Southern Pacific’s railroad in Mexico

Recently I received an email question that I thought was interesting enough to merit discussion here. The question was, what were the freight cars of the SP railroad in Mexico, did cars go back and forth over the border with the U.S., and when did that all stop?

The background is covered in a number of books, perhaps best in the one authored by John Signor and John Kirchner, The Southern Pacific of Mexico (Golden West Books, San Marino, CA, 1987). The story began in 1882 with the completion of the Ferrocarril de Sonora  in the Mexican state of Sonora, from the U.S. border at Nogales, Arizona to the port of Guaymas on the Gulf of California. This was built under the auspices of the Santa Fe, which operated it until 1898.

In 1898, the SP’s little-used line from Mojave to Needles, California was traded to the Santa Fe (to forestall further Santa Fe construction westward) in return for the Sonora Railway. SP soon acquired also the railroad properties of the Cananea, Rio Yaqui and Pacific, and in 1905 began to build southward past Mazatlan, eventually to reach Guadalajara in the state of Jalisco. The name given to the combined railroads (FdeS, CRYyP, and the new construction) was the Sud Pacifico de Mexico or SPdeM. 

Much of the new railroad’s rolling stock was handed down from the SP in U.S. or leased. In the 1930s, to cite an example, SPdeM owned only 29 of its 112 locomotives and 657 of its 1251 freight cars. The SPdeM, as emphasized in the Signor and Kirchner book, was remarkably like the parent SP, not only with its hand-me-down rolling stock and locomotives, but in use of the SP rule book, timetable and train order operation (with telegraph communication only),  and many familiar features of SP practice. 

Photographs of yards and trains in the 1940s and up to the sale of SPdeM to the Mexican government in 1951 show that most freight cars, certainly all the modern ones, had SP initials, interchanged into Mexico. In principle, SP cars made empty in Mexico were not permitted to be reloaded to further destinations in Mexico, only back to the U.S., but this regulation was not stringently enforced. The same applied to PFE cars. Moreover, significant numbers of empty SP and PFE cars were interchanged into Mexico for SPdeM use.

One consequence of these cross-border movements of cars has to do with waybills and how they were handled. I have described earlier the basics of the situation (see this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/10/waybills-part-75-non-us-freight-cars.html ), and followed that discussion with several further examples of both Canadian- and Mexican-origin shipments (in this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/10/waybills-part-76-more-on-cross-border.html ).  

Let’s look at some rolling stock. Below is a photo (Library of Congress) taken during the Mexican Revolution of 1911, showing insurrectionists atop a train. The caboose is an SP design, Class CA, and the box car (number not readable) is one of the early Harriman-standard double-sheathed box cars, likely Class B-50-5 or -6.

 To show one of the few cars built new for the SPdeM, below is a builder photo (AC&F, Al Westerfield collection) of a member of Class B-50-6. 

Another example of these cars in service is this view (Southern Pacific) of the Redo Sugar Co. mill at El Dorado, Sinaloa, with several box cars in sight. These too appear to be Harriman Class B-50-6 cars. 

After the sale of the SPdeM to the Mexican government in 1951, the railroad was renamed Ferrocarril del Pacifico (Pacific Railroad), initially with reporting marks FdelP, but soon changed to FCP. I have described the changes of the former SP rolling stock to the FCP ownership in an earlier post (see it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2016/08/ferrocarril-del-pacifico.html ). Since I model 1953, I need to focus on the FdelP, not the SPdeM.

On the modeling front, I have shown my creation of one of the re-lettered former SP cars in a post a few years ago (here’s a link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/09/resin-box-car-build-part-3.html ). A photo of my completed model, a former SP Class B-50-14 from a Sunshine kit, is below, including the “patched” change of reporting marks. 

So that’s an overview of “SP’s railroad in Mexico,” and a few of the aspects that can be part of model railroading.

Tony Thompson 

Some additional SP advertising

I’ve recently posted a number of examples of the “institutional advertising” that Southern Pacific published in the 1950s, bright, eye-catching graphics from their advertising agency of the time, Foote, Cone & Belding. This is defined as advertising not to those who were necessarily actual customers or potential customers of the railroad, but the public at large, and was placed in general circulation magazines such as Time.

I began with a number of these “institutional” ads that to me are interesting because they promoted the image the railroad wished the public to have, a progressive and modern railroad. That first set of ads was contained in this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/05/sps-public-advertising.html . 

