SSW Shelf Layout - You comments

[Gary S]

Boy! 7655 is a beauty! Love the faded black, it is very much as I remember those in real life. So what is your secret? Powders?

[Steve]

to The Gauge
I really like the trackplan. Looks like plenty of fun both to run, and to look at!

The engine shots are sweet!

[SSWUPinSA]

Boy! 7655 is a beauty! Love the faded black, it is very much as I remember those in real life. So what is your secret? Powders?

Thanks Gary...it not too complicated really...I use Pelle Soeborgs method of a light tan/sand colour thined to a wash and the airbrushed on. This is applied in very thin coats from above and a little down each side...I use Tamiya Acrylic - Deck Tan , a colour I find ages the greys and yellws of both SSW and UP very well. I then spray a custom colour I made to match the lower dirt and rust on trucks... then a light spray of a black wash as well as use a pained wash on the trucks... I then use black soot powder lightly on the SSW grey to bring back the colour and details on the body... I might look at doing a TUT soon if anyone else shows interest... Not sure how good they were as I live in Africa nad have never seen one of these myself...Just love the SSW for some reason!

Thanks again... Glad to know I'm getting close to the origional... Don't do any work without a good photo of the origional loco.

[SSWUPinSA]

to The Gauge
I really like the trackplan. Looks like plenty of fun both to run, and to look at!

The engine shots are sweet!

Thanks Steve,

Your comments are appreciated as it was your and Kurts threads that got me here in the first place... Heki grass will be used on my layout . Any tips or direction will be well appreciated...

Thanks again to everyone, feeling very welcome here...

[SSWUPinSA]

Welcome to the Gauge!

The photo of your engine got me fooled. I did not look to closely at it, because I thought you just showed us a prototype pic of the type of engine you want to run on your layout. Superb weathering job!

I like you trackplan. This layout will give you lots of interesting structures to build and I think it will be fun to operate. I like that you have a continuous running option, something I cannot have on my layouts. Sometimes it is nice to just sit back and watch the trains go by.

Thanks so much Kurt, feeling very welcome.

I must say it is great to have your comments as I have saved and read your shelf layout thread on your Miami district over and over...it was one of my main reasons for starting this and joining this forum in particular. I love the detial you create and I am hoping to achieve something similar... I do need help finding the right area to source my proto buildings etc from as you did from Miami. unfortunately the SSW would not fit in there so I am on Google all the time re"searching"... Denver CO and Phoenix AZ are at the top of my list so far...

Any comments or tips from you would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks again!

[Russ Bellinis]

I don't model SP, so I'm not as familiar with it as the Santa Fe, but the SSW locomotives were run interchangeably with S.P. units all over the S.P. from Portland, Or all the way down the coast to Los Angeles& Orange County, and throughout the Eastern part of the system. Where ever the S.P. operated you would find SSW power.

[Gary S]

The Espee also came through Texas and to Houston. Used to see SP all the time as a kid in the 60s. So, unless you have your heart set on the places you mention, try a search on Houston too. Lots of stuff there.

[SSWUPinSA]

Thanks!!!

Sounds like the SSW would have been seen in Texas, Arizona, California and any of the major cities along that line... Would they have been in Colorado, Arkansas and father North?. I know Joe Feugate runs SSW on his Oregon layout so I guess they all the way up the west coast... Who are the big SSW fans,Wondering where the most popular place would have been to see an SSW GP40 doing local switching in the period 0f 1990-2000...

Probably a more common site in the late 80's early 90's????

Your suggestions...

[Justinmiller171]

The Cotton Belt Railroad(SSW) was founded in Texas, so I think there would be Alot more of them in the Texas area than anywhere else.

[Russ Bellinis]

There may have been some financial reason why the S.P. kept the SSW instead of merging it into the S.P., but I don't know what it is. As far as I know the S.P. continued to have a percentage of their new equipment purchases painted in SSW "Cotton Belt" livery right up until either the DRGW bought them or at the time of the U.P. takeover. When the U.P. took over the company, there were still a lot of units in the SSW livery. As far as I know the SSW never operated in California until after the S.P. took over the company. I think I typically saw 25% of the S.P. power units used out here in So Cal were in the SSW livery. I'm presuming that was probably true system wide, especially true of the latest road power.

[Gary S]

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.

[SSWUPinSA]

WOW, thats awesome info and a great help... It gets confusing sorting through all the history and not having a real life reference. I am looking to model in the very late 80's but mainly the mid 1990's so I guess they would have been fairly wide spread... I like the Phoenix AZ industrial area but the climate is rather dry and bland, hoping for a greener local and vegitation... will look into all these suggestions... Maybe post a question for all SSW fans!

Thanks guys, please carry on commenting

[Justinmiller171]

I like the Phoenix AZ industrial area but the climate is rather dry and bland, hoping for a greener local and vegitation

Have you considered modeling the Dallas,TX area? It can get very green there during the summer, and it is the most likely place to find SSW engines.

[SSWUPinSA]

Got some time to make slight changes... Almost scrapped this one to start again but think I need to commit now and start the build...1st need to decide between ME, Peco or Walthers Code 83 or 70 hock: ???

[SSWUPinSA]

...And this would be what I build as a first phase...