The SP articulated triple-unit diners

A famous part of Southern Pacific food service after 1939 was the articulated triple-unit dining cars, comprising a coffee shop and a dining car with a kitchen car between to serve both adjoining cars. Designed by SP and built by Pullman-Standard, there were initially two triple-units, assigned to the Daylight. A thorough history of these cars is provided in Volume 4 of the series, Southern Pacific Passenger Cars, covering Dining Service Cars (SP Historical & Technical Society, Upland, CA, 2010).

In 1941, SP would purchase two more of these triple units, and in 1949 another two, making  a fleet of six of these 3-car sets, normally used in Daylight, San Joaquin Daylight, and Shasta Daylight service, with occasional relief service  in the City of San Francisco. All cars were classified into Class AD (articulated diner).

Shown below is a Bruce Heard photo of the kitchen-passageway side of the second triple unit, SP 10253–10254–10255, in the San Joaquin Daylight. From left, the cars are the diner, the kitchen, and the coffee shop. Note that one of SP’s full-length dome cars is coupled at the left of the photo. The full-width diaphragms between cars of the triple-unit are  evident. 

The second pair of triple units built was quite similar to the first pair. Here is a builder view of the first of the two sets built in 1941, AP 10256–257–258, classes 70-AD-3, 57-AD-2, and 70-AD-4. Again, this is the kitchen-passageway side, with the high windows on the kitchen car.

These cars are iconic equipment for anyone interested in SP passenger service modeling in the transition era.  Awhile back, Broadway Limited produced a triple-unit model, which they chose from the second pair of these units, the 1949 ones shown above. Broadway  modeled SP 10259–269–261, which were classes 70-AD-3, 57-AD-2, and 70-AD-4.

Here they are on my layout with the coffee shop at right, coupled to an Athearn 77-C coach at right, and the new Rapido full-length dome car at left (I’ve posted about this new dome car: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-new-rapido-sp-dome-car.html ). 

Usual practice was to run the coffee shop forward in train consists, thus the implication that this train is moving to the right in the photo. But as I’ve mentioned several times, my layout’s staging is limited in length, preventing operation of prototypical-length passenger trains, so instead I operate the occasional deadhead move to balance passenger equipment between Los Angeles and San Francisco. In that sort of move, the triple unit could operate in either orientation, and the train shown above may be moving either direction.

 The Broadway Limited model is very nicely done, with effective design of the articulations between cars, including nicely-designed adjustments to the between-car diaphragms to permit operation on model-size curves. I have enjoyed including it from time to time in my operating sessions.

Tony Thompson 

Waybills, Part 124: Introducing my system

At a modelers’ meeting not long ago, I was asked an interesting question, one I couldn’t readily answer without visual aids. The question was, how do I introduce my layout’s system of waybills at an operating session, to those who may know nothing about it? I do have an introduction (with visual aids) that I’ve been using for years, and perhaps it would be of interest to show what it is.

I chose a number of waybills that would illustrate the main features, and printed them out on 8.5 x 11-inch paper (the waybills I actually use are only 2.5 x 3.5 inches in size).  The photo below shows that this method yields “visual aids” that can be appreciated by a group of people. 

My first pair of waybills is intended to illustrate the overall prototype format (a vertical division between the destination and consignee on the left, and the shipper and place of origin on the right; and with cargo shown below). Car initials and number are at the top, along with AAR car type (the latter not being prototypical). Here are a pair that I show (you can click to enlarge).  

These are an inbound load at left, to be delivered to an industry on the layout, and an outbound load at right, which will be picked up at an industry on the layout and moved to the SP main line to be taken to San Luis Obispo and put into a through train.

 I then show an additional pair of waybills, which were chosen for a particular purpose, beyond illustrating the prototype locations of information. The one on the left, in particular, dates from an early operating session, and the conductor who had this waybill came to me and said, “I can’t find Carlson’s Furniture.” I quietly pointed out the additional information after the name: “HS. TRK.,” of course meaning “house track.” In other words, conductors need to read the whole waybill. The same message applies to the second one; here the vital information is “TM. TRK.,” naturally meaning “team track.”

These waybills of course contain all the information a crew needs to handle them. But this isn’t true of every bill they encounter. The Empty Car Bill, modified from an SP document, looks like this for an inbound car:

This bill shows the town to which the car is destined, but does not identify the shipper. This is because the empty car was ordered by the agent in that town, and the agent knows which shipper get the car. That in turn means the crew has to stop at the depot and consult with the agent. In the model situation, there is no one acting as agent, so an agent’s message is provided (for background, see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2015/06/operating-with-agent-messages.html ). Below is a sample, showing where PFE 40559 should be spotted.  

Next I show a perishable bill. This form was recommended by the AAR to be printed on pink stock, and the SP followed that recommendation. This also could tell the crew that they need to spot the car for  initial icing, that is, filling the ice bunkers before the car begins its journey to destination.