In a following post, I showed more of the same kind of ads, but also included a few of the advertising efforts SP made toward their actual customers. that post is at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/05/other-sp-advertising.html . Lastly, I returned to more of the public ads, along with an interesting example of SP advertising to companies who might be considering a new plant location in SP territory, Here’s a link to that post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/05/more-sp-advertising.html .

Now let me show a few more of the vivid Foote, Cone  & Belding examples, with one simply intended to draw attention to the “Golden Empire” as a possible plant location. As mentioned previously, this is from the latter part of the 1950s, because it has the later-era addition of the Cotton Belt to the Golden Empire logo. You can click on the image to enlarge if if you wish to read the text.

Next is another example of SP emphasizing how much of certain agricultural and mineral products were produced in the Golden Empire:

In this period, SP also liked to publicize various modernizations that the railroad was achieving. This one is a good example. President Donald J. Russell was eager to promote SP to the financial community as progressive and modern.

Next  is an ad that actually may have reached out to railroad customers, once again including publicity for SP’s trucking subsidiary, Pacific Motor Trucking, and the related piggyback service. Note also the inclusion of one of SP’s largest and most profitable freight categories of the time, lumber. That was the main reason the the SP freight car fleet contained 10 percent flat cars, while the national average was just 3 percent.

Beginning in 1956, SP experimented with “dual-fuel” arrangements for diesel locomotives, promoted here using the traditional engineer’s glove. The two fuels were conventional diesel fuel, and cheaper “residual” fuel oil, so thick it had to be heated to flow. Dual fuel would be abandoned in the early 1960s.

Lastly, they decided to publicize the enormous project of replacing the Harriman-era Great Salt Lake trestle with a fill, with a dramatic comparison of the volume of material used. The project was carried out from 1955 to 1959.

All these ads have, naturally, a similar style that the agency created, and as this series of posts demonstrates, they covered a wide range of aspects of the railroad that could be promoted to the general public. 

Tony Thompson

Weathering: a couple of open-top cars

As I often mention, I have put together a pair of what Google calls “Reference pages,” linked at upper right in this post, with a fairly specific description of the weathering method I usually use, along with examples of numerous car types to illustrate what is done. The method is based on washes made with acrylic tube paints. But there are some excursions beyond even those relatively complete descriptions. 

An example is open-top cars, which can exhibit a wide range of appearances. Certainly if the cars are gondolas, wood floors can exhibit the kind of wear and damage and color changes typical of flat cars, and various kinds of debris, dunnage, and trash is often left in gondolas. Metal loads such as pipe can leave a residue of iron rust, as can wire or steel banding used to secure loads. The prototype photo below is one illustration (Dick Flock photo). Notice both the colors and the rubble on the floors.

How rare it is to see model gondolas that look like this! Still, there are those who have labored to achieve this kind of appearance in models. One I’ve recognized before is the late Bill Neale, mentioned in posts such as this one: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/11/gondola-interiors.html . Here is a repeat of one of my photos of Bill’s gondola interiors.

I wanted to head in this direction too, although perhaps not as far as Bill went. I have two open-top cars awaiting weathering of their interiors, which happen to be cars about which I’ve recently posted. Both are fairly ancient HO white metal models. One is an Ulrich N&W hopper car (see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/03/restoring-ulrich-hopper-car-part-2.html ).

The other car is the Roundhouse C&O gondola project of Richard Hendrickson’s (completion of which was described in this prior post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-richard-hendrickson-gondola-part-2.html ). 

My standard method of weathering with washes of acrylic tube paints is my approach, well described and illustrated in the “Reference pages” linked at the top right corner of this post. I’ll begin with the C&O gondola, the completion of which was described in two recent posts (concluding with the post linked in the previous paragraph). I wanted it to show some rusty tint, though maybe not as complete as the Bill Neale cars shown above. With additions of chalk marks and route cards, here is the car:

The other car is the Ulrich hopper. Here again, I wanted some rusty tinge on the interior, plus a few chalk marks on the sides.

I may go back and add more color to the interior of the gondola, will wait to see how I like it in a couple of weeks. But I continue to feel that getting car interiors right is worth some extra effort.

 Tony Thompson

Small project: another Chateau Martin wine car

Back some six years ago now, I described a few minor upgrades to bring an ancient Laconia Industries kit up to my layout standards (or into that vicinity, anyway), keeping in mind the fine historical character of the kit. Recently another of these cars came to me from Jim Radkey, who was passing it on as a survivor of a dismantled layout. That previous project is described in this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2019/02/restoring-chateau-martin-wine-car.html . 

