Waybills, Part 127: more prototype bills

This post is to discuss several prototype waybills and their contents. I think that all have interesting features that are worth presenting. If you would like to examine any details of these bills, any of them can be enlarged by clicking on the image. 

l’ll begin with a Pennsylvania Railroad bill from the late days before Penn Central. The bill is to move a product of the Euclid Division of GMC from the plant at Hudson, Ohio, to Cobusco Inc. at Denver, Colorado. The routing shows PRR to Effner, Indiana, just at the Illinois border due west of Logansport, then via TP&W across Illinois to Lomax on the Santa Fe, just a few miles east of Fort Madison, then Santa Fe to Denver. 

The car is MP 9961, a plain (type FM) steel 60-foot flat car. The load is one tractor NBN (or NOIBN, that is, Not Otherwise Identified By Name), weighing over 47,000 pounds, plus seven other parts and two boxes of parts, adding about 8000 pounds. A special note is added about the fact that a nitrogen compressed gas cylinder is on the load too. Note that the original rate typed on the waybill has been corrected, as was the freight charge.

Another interesting example is of a waybill filled out incorrectly. It’s a Norfolk & Western waybill, moving an empty covered hopper from Ironton, Ohio to Oregon, Illinois, a well-known location for sand shipping and thus presumably for loading of the car, CB&Q 180854. But the waybill’s original routing showing it to exchanged from N&W at Chicago to the C&NW. A hand-written note observes that Oregon, IL is not on the C&NW; then another note points out that Oregon is on the CB&Q, and modifies the routing exchange partner as CB&Q.  

One may also find it amusing to follow the various dates, from the waybill’s original date of February 25, through the last of the eight date stamps, Burlington’s March 15 stamp, just to move an empty car.

Another  example is a very heavy load,  a single piece of rolling mill machinery, weighing 299,000 pounds, along with 4800 pounds of blocking. It was shipped by United Engineering & Foundry in Youngstown, Ohio, to Inland Steel’s plant at East Chicago, via interchange at Hobart, Indiana, onto the the EJ&E. The car was PRR 470243, a 72-foot depressed center flat car of 300,000 pounds nominal capacity. (The load limit would be significantly higher.)  

This bill was subject to later correction in the rate, with an additional payment of $60.36 added to the original bill of $3832.86. A further billing was performed for demurrage, as the car was spotted at United Engineering & Foundry on December 20, and not picked up with its load u;til December 29. That demurrage amounted to $132.48.

Lastly, I wanted to show a B&O analog to the Pennsylvania waybill that I used at the foundation of my own model waybills. (You can see that PRR bill at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/06/waybills-part-69-another-approach.html .) Below is exactly the same load (steel scrap), now coming from Brunswick, MD to  its destination (Deitch & Co. in Sharpsburg, PA), but here loaded in a B&O gondolas 261589, a 70-ton, 52-ft, 6-in. gondola with drop ends and steel floor.

Although it isn’t noted here, loads of scrap often carry the additional notation, RMPO, which means Remelting Purposes Only. That PRR bill mentioned above does have such a notation.

I continue to find prototype waybills interesting and informative, and of the many, many millions issued over the years, I wish we had more to look at!

Tony Thompson 

Prototype Rails 2026

This year’s Prototype Rails meeting in Cocoa Beach, Florida took place last week, and as usual, it was a thoroughly enjoyable and informative meeting. Long organized and managed by the late Mike Brock, Marty Megregian now runs the meeting, and does so very well. Jeff Aley continues to recruit and supervise the clinic presentations, and the variety and quality are high, year after year. This year’s attendance was about 210, as high as it’s been since the pandemic.  

I gave a talk to fit with one of Aley’s themes this year, operation. I tried to illustrate how one can learn about and reproduce prototype operating procedures, using the railroad I model, Southern Pacific, as an example. (For the handout, see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/01/handout-for-modeling-sp-operations.html ). As always, there were lots of other really interesting talks. I just chose one to highlight, Rich Remiarz’s talk in his ongoing series about Great Northern freight cars. 

The usual arrangement of the hotel ballroom hosted not only an extensive vendor area, but also the usual model displays brought by attendees. It’s always enjoyable to browse new and continuing products, and I for one certainly examine the displayed models closely. 

In the model table area, there were several really excellent displays. Al Brown brought a complete set of Shake 'n' Take models (though missing, I think, the Kahn’s reefer). I always enjoy seeing good applications of the freight car graffiti of more recent times., such as the one below. This didn’t have a name card right next to it, but Butch Eyler’s models were nearby, so maybe it was his. But whoever brought the model, I liked it.

As he often does, Marty Megregian brought some O scale steam locomotives to exhibit. The one I found most remarkable was a distinctive and (I think) unique Southern engine, an 0-8-0 decorated for wartime. 

