REA : Railway Express Agency
mc_br...@yahoo.com
I was wondering exactly WHOSE engines were used to haul REA specific
trains, or were the REA cars mixed within larger consists. There were
REA, railside warehouses and REA trucks for road deliveries, but I
have never quite understood who handled the REA boxcars along the
rails.
Also, as I fine tune my ideas for a layout, I would like to model the
ATSF, UP, and SP on the same layout. Each would own a yard, all would
share common mainline tracks, and [I guess] they would exchange
rolling stock at nuetral sites [perhaps grudgingly] and share the duty
of hauling either individual REA boxcars or entire consists of REA
boxcars.
Does this seem reasonable [or at least within the realm of nearly
plausible] during the 1950's?
Thanks!
Matt
Rick Jones
> Also, as I fine tune my ideas for a layout, I would like to model the
> ATSF, UP, and SP on the same layout. Each would own a yard, all would
> share common mainline tracks, and [I guess] they would exchange
> rolling stock at nuetral sites [perhaps grudgingly] and share the duty
> of hauling either individual REA boxcars or entire consists of REA
> boxcars.
>
> Does this seem reasonable [or at least within the realm of nearly
> plausible] during the 1950's?
The only place the three railroads were in proximity to each other
is Southern California. and I can think of no place that had the exact
arrangement that you envision.
The closest is probably the San Bernardino-Colton area. You had UP
running on trackage rights over ATSF from Barstow over Cajon Pass to
Riverside. The SP mainline crossed the ATSF mainline in this area as it
headed east over Beaumont Pass. ATSF had a large yard in San Bernardino
and SP had its yard in West Colton. You would have to use modeler's
license to add a fictitious UP yard there somewhere. Interchanges
existed near the diamonds between ATSF and SP.
--
Rick Jones
Remove the Extra Dot to e-mail me
Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in
binoculars to look at things on the ground?
Carl Heinz
>REA question.
>
>I was wondering exactly WHOSE engines were used to haul REA specific
>trains, or were the REA cars mixed within larger consists. There were
>REA, railside warehouses and REA trucks for road deliveries, but I
>have never quite understood who handled the REA boxcars along the
>rails.
I'm not sure that REA cars moved with freights. My recollection is that most
passenger trains, (at least in the Lincoln, Nebraska area) had REA cars and
the station platform had hand trucks for moving REA freight from them.
--
Carl Heinz
cfhe...@charter.net
(Remove number)
David Nebenzahl
> mc_br...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>> Also, as I fine tune my ideas for a layout, I would like to model the
>> ATSF, UP, and SP on the same layout. Each would own a yard, all would
>> share common mainline tracks, and [I guess] they would exchange
>> rolling stock at nuetral sites [perhaps grudgingly] and share the duty
>> of hauling either individual REA boxcars or entire consists of REA
>> boxcars.
>>
>> Does this seem reasonable [or at least within the realm of nearly
>> plausible] during the 1950's?
>
> The only place the three railroads were in proximity to each other
> is Southern California. and I can think of no place that had the exact
> arrangement that you envision.
Are you sure about that? 'Round here (SF Bay Area East Bay), I know at
least that SP and Santa Fe had parallel trackage around the bayshore.
There were both SP and Santa Fe yards in Richmond, perhaps elsewhere as
well. Not sure about UP, but since they terminated in San Francisco
(actually Oakland), they must have had tracks/yards here as well.
It's an interesting question in any case.
--
Who needs a junta or a dictatorship when you have a Congress
blowing Wall Street, using the media as a condom?
- harvested from Usenet
mc_br...@yahoo.com
With some modeler's license to stray a bit from reality, it seems that
my idea will be OK based on your individual accounts of the track and
yard locations for the three aforementioned RR's to co-exist.
I am fully committed to the ATSF with both rolling stock and numerous
engines. Likewise, I have an F3ABA for the UP thus creating a lesser,
but equally compelling reason to model some form of the UP as a
freight line. I also own a number of REA boxcars with several more
desired. Hence, the REA is a given as a colorful, thematic inclusion
on the tracks though I only have plans to operate the ATSF Super Chief
as the only dedicated passenger train on the layout. I will limit the
REA by using some of my ATSF freight engines [blue & yellow F3's] with
a few ATSF post office, baggage, and odd ball passenger cars.
