Talk:Southern Pacific Railroad

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To-do
list

Pending tasks for Southern Pacific Railroad:

 (purge cache –  edit this list)
  • Add a timeline of important dates in SP history
  • Add a list of the railroad presidents/chairmen
  • Add a photo or two of SP trains in action (got one, need more)
  • Add more narrative on the railroad's history, citing the reasons behind the events
  • Add information on the railroad's named passenger trains
  • Add information on preserved SP equipment still in operation
  • Reconcile the second sentence of the initial paragraph, with the second bullet-point in the time line.
See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Todo
This article is within the scope of the San Francisco Bay Area WikiProject, a collaborative effort to build a more detailed guide on Wikipedia's coverage of San Francisco and the Bay Area. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
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Contents

[edit] Total length of track

How can it have been 52 838 km long? That's further than the distance around the equator. Golfcam 13:12, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I only show it ranging between 13,848 miles (20,000 km?) at abt the time of its height in 1929 and at 8,991 miles (14,000 km?) at time of merger with UP. Rhallanger 13:45, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Preservation section thoughts

The Diebert/Strapac book that I've been using to update various SP steam locomotive articles (such as Southern Pacific 2472) lists about three times as many steam locomotives in preservation than are listed here. The book also lists several T&NO locomotives in preservation. As it would then be quite long after adding the information from the book, we should seriously consider splitting the section into its own article (perhaps at List of preserved Southern Pacific Railroad rolling stock so we can also include unpowered passenger and freight cars too).

Also, do we know which of the preserved equipment is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (I know 1673 is, but what about the others)?

Slambo (Speak) 16:50, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Good idea regarding a separate article. Here's a link to the NATIONAL REGISTER INFORMATION SYSTEM that seems to produce the best search results; I ran through a dozen or so typing in the state two-letter abbreviation and the word "locomotive" in the name category and only came across SP 1673 in Arizona (but did come up with a few for other railroads elsewhere). FYI.--Lordkinbote 02:54, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Hearing no objections, I did the split last night and expanded with more info from Diebert/Strapac. There are still a bunch of T&NO locomotives to add to the list along with the unpowered and maintenance of way rolling stock preserved across the continent. Searching around the NRHP list, I spotted several SP depots, but very few items of SP rolling stock. Slambo (Speak) 17:16, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Freight Operatations thoughts?

I think that, similar to the passenger trains section, there should be some mention of the uniqueness of the Espee's freight operations. Amongst the things we shoud mention: 1). The Pacific Fruit Express operation 2). SP's Overnite LCL freight service 3). The sugar beet trains in California 4). SP's pioneering Container train intermodal service and the agreement with Sea-Land corporation 5). SP's extensive use of bay window cabooses

Any other thoughts on this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by PlanesTranesNCars (talk • contribs) 06:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Inconsistencies

This page says this for the Presidents:

  1. Timothy Guy Phelps (1865-1868)
  2. Leland Stanford (1868-1890)
  3. Collis P. Huntington (1890-1900)

However, the Leland Stanford page says he was president from 1885-1890, and it has a cite. 64.95.27.5 14:55, 3 April 2007 (UTC)ThatGuamGuy

I'll have to recheck my paper references; but I thought Phelps' term was listed on the San Mateo website linked from his bio page. Southern Pacific existed before the Big Four purchased it, Phelps organized the railroad and was one of the first to donate land to the railroad. Slambo (Speak) 15:17, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
According to Leon Metz's non-fiction book about Dallas Stoudenmire, Charles Crocker was president in 1881; Crocker's page confirms that he was president at some time, so I used to him till in the gap between the end of Phelps's term and where every other wikipage says that Stanford's term began (1885). 64.95.27.5 19:03, 26 October 2007 (UTC)sean

[edit] Original Western Pacific

Listed amongst the California Predecessor railroads is the Western Pacific. This company existed from 1862 to 1868 and had no relationship to the later company of the same name. What is the convention for identifying such a company? I had listed it as "Western Pacific Railroad (first)," but that did not last more than a day before it was edited to improperly link to the later WPRR of the 20th Century. --Rrrarch 01:48, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] SPRINT

I am shocked there is no mention of SPRINT! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.140.162.30 (talk) 01:11, 15 January 2008 (UTC)