A model that I really enjoyed seeing was one that had been built by the late Stan Rydarowicz, kitbashed from a Funaro & Camerlengo end-door Wabash automobile car.  The 17 prototype cars were used to ship long aluminum pipe and extrusions from Alcoa’s large production plant at Lafayette, Indiana, to customers, including aircraft manufacturers, using only the end door (side doors were removed). The paint scheme was unique to these cars.

And I can’t resist closing with a fine sunset we witnessed one evening as we left our dinner restaurant, complete with iconic palm trees.

 We had lovely warm weather this year (certainly not a given in January). Florida can be really delightful in some Januaries, and this was one.

Tony Thompson 

Night trains on Southern Pacific’s Coast Route

The title of this blog post may remind some readers of an excellent book of some years ago with a very similar title. That’s on purpose, though I will touch on only a tiny fraction of the information in that book. Its actual title was Southern Pacific Passenger Trains: Night Trains on the Coast Route, by Dennis Ryan and Joseph Shine (Four Ways West Publications, La Mirada, CA, 1986). This post draws heavily on the extensive information in that book. 

Below is an image of its dust jacket, featuring a painting by Ernie Towler. Based on a John Illman photo, it depicts the Lark in the morning near Burlingame, inbound  to San Francisco, passing the outbound Daylight, train 98. Certainly the most famous night train on the Coast was the all-Pullman streamlined  Larkn and its two-tone gray paint scheme. In this painting, the Lark’s last two sleepers and the buffet-observation car have been cut off at San Jose to form the Oakland Lark.

But almost from the beginning of passenger trains on this route, there was a companion night train on the Coast Route, intended as a less-expensive alternative to the Lark. From 1901 to 1915, it was called the SF & LA Passenger; from 1915 to 1925, the Seashore Express, equipped with both chair cars and tourist sleepers. This became trains 69 and 70 in 1926 and took the name Coaster (previously the name of a daytime train on the Coast). 

In the immediate postwar period, SP began to re-structure its passenger services on the Coast Line. The pre-war Noon Daylight trains were re-established, joining the Morning Daylight. The pair of overnight trains, the all-Pullman streamlined Lark and the heavyweight Coaster, continued, with the Coaster still perceived as the economy service.

Southern Pacific did its best to publicize the Coaster after the war, always emphasizing its relatively economical prices, both for fares and for on-board meals, as shown in this poster that appeared in depots and other public places.

Below is an image of the inbound Coaster rounding Sierra Point, just south of Bayshore Yard in the fall of 1946, with Mountain 4309 on the point (SP photo, Steve Peery collection). It’s a 13-car train today, with three baggage cars on the head end (some in use as postal storage cars). Night Trains on the Coast Route contains a typical 1946 consist: three baggage cars, five coaches, three 16-section tourist Pullmans, a 10-1-2 Pullman, and a 10 section-lounge observation (which you can see below). That open-platform observation was soon discontinued.

But a few years after the war, in late 1949, SP replaced the overnight Coaster on the Coast Line with a new all-coach train, the Starlight. The Coaster had featured heavyweight sleeping cars, many of them mostly section accommodations, and those were rapidly becoming unpopular with the traveling public. Coach travel was a little cheaper, and by using older equipment from the first Daylight trains, a much more modern train with more comfortable seating could replace the Coaster. 

On October 1, 1949, the Noon Daylight was discontinued, and the next day the Coaster was also discontinued. Starting that day day, October 2, the replacement was the Starlight, much of its equipment coming from the former Noon Daylight. Here’s a poster publicizing the new train. Fare is a little higher than that for the Coaster shown in the poster above. As noted below, the schedule left after dinner and arrived before breakfast, thus no dining car was needed (though both a coffee shop and a tavern-lounge were included).

On my own layout, set in 1953, it’s obvious that the night train other than the Lark should be the Starlight. But I have a soft spot for heavyweight equipment, especially Pullmans, and occasionally a time warp occurs and a late-running Coaster may venture across the Guadalupe Subdivision.

I have always been intrigued by the ways corporations, including railroads, choose to present themselves to the public. Posters in depots, including the two shown here, are certainly interesting examples.  

Tony Thompson 

Handout for “Modeling SP Operations”

This is the on-line handout for a clinic entitled “Modeling SP Operating Practices.” The purpose is to provide documentation of the various published items shown in the talk, along with links to a number of blog posts which cover some points in the talk in much more detail. They are grouped below by topic area.

My point in the clinic was to indicate that many of us enjoy trying to operate model railroads in a prototypical manner, as in the photo below (Pat LaTorres at left, and Ed Slintak, switching at Ballard on my layout). I attempted to indicate how we can go about such imitation of the prototype, choosing the specific railroad that I model, the Southern Pacific.

