The Last Southern Pacific Standard Gauge Steam
Revenue Freight Train: Train Orders
Revenue Freight Train: Train Orders
The Spring, 2005 issue of the Southern Pacific Historical and Technical Society house publication, SP Trainline, contains an intriguing article by one of our favorite authors, Tom Dill, about the last days of Southern Pacific steam. In it, he states that the last SP standard gauge revenue freight run ocurred about thirteen months after most like operations officially ceased.
On the evening of December 30, 1957, Engine 2475 ran extra as a cab hop out of Oakland and picked up two boxcars en route to Santa Clara. The occasion for the move was the positioning of the 4-6-2 for an excursion out of San Jose the next day.
This we did not know. We always subscibed to vague rumors that the last run occured clandestinely somewhere in the San Joaquin Valley in 1958. At any rate, Dills writings tripped a collective light bulb down at Wx4 headquarters and we began to search through piles of old train orders originally collected by retired engineer D.C. Hill, and WHOLLA!
Below you will find scans of the train orders and associated messages for the train. The attached messages seem to indicate that the train ran out of Oakland as an extra Coast Merchandise East (CME). We have no information about the train's consist, but it appears that Engineer R. Walker and Fireman M.L. Carrol were on the head end.
This Alan Aske photo comes from the collection of Daryl Stinchfied, presently (2005) the conductor of UP's Rocklin Rocket. Thanks Daryl! (click on the photo for a 1200 pixel Wx4 HumongOphoto)
The clearance and running order for Extra 2475 East. The other orders and the messages are not specific to the train, although the engineer and fireman's names are pencilled-in on Message No.1.
