09-14-2010, 08:55 PM
I agree with Russ' assessment of 25% SSW power on SP trains. As a kid, we lived fairly close to a SP line, and I can remember seeing SP locos and boxcars hurtling through. I remember seeing the large" Southern Pacific" and "Cotton Belt" on many a boxcar.
The actual SSW had tracks and rights from St. Louis down into Arkansas, through Little Rock and Texarkana, down into nortwestern Louisiana at Shrevesport, and over into the Dallas area.
SP tracks started in the Dallas area and went south to Houston, then headed west to El Paso, following the southern border of the US, through Tucson, into California, then all the way to Oregon. There was also a line that ran from California to Salt Lake City. I had read some of SP's history awhile back and remember the follwoing - in the 70s, SP wanted to compete with UP for the commodities being shipped from the west coast back to the midwest. Problem was, they didn't have any trackage that went tto the midwest. Now, the SP had had control of the SSW for a long time, and since the SSW went from Dallas to St. Louis, there was the connection. Goods began flowing from the west to the midwest via the SP - SSW connection, only problem was, the route was way way longer than the UP route which was a straight shot from California to the midwest. Anyway, the history was an interesting read.
Before the UP takeover, SP and SSW trains were predominantly what I saw in Houston, although ATSF was there too. I remember reading a statistic that in the 1970s, the SP generated 20% of the entire income of all railroads combined - pretty darned impressive when you consider all the roads in the Northeast and Midwest. The explanation is that California and the the southwest experienced a tremendous boom with a doubling of population, whereas the Northeast lagged behind in comparison. Business and industry were expanding like crazy, and with it, transportation needs.
Don't know about Denver being used as a setting for lots of SP and SSW power, although after the UP takeover, that probably did happen for awhile, but I bet the power would have still been predominantly UP. As for the locations that would have seen the most SSW power, I'm betting on Northeast Texas, northwest Louisiana, Arkansas, and into southern Missouri.
The actual SSW had tracks and rights from St. Louis down into Arkansas, through Little Rock and Texarkana, down into nortwestern Louisiana at Shrevesport, and over into the Dallas area.
SP tracks started in the Dallas area and went south to Houston, then headed west to El Paso, following the southern border of the US, through Tucson, into California, then all the way to Oregon. There was also a line that ran from California to Salt Lake City. I had read some of SP's history awhile back and remember the follwoing - in the 70s, SP wanted to compete with UP for the commodities being shipped from the west coast back to the midwest. Problem was, they didn't have any trackage that went tto the midwest. Now, the SP had had control of the SSW for a long time, and since the SSW went from Dallas to St. Louis, there was the connection. Goods began flowing from the west to the midwest via the SP - SSW connection, only problem was, the route was way way longer than the UP route which was a straight shot from California to the midwest. Anyway, the history was an interesting read.
Before the UP takeover, SP and SSW trains were predominantly what I saw in Houston, although ATSF was there too. I remember reading a statistic that in the 1970s, the SP generated 20% of the entire income of all railroads combined - pretty darned impressive when you consider all the roads in the Northeast and Midwest. The explanation is that California and the the southwest experienced a tremendous boom with a doubling of population, whereas the Northeast lagged behind in comparison. Business and industry were expanding like crazy, and with it, transportation needs.
Don't know about Denver being used as a setting for lots of SP and SSW power, although after the UP takeover, that probably did happen for awhile, but I bet the power would have still been predominantly UP. As for the locations that would have seen the most SSW power, I'm betting on Northeast Texas, northwest Louisiana, Arkansas, and into southern Missouri.
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