Print Publications

Armstrong, John H., The Railroad – What It Is, What It Does (Chapter 8, Railroad Operations), Simmons-Boardman Publishing, Omaha, 1982. [there are several subsequent editions with updates; the original is closest in time to the era I model] 

Coughlin, E.W., Freight Car Distribution and Handling in the United States, Car Service Division, Association of American Railroads, Washington, 1956.

Grant, H. Roger, The Station Agent and the American Railroad Experience, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2022. 

Koester, Tony, “In search of the perfect waybill,” Model Railroader, February 2012, p. 82.

Niemann, Linda, Boomer, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1990.

Rehwalt, Dan, Westsider, Grizzly Press, Oakridge, OR, 2004.

Sprau, David, and Steven King, 19 East, Copy Three, Operations Special Interest Group, WoodDale, IL, 2013, 

Thompson, Anthony, “Prototypical waybills for car card operation,” Railroad Model Craftsman, December 2009, pp. 71–77.  

Thompson, Tony, “Getting Real: A More Prototypical Waybill for Model Railroads,” Model Railroad Hobbyist, pp. 31–46, May 2012. 

Thompson, Tony, ”Getting Real: Operating with Prototypical Waybills,” Model Railroad Hobbyist, January 2018.  

Thompson, Tony, “Modeling Traffic on a Layout,” Model Railroad Hobbyist, September 2021.  

SP Circular 39-1, “Instructions to Station Agents”

Thompson, Tony, “SP’s Instructions to Station Agents,” https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2016/11/sps-instructions-to-station-agents-part.html

Thompson, Tony, “SP’s Instructions to Station Agents, Part 2,” https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2016/11/sps-instruction-to-station-agents-part-2.html

Thompson, Tony, “SP’s Instructions to Station Agents, Part 3,” https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2016/12/sps-instructions-to-station-agents-part.html

Thompson, Tony, “SP’s Instructions to Station Agents, Part 4,” https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2016/12/sps-instructions-to-station-agents-part_10.html

Thompson, Tony, “SP’s Instructions to Station Agents, Part 5,” https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2016/12/sps-instructions-to-station-agents-part_25.html

Learning from Circular 39-1

Thompson, Tony, “Waybills, Part 88: Temporary Waybills,” https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/08/waybills-part-88-temporary-waybills.html

Thompson, Tony, “Waybills, Part 90: SP Form 704,” https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/09/waybills-part-90-sp-form-704.html

Other Points

Thompson, Tony, “Southern Pacific’s Circular 4,” https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/12/southern-pacifics-circular-4.html  

Thompson, Tony, “Waybills, Part 39: SP Typography,”  https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2015/04/waybills-part-39-sp-typography.html

Thompson, Tony, “SD&AE Locomotives on the SP,” https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/03/sd-locomotives-on-sp.html

With the help of these and many other publications out there, we can hope to capture the spirit of moments like the one below, the operator at Vincent, California, handing up orders to eastward freight 804 (Richard Steinheimer photo).  

Tony Thompson 

Some Southern Pacific wartime posters

Back more than 30 years ago, the Bookmine bookstore in Sacramento (long gone today) acquired a huge stash of “surplus” paper materials from the Southern Pacific General Shops in Sacramento. Among them were numerous posters, that SP provided to depots and other locations where the public would see them. Of dramatic quality as well as historical interest were some about wartime security. 

The first one I’ll show is obviously from the very beginning of World War II in the United States, as is evident from the included calendar, for May 1942, presumably the month it was released for use. At that time, there was a major focus on security. I especially like the upraised, admonitory finger.  

A similar message was prepared for Pullman passengers, printed in dark blue on white. I am told these were about five inches square. Obviously the central part of the text is the same. 

The idea that casual conversations were likely to be overheard by enemy agents, prevalent at the beginning of the war, soon disappeared. Warnings about keeping information to yourself, however, did continue. 

Next  comes a poster that I know was used through much of the war (often in rotation with other wartime posters). Travel by train was heavily used by the military, not only troop movements but movement of officers and senior officials among administrative assignments too. Like the other posters, this one is 16 x 21 inches in size.

There was a prohibition of taking photos of trains generally, though some railfans did continue to photograph, often surreptitiously. I thought it was interesting that there was equal concern about photos taken from the train. And like all these posters, patriotic red, and often also blue, was the format.

I showed two of these posters in the book I did with John Signor, Southern Pacific’s Coast Line Pictorial  (Signature Press, 2000), on page 56, but in black and white. 