The SP is the wild card. My passion to eventually own a Cab Forward
and a large consist of PFE refrigerator cars is inescapable. I love
that engine. It's my all-time favorite. To buy one, I'll need to skip
meals for a few months, but it'll be worth it. I will try to isolate
the SP by creating a single purpose yard for the PFE. The Cab Forward
can arrive on the scene, make its PFE deliveries and pick-ups, maybe
haul a few odd SP boxcars and tankers for immediate, yard area use, do
some type of eye catching exit around the entire layout, and then
disappear to hidden staging until its next scheduled return.
Rick Jones
> On 11/14/2009 8:34 PM Rick Jones spake thus:
>>
>> Southern California. and I can think of no place that had the exact
>> arrangement that you envision.
>
> Are you sure about that? 'Round here (SF Bay Area East Bay), I know at
> least that SP and Santa Fe had parallel trackage around the bayshore.
> There were both SP and Santa Fe yards in Richmond, perhaps elsewhere as
> well. Not sure about UP, but since they terminated in San Francisco
> (actually Oakland), they must have had tracks/yards here as well.
The OP mentioned the early 1950s as the time frame for his layout.
UP did not have any significant presence in Northern California (to my
knowledge) until decades later when they absorbed the WP and SP. In the
1950s UP had to rely on WP and/or SP to get their passenger trains and
freight to and from the coast from connections in Utah. The only line UP
had into California at that time was the Los Angeles & Salt Lake,
running through Las Vegas to Barstow, with the aforementioned trackage
rights over Cajon Pass to Riverside, then into LA through Pomona and the
San Gabriel Valley.
--
Rick Jones
Remove the Extra Dot to e-mail me
People who want to share their religious views with you almost
never want you to share yours with them.
mc_br...@yahoo.com
> UP did not have any significant presence in Northern California (to my
> knowledge) until decades later when they absorbed the WP and SP. In the
> 1950s UP had to rely on WP and/or SP to get their passenger trains and
> freight to and from the coast from connections in Utah.
Rick, thanks for this information. This makes my decision to integrate
the ATSF, SP, and UP within one layout a bit easier to manipulate.
I can minimize the UP presence by keeping to the one UP F3ABA freight
consist as an (on stage-off stage) participant via hidden staging
while adding one UP switcher at their remote yard (on stage) whose
single purpose is to retrieve, shuffle, and dispense cars on and off
the layout by way of the UP F3ABA and a SP Cab Forward.
I simply cannot help myself. The color schemes of these three RR's are
too appealing to relegate one or more to the display shelves in my
office. And, as a bonus for the layout's eye candy, I am creating a
fictitious, local RR that will handle one and two car deliveries along
the main line at various sidings and small towns. The plan is to run
an all black engine inventory of small steam and diesel engines. They
will handle under sized freight cars: i.e. 8000 gallon tankers,
logging equipment cars, ore cars, etc. - the small, eye catching items
that are fun to scratch build and/or assemble via kits.
Bob May
between roads. Often they had differing layouts and hookups which made
such difficult. Thus, in San Fran, the WP handled all of the UP traffic to
there. On the LA route, UP and ATSF ran seperately on ATSF tracks from
Barstow to San Beradino. SP didn't have the Cajon tracks until late '60s
so htat is too late for you. It's route goes east over Beamount Pass to
Yuma. Thus, thee SP crossed the ATSF tracks but that is all. The reefer
trains mostly rn out of centrl Calif. as this is where the produce came
from. Also, the cab forwardds mostly ran on the hill to Reno.
As to REA, they were usually run at the head end of passenger trains and
all had pass piping on them. Even in a solid block, they ran with the
road's motive power, which in such a case, could be freight units.
Also note that in those days, an A and B unit ran as a pair. SP was
probably one of the first roads that started realizing that a B unit was
just another loco rather than part of a cab unit.
--
Bob May
rmay at nethere.com
http: slash /nav.to slash bobmay
http: slash /bobmay dot astronomy.net
Twibil
>
>
> SP didn't have the Cajon tracks until late '60s
> so htat is too late for you. It's route goes east over Beamount Pass to
> Yuma. Thus, thee SP crossed the ATSF tracks but that is all.