Back in that day, Laconia did offer this kit, as with many of their kits, in multiple car numbers. This newly acquired car happened to have a different number than the one I previously restored, so I decided I could keep it. But it does need some restoration and a little upgrading, including the longitudinal streaking on the roof.

My first step, as was the case in the previous post about one of these cars (see link in first paragraph, above) is to fix the exposed edge of the cardboard sides at each end. This exposure is evident in the photo above. This requires matching a paint to the color of the car sides. As it happens, there is an acrylic point  from Acrylicos Vallejo or AV, their no. 70.945 in the Model Color series, that is called “magenta.” This is what I used on the other car, and used it again here.

Painting the exposed edges made a noticeable difference, as you can see below. Also, here at the B end of the car, the end sills were missing, as was the rod to the hand brake. The end sill parts were in the kit box in which I received the assembled car, so these could be added. And the No. 4 coupler box lid, and coupler, were missing too. I will simply add new Kadee couplers in their own boxes at both ends. Shown are the original trucks.

Next, the grab irons, sill steps, and ladders had some wear in the black paint, as you can see in both photos above, exposing brass metal, along with some funky weathering, so these were all touched up with black. Lastly, the roof was repainted a grimy black mix, and still needs to be weathered a bit, as you can see below.

The nice thing about having a second Laconia Chateau Martin car like this, with a different number from my first one, is that switch crews working the Zaca Mesa winery in my layout town of Ballard may now have the experience of picking up one loaded Chateau Martin car, and replacing it with a second one.

I have always found the Chateau Martin wine cars and wine business interesting (see, for example, this post about the wine business: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2012/02/wine-as-industrial-commodity.html ), and these two cars add to that. I look forward to seeing them in an operating session.

Tony Thompson

The Richard Hendrickson gondola, Part 2

Recently I showed the partially completed gondola that was rescued from Richard Hendrickson’s workbench after he passed away. The body of the model was the Model Die Casting white-metal 40-foot car. As I illustrated, Richard clearly intended it to be a C&O gondola from their 44000 series cars with the high, rounded ends. That first post is at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/01/a-richard-hendrickson-freight-car.html . 

The model needed some detail work, namely the grab irons and hand brake on the B end of the car, but before doing that, I wanted to solve the coupler box problem. The original MDC cast underbody has a nearly scale width coupler box, but this is too narrow for a Kadee coupler. Rather that try to cut off and remove this coupler box, I hunted around in my scrap box and found a pair of Chinese knock-off copies of the Kadee design, which work all right even if not as well as an actual Kadee coupler. Then I could add styrene coupler box covers.

Next I needed to complete the B end detailing. I added grab irons with brass wire, a brake step, and an Ajax brake wheel and gearbox(see the prototype end photo in the preceding post, linked in the top paragraph, above).

With that work completed, I painted the model. I have been wanting to try a Tamiya color I hadn’t used before, “Rubber Black,” (TS-82), a slightly grayed black. Since this is a flat finish, as soon as it had dried, I added a coat of Tamiya “Semi Gloss Clear” (TS-79) on the outside of sides and ends, for decal application. I have found this semi-gloss to be fine for decaling, while avoiding that “mirror gloss” which can be hard to reverse.

For lettering, I dived into Richard’s decal stash, and used Champ set SHS-276. I followed the prototype photo from the preceding post in this series, which I’ll repeat below (a C&O photo). The decals didn’t have the exact size and spacing shown in this photo, so I got as close as I could with what I had.

When the decals were all applied and given a protective coat of clear flat, the model looked like this. It still needs to be weathered inside and out, but that’s a separate topic, to which I’ll return.

 I’ve enjoyed completing this project of Richard’s, and soon it will be at work on my layout.

 Tony Thompson

SP piggyback: Part 6, trailers

This is part of an ongoing series about the beginnings of Southern Pacific piggyback service. That service on the SP began in 1953, the year I model, so I am interested in the characteristics of the operation at its outset. In previous posts, I have discussed both the highway equipment, owned by SP subsidiary Pacific Motor Trucking, and the SP flat cars that carried the trailers. The most recent of these posts, Part 5, can be found here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/02/sp-piggyback-part-5-3d-printed-flat-cars.html . 

In a previous post, I showed the model trailers that had received a coat of white primer (Tamiya “Fine Surface Primer”). That post is at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/10/sp-piggyback-part-4-progress-on-3d.html . My next step was to airbrush them with Daylight Orange, using the excellent Star Brand version of this color, STR-27 (I have discussed this color: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2022/06/pfe-orange-one-more-time.html ). 