I have always been intrigued by the ways corporations, including railroads, choose to present themselves to the public. Posters in depots are certainly an interesting example. And the specific wartime content of these particular ones is especially interesting.

Tony Thompson 

Freight cars for granddaughter operating

I have written several times about my granddaughter carrying out operating sessions on my layout, ranging from simply being the engineer and receiving directions, to looking at waybills and choosing switching sequences.(See for example: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/02/more-granddaughter-operating.html ; and to see others, you can use “granddaughter” as the search term in the search box at right.

I usually act as conductor, but try to give her as much responsibility as she wants. This does vary from session to session, but she always is very careful with the locomotive and throttle, and seems to entirely enjoy the activity. Here’s a photo at Ballard from a session in 2021, when she was 9. 

One feature I’ve mentioned but not really gone into is the freight cars that are hers. This all started one Christmas when the entire Thompson clan had gathered at my son Sylvan’s house in Portland, and the granddaughter and I went to the hobby shop, Whistle Stop Trains. She was allowed to pick out whatever Accurail car kit she wanted. Unfortunately, this was in isolation from my layout, and understandably her knowledge of eras and such was quite limited, so she chose the car with the color she liked best.

We did build the car together in the following days, but when it arrived on the layout at our next operating session, she realized it did not fit in. We discussed that, and looked at rolling stock, and then she didn’t want that car to be on the layout.

But on later holiday visits to that same hobby shop, she again chose car kits for herself, but now each time she remembered the era issue. If in doubt, she asked for advice. For her second car, she chose an Accurail  Santa Fe box car, and again we built it together. Here’s that car being switched at Shumala on the layout. 

She seemed to like having one of her cars in the session whenever we operated, so we chose and built a third Accurail car,  This time it was a reefer, and a choice that fit with her interest in and enjoyment of all the reefer switching on my layout. It’s about to be spotted in Ballard.

Of course these cars all have waybills. I’ll just show one for each of the cars we actually use  in sessions.

I always enjoy guiding her in operating on the layout, and she still seems to enjoy doing it. She’s a teenager now, though, so this may all go away, but it’s certainly been fun for both of us over the years.

Tony Thompson

Southern Pacific’s “Circular 4”

A core document of the Southern Pacific for many years was the Accounting Department’s Circular 4. I realize that isn't an informative name, but its actual title was List of Officers, Agencies Stations, Etc. It was re-issued every few years as things changed. Shown below is the cover of the one that was issued in 1952, the one relevant for my modeling year of 1953. Its size is 4-3/4 by 6-3/4 inches and it contains 214 pages.  

It’s a minor point, but its issuance by the Accounting Department fits with many other Circulars about rules, regulations and procedures of the railroad.  (I’ve written previously about Circular 39-1, Instructions to Station Agents; see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2016/11/sps-instructions-to-station-agents-part.html .)

What can we learn from a Circular 4? I might begin with an important division in the railroad organization, between what most of us think of as the “real railroad,” the Operating Department, and the other big segment, the Traffic Department. I show below pages 20 and 21, containing the last page of the Operating Dept. at top left, followed by three small departments, Purchasing, Real Estate, and Tax, and on the facing page, Traffic. Note also that these are revised pages, issued January 1, 1953, doubtless to reflect changes in officer positions.

I don’t have an SP organization chart. But I do know that a lot of what we model in fact stems from the work of the Traffic Dept. Most notable were the station agents. SP rarely combined the jobs of agent and operator, but instead almost always required one of each. An operator had to pass a Rule Book exam and be familiar with operating procedures; an agent, not at all, though of course agents came to know a lot of operating detail from being around it every day in smaller stations.

If you click on the image above to enlarge it, you’ll see that there was a Vice-President for System Freight Traffic (W.W. Hale), along with freight traffic managers, managers of such categories as perishable freight and merchandise traffic, General Freight Agents, and so on. This was a large and complex organization entirely separate from the Operating Department.

There was also a separate part of the Traffic Dept., System Passenger Traffic, again with a hierarchy of officials throughout the system, listed on later pages of Circular 4.

The majority of the book, 164 of the 214 pages, is taken up with a list of all stations. First they are listed in order by division. Shown below is the page of the Coast Division listing, page 119, that covers the Guadalupe Subdivision which is where my layout is located.  This is one of eight pages for this Division.

All stations are also all separately listed alphabetically by station name, so you don’t have to know on which division a station of interest may be located. And helpfully, if you had only the number of a station, you can look to see which division it is on, using a page like this, again choosing Coast Division: 

There are only some of the many tidbits of information in a Circular 4. I have often referred to the one shown above. I also consult a few others I own, with earlier or later dates, to see how things changed over time. Most railroads had publications like this, so they are worth hunting for, whatever your favorite prototype might be.

Tony Thompson