Well, not quite. The S.P. interchanged with both the Santa Fe and the
U.P. at the old Colton yards, so it wasn't too unusual to see Santa Fe
and U.P. locos running parallel to the S.P. rails, and vise-versa as
well. Also, both the westbound and eastbound S.P. lines were -and
still are- inter-connected to the north and southbound U.P. and S.F.
tracks at Colton junction: the intersection isn't just a simple "X"
crossing.
If you Google-Earth "Colton, CA" and zoom in on the crossing, you can
clearly see the remaining two connecting tracks, and see where the two
that are now missing used to be.
There were also times when Cajon Pass would be closed for short
periods of time due to storms, and the U.P. and Santa Fe would then
"borrow" the S.P.'s Sunset Route tracks for their vital trains.
Likewise, Santa Fe allowed the S.P. to use their Cajon Pass tracks
when normally placid (not to mention practically dry) San Timoteo
Creek would periodically rise up in wrath and wash out the S.P.'s
Beaumont HIll mainline.
> The reefer
> trains mostly rn out of centrl Calif. as this is where the produce came
> from.
"Mostly" is misleading in this case. Southern California was -and
still is- a big produce-load creator for the railroads, and loaded 100-
car PFE reefer trains powered by three or more AC Class articulateds
were a daily sight on the eastbound Beaumont HIll tracks in harvest
seasons during the 1950s. The empty westbound trains were equally
common as the cars poured back out west to collect their next loads.
> Also, the cab forwardds mostly ran on the hill to Reno.
Another misconception. From the end of WW2 until steam finally bowed
out in the mid '50s, most AC classes were common sights all over
southern California in general and on Beaumont Hill in particular. You
could have easily seen a dozen different AC locos working Beaumont
HIll in a single day's train-watching, and John Signor's fine book
"Beaumont Hill" documents their constant presence during this period
with literally dozens of photos.
~Pete
Rick Jones
>
> There were also times when Cajon Pass would be closed for short
> periods of time due to storms, and the U.P. and Santa Fe would then
> "borrow" the S.P.'s Sunset Route tracks for their vital trains.
> Likewise, Santa Fe allowed the S.P. to use their Cajon Pass tracks
> when normally placid (not to mention practically dry) San Timoteo
> Creek would periodically rise up in wrath and wash out the S.P.'s
> Beaumont HIll mainline.
Where was the connection between ATSF and SP east of San Bernardino
that allowed this? I know of no north-south connection between the
relatively parallel mainlines east of the passes to the Colorado River.
Was the connection that allowed running on each others' track at the
mentioned times of pass closure all the way into Arizona somewhere?
--
Rick Jones
Remove the Extra Dot to e-mail me
"Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more
uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is
right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been
the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men
who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized
man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others.
His culture is based on 'I am not too sure.'"
- H.L. Mencken
Twibil
>
>
> > There were also times when Cajon Pass would be closed for short
> > periods of time due to storms, and the U.P. and Santa Fe would then
> > "borrow" the S.P.'s Sunset Route tracks for their vital trains.
> > Likewise, Santa Fe allowed the S.P. to use their Cajon Pass tracks
> > when normally placid (not to mention practically dry) San Timoteo
> > Creek would periodically rise up in wrath and wash out the S.P.'s
> > Beaumont HIll mainline.
>
> Where was the connection between ATSF and SP east of San Bernardino
> that allowed this?
The S.P. and Santa Fe met in a number of locations: Phoenix, AZ.,
Deming, NM., El Paso, Alpine, Sealy, Houston, and Beaumont TX. all
come to mind right off the bat.
There may well be -or have been- others, but I'd have to dig through
my library to find 'em.
~Pete
Rick Jones
OK, that's what I thought. In order for each railroad to use the
other's pass they had to arrange it quite a distance out from San
Bernardino. No connections between the two railroads from that point to
the California-Arizona border.
--
Rick Jones
Remove the Extra Dot to e-mail me
Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than
standing in a garage makes you a car.
Twibil
>
>
> OK, that's what I thought. In order for each railroad to use the
> other's pass they had to arrange it quite a distance out from San
> Bernardino. No connections between the two railroads from that point to
> the California-Arizona border.
Not as far as I know. But taking a somewhat lengthy detour via
another road's rails is better than stranding your passengers and
vital freight while the normal right of way is restored.
Besides; such real-life occasions give modelers a prototypical excuse
to run S.P. locos on Santa Fe rails -or vice-versa- back during times
when that was an uncommon occurence.
~Pete