just running through on the main line, on the un-scenicked side of my 18x8' home layout, with buildings in temporary positions. All the stock seen is regularly switched, and the video catches the make-up of trains and stock in locations following the previous evening's solo operations session.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Brian

[JWB]

Well, if this is the unscenicked side, the inevitable question comes up -- what does the scenicked side look like? I'd actually take the unscenicked side over the scenicked layout of the overrated Tony Thompson!

[bxmoore]

Well, if this is the unscenicked side, the inevitable question comes up -- what does the scenicked side look like? I'd actually take the unscenicked side over the scenicked layout of the overrated Tony Thompson!

It looks like this:

 

 

In defence of TT, I have to say I've learned an awful lot about more prototypical stock and ops from his blog.

 

Brian

[JWB]

That's quite remarkable -- you should post much more of this!

 

Here's my concern about Tony Thompson. As a model railroad author, he writes as a hobbyist. His numerous books have a certain veneer of academic respectability, since he had a prestigious academic career, although this was as a metallurgist. His quasi-historical rail books, though, bear no resemblance to actual academic rail history books by authors like H.Roger Grant, Richard Orsi, or Maury Klein -- he focuses almost entirely on technical minutiae of equipment, whereas actual academic rail history books are much more wide-ranging, placing the railroads in economic, managerial, and historical context (The PFE book pretends to do this, but comparisons with Orsi's history of the SP or Klein's of the UP show the very clear differences.) I'll grant the accuracy of his descriptions of which classes had which underframe and which trucks and which paint, but I'm hesitant to say that any of this is worth the big bucks these books cost. Take what you want from his blog for free.

 

However, operationally, as opposed to mechanically minute, there are serious inaccuracies in the PFE book. He claims, for instance, that the PFE somehow routed the majority of its East Coast traffic via the Erie or by extension the EL. By the time of the EL merger, the EL was actively discouraging perishable traffic due to the cost of damage claims -- Thompson does not qualify this or make any statement as to time when this supposedly occurred. In addition, the largest city on the Erie main line between Chicago and Jersey City was Akron, Ohio -- it didn't serve cities like Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, etc at all. It had no access to the St Louis gateway, nor important Chicago bypasses. In addition, only the shipper can determine routing, not PFE.  I raised this question on a forum and got only angry but unsubstantive replies from Thompson and his bud Richard Hendrickson (an academic linguist, a field that borders on fraud). I then e-mailed H.Roger Grant, author of the definitive academic history of the Erie and E-L, who said he knew of no way to confirm Thompson's claim.

 

Elsewhere he claims that the PFE or SP somehow discouraged Santa Fe or other refrigerator line equipment from SP trains, something contradicted by countless photos and films. Take what you want from the blog, but on anything important other than which brake wheel went on which class, take it with a grain of salt.

[bxmoore]

Thanks for the kind words.

 

I hear what you say about TT.  In respect of his blog, I separately decided to model a fictitious branch line off of the Coast line circa 1954, so the information and research he's undertaken for his own, circa-1953 railroad, has been of immense use to me.

 

There's a lot more YouTube stuff at http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsLgj6W87sgYb0zeZCajtWw

 

Brian