Since in the final paint scheme this color is only on the upper parts of the trailer, most care was taken with coverage in those areas, but each entire model truck body was painted. Otherwise there could be risk of uneven color in the coat of Daylight Red to follow, on the lower parts.  

The next step was to mask off the upper part of the trailer, using the excellent 18-mm Tamiya tape. This tape performs beautifully on the glossy surface of the orange coat, above. Then I could paint the lower body, and the underbody, Daylight Red, using Star Brand STR-34. Here the masking line will be in the upper part, above the “belt rail” on the trailer, because it will be hidden by the black stripe, as is visible seen in the prototype photo, below.

This image is repeated from a PMT history post, which can be found at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/09/sp-piggyback-part-1-pacific-motor.html . Background: this is a 1940s publicity photo, posed to emphasize the truck–rail connection, shown here as a box car at a freight platform (SP photo, courtesy Steve Peery). The tractor here is a GMC, typical of SP’s long closeness with Chevrolet and GMC motor vehicles, pulling a 22-foot trailer.

The lower trailer bodies, and underbodies, were airbrushed red, and of course the tires will subsequently be painted black by hand as a final painting step. Here are the trailers at this point:

I might mention that there has been some disagreement over the years as to whether the underbodies were black or red. It is a minor point, since one can’t really see the underbody of a trailer on a flat car or on the highway. But SP photos of the trailer tie-down process, several of them reproduced in Chapter 13 of my book, “Automobile Cars and  Flat Cars,” Volume 3 in the series, Southern Pacific Freight Cars (Signature Press, 2004), seem to me to show a color like the bottom section of the trailer sides. 

Lettering follows the prototype photo shown above. Luckily, a Microscale Decals set of some years ago remains in production and in stock, set MC-4027. I used those sets (each of which can do one trailer) for these models. By the way, I should mention that examination of about a dozen photos of these trailers shows all PMT 22-ft. trailer numbers in the 3100 and 3200 number series.

My decaling approach has been to first stand the trailer on its flat end, and drape over the front a piece of stripe, containing the PMT initials at center front. Once that’s well dried, I start adding all the other lettering, along with a second length of stripe around the back, and the back end lettering. Here is a prototype rear view to illustrate (SP photo). And I should mention that locations of some of the lettering varied over time and for slightly different trailer bodies.

With the entire lettering applied, one can see what an attractive paint scheme this is.

I can hardly wait to finish the flat cars and start putting these trailers onto them! Thanks one more time to A.J. Chier for creating these fine 3D-printed models.

Tony Thompson

More SP advertising

In a previous post, I showed a number of examples of Southern Pacific’s “institutional advertising” of the 1950s, meaning promoting the company itself to a general audience, not its specific products or services. Many were striking and colorful ads, produced by Foote, Cone and Belding, SP’s ad agency then and for some time afterward. That post is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/05/sps-public-advertising.html .

Another in a substantial series of these ads is the one below, simply promoting the idea that SP was a progressive railroad, and as usual, including the “Golden Empire” graphic. You can tell when these ads were from the latter part of the 1950s, because they then included a Cotton Belt “add on” to the Golden Empire. (You can click on the image to enlarge it, if you wish to read the text.)

Another example, this one touting the railroad’s progress in dieselization, interestingly notes that dieselization should be complete by 1958. In fact, the last steam operations were in the fall of 1956. The emphasis on horsepower is interesting too.

An additional interesting example promotes SP’s perishable shipping, including a refrigerator car, though not mentioning Pacific Fruit Express or PFE’s co-owner, Union Pacific (the same as a PFE brochure I showed previously; see it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/05/other-sp-advertising.html ). The paint scheme on the car chosen for illustration is actually imaginary, since PFE mechanical reefers were never painted this way, but instead had both SP and UP railroad emblems. And I find the ice block combined with the mechanical reefer amusing too.

But not all these ads were entirely institutional. SP also advertised in business publications, such as Fortune and Business Week, promoting the “Golden Empire” for plant locations. In the 1950s, there was substantial growth in on-line industries in SP territory. (Again, you can click on the image to enlarge it.) Inclusion of both steam and diesel power shows the ad dates from the late 1940s.

Last, occasionally one of the colorful Foote, Cone & Belding ads did promote passenger trains. The one below, in fact, promotes West Coast routes, and specifically the overnight trains, Lark and Cascade.

I find it quite interesting to see what aspects of itself the railroad wished to publicize, to the public readership of general circulation magazines. And the striking quality of the advertisements is certainly noteworthy. One of many characteristics of a vanished era.

Tony Thompson