At this point, I show a pair of tank car bills for a privately owned tank car (in this case, General American). A private owner could request that empty cars move to the desired destination on a regular freight waybill instead of an Empty Car Bill, so that movement would be expedited, rather than wait for each successive railroad which received the empty, having to prepare an Empty Car Bill.

Lastly, I show a card that is waybill-size and requests a re-spot of a car. This was modified from a UP route card. The car initials and number are shown toward the bottom, and the places from which and to which the car is to be moved are shown.

With all this being spelled out, I have found that crews understand and use the waybill system very well. So I guess the key elements must all be there.

Tony Thompson 

  

Questions about OpSIG Achievement Program

Since my post several weeks ago about the new Achievement Program of the OpSIG (Operations Special Interest Group of NMRA), I have received several comments and questions, some by email and and a couple in person. I thought I would take a few minutes to respond. That previous post is at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/08/a-new-achievement-program.html .

As might be expected, several of the contacts were about the relationship of the new OpSIG program to the well-established NMRA program with the same name. The latter program is of long standing and is widely known. I myself reached the Master Model Railroader (MMR) status earlier this year (see my comments at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/10/personal-master-model-railroader-772.html ).  

The new OpSIG program is independent from, and different in almost every way than, the existing NMRA program.  The NMRA program was established to encourage development and improvement of  model- and layout-building skills, and I think it has been quite successful in doing so. I have heard any number of modelers saying things like, “I’ve read the requirements for Category XYZ and I think I could do that.”

By contrast, OpSIG’s new program is entirely aimed at achievements in operating, in all its many and varied forms. It’s true that the NMRA program has a category called “Chief Dispatcher,” but it doesn’t really demand literal dispatching skills. OpSIG has set out to offer a broader program about a whole range of serious operating skills, and contributions to this part of the hobby. And the underlying goal is just like that of the NMRA program: to encourage development and improvement of skills, but now strictly about operating experience and skill.

The photo below is perhaps a typical view of a two-person crew during an operating session. They are Seth Neumann at left, and Mark Schutzer at right, operating a few years ago on my layout. Improving the knowledge and skills of such individual operators is the primary goal of the OpSIG program.

In short, I perceive no conflict between the two achievement programs. Both intend to encourage development of skills and through that, greater accomplishment and enjoyment in the hobby. The overlap is minuscule, and there is certainly no intent by OpSIG to compete with or supplant the NMRA program; they are quite different in content, if similar in broad goals.

One of the best received categories in the program has been the Key Helper one. This is nominated by a layout owner for the people who help the most to sustain the layout and its sessions. The sales pitch here is something like “if not for you, at least make sure your crew is recognized,” and many layout owners have really liked this idea. 

A quite specific question I received from two people is about the rules test that is administered as part of the Conductor & Engineer (C&E) category in the OpSIG program. There is indeed a test, conducted on-line by a testing program, and timed. It is an open-book test, so you can refer to the study materials during the test. The study materials are extracts from a couple of prototype rule books, and the sections on which you might be tested are highlighted in red. 

Of course there is not enough time in the test period to read these sections for the first time. Instead, a test taker should have at least reviewed and understood the study materials before taking the test. No need to memorize, just familiarity so one can quickly refer back to the study materials for details. The test is not meant to be demanding, only to demonstrate a basic grasp of rules.

The C&E category is an essential part of the OpSIG program, because it is required to be among the minimum of eight completed categories to achieve the “Operations Ninja” status. There are altogether 13 categories from which you select the eight; about 400 category certificates have been issued so far. When a correct set of eight categories is completed, one receives a separate Ninja certificate. Below is mine. To date about a dozen of these Ninjas have already been granted.

For additional background, you can visit the OpSIG website (at: https://www.opsig.org/ ), then scroll down to “What’s New” and you will find a mention of the Achievement Program; or you can see the scope of the program directly, by going to the website which has been set up for the program (it is located at: https://opsig-ap.org/ ). There, one option is an introductory video — it’s quite informative about the goals of the program — but is some 20 minutes long. It might help to begin by browsing the screens of the website before sitting down with the video.

I personally think this is a creative way to encourage development of operating skills, along with stimulating participation in operating sessions. Operation has long been a kind of “poor cousin” in the hobby, just because the magazines find it hard to cover well. We all perceive the scope of the hobby from the magazines, so that leaves all of us with lower recognition of the processes and pleasures of operation. This Achievement Program should help change that.

Tony Thompson 

The new Rapido SP dome car

Among SP modelers, there had been a buzz for some time about the forthcoming HO scale model of the Sacramento-built full-length dome cars from Rapido Trains. During 1954 and 1955, SP shop forces used some pre-war Daylight cars for underframe and some body parts, and the dome structure was purchased from Budd as a kit. The rest of the car was essentially new construction. There was one prototype built first, then six production cars. 

For a full background on these cars, see Volume 5 of Southern Pacific Passenger Cars (Lounge, Dome & Parlor Cars), by Jeff Cauthen and Don Munger, SPH&TS, Upland, CA, 2012).

Here’s an example of a car in service on the San Joaquin Daylight (SP photo), taken just above Caliente in 1955. It was usual to operate the car with the short roof to the rear, as here, so that dome seats faced forward. The bar-lounge on the lower level was relatively small, and SP provided beverage service to the lounge end (nearest the bar) of the upper level. The cars operated rarely on the Coast Daylight  until later years, because adding it to the consist, along with the usual tavern car,  would require removal of a coach, with corresponding revenue loss.

The reason Rapido has produced it, no doubt, is because one of the cars survived long enough to be purchased by Canadian Pacific and rebuilt by them for their Heritage Fleet, operating as the car “Selkirk.” But they offered the model in both full Daylight paint (red and orange), and in SP’s post-1958 simulated stainless steel with red letterboard.

In later years all the cars had their fluted sides replaced with flat stainless panels, and some cars operated in yellow paint to match the City of San Francisco. A few cars survived to operate in Amtrak paint (Phase 1). All these schemes were offered by Rapido, along with CP deep maroon. But every single scheme is now shown on the Rapido site as “out of stock” (see: https://rapidotrains.com/ho-scale/passenger-car/sp-dome-lounge-cars.html ). The strong response to these models may well cause them to be re-run at some point.

These models are really beautiful. The full interior is readily viewed through the expansive dome windows, including the lower-level lounge with its fully equipped and detailed bar.  

I was glad to see that a quite accurate diaphragm is on the car end, along with other often-omitted details like the pair of grab iron steps on the side skirt at the corner. The underbody is also well done, showing all of what should be visible from the side of the model.

Since I model 1953, and the first car was built in 1954 (and used for the rest of that year in test service around the system), with the additional six cars built in 1955, it might seem that I have no use for this model. But of course the traditional modeler’s license contains a provision for small time warps, and I plan to include the car in an occasional deadhead move of passenger equipment, such as shown below at Shumala, sandwiched between a couple of Lark sleepers.

Another view from above the model, posed on the layout, allows at least an impression of the superb interior. Luckily, since I will only be deadheading the car, not operating it in a regular train, I don’t have the challenge of filling the seats with passengers. 

All in all, this is really a nice model of a distinctive SP prototype, very well executed. Rapido Trains and its people are very much to be congratulated.

Tony Thompson 

My latest column in Model Railroad Hobbyist

In the current September issue of Model Railroad Hobbyist, there is the latest column by me in the multi-author series, “Getting Real” (you can find it at: www.mrhmag.com ). It’s about modeling Southern Pacific automobile cars, but it’s also intended to provide prototype information on those cars, because Volume 3 in my series, Southern Pacific Freight Cars, about automobile and flat cars, is out of print and a little hard to find.  

I showed both prototype and model photos of relevant SP automobile car classes for the era I model, 1953. The models are from resin kits in several cases, primarily Sunshine Models, but I included a brass model and some styrene commercial models. 

I also repeated parts of an article I wrote a few years ago, about modeling the Class A-50-17 automobile cars. It was published back in 2015 in the SP Historical & Technical Society magazine, Trainline (issue 122), but I have gotten occasional complaints that it is not easy to obtain, thus this repetition.

Here’s the basic framework that I followed for each car class covered. I began with a prototype photo, often a builder photo like this one for the 40-foot automobile Class A-50-13, 600 cars built in 1937 by the Mt. Vernon Car Co. (Mt. Vernon photo). The 7-foot doors are distinctive, and the white door stripe indicates the presence of Evans auto loaders.

I then showed the HO scale model, and if the model fell short of accuracy in any aspect, I tried to explain how. For this particular class, though, there was no such issue; Sunshine Models issued an excellent and accurate kit for this class. 

My Sunshine model is below. I numbered the model to fall among the 350 cars in the class without auto loaders, thus no door stripe. Note that lettering features have been swapped end for end, compared to the builder photo, above. SP did this after 1946, when introduction of the spelled-out road name would not have fit at the left of the doors.

I also illustrated that there has long been a styrene model that stands in for this class, the 40-foot double-door car from Red Caboose (nowadays, InterMountain). It’s shown below. It’s a nice model in most ways, but its 6-foot doors stand out as inaccurate for the SP class. It can of course serve as a stand-in model, or as I would term it, a “mainline” model. 

To go beyond just showing completed models, I also included a section about one of my efforts to create an accurate model of an SP class that is otherwise unavailable. I did that by making the necessary corrections to a commercial model.

My example, as I mentioned above, was the 1951-built Class A-50-17 cars.  I used a Branchline Trains postwar 50-foot automobile car kit for the project, by removing all the side rivets and replacing them with correct-pattern Archer resin rivets, also creating the correct numbers of side sheets. I repeat below one of the model photos, showing the freshly-applied Archer rivets which create 4 side sheets to the left of the doors, and 6 to the right, called a 4–6 pattern.  

The resulting car uses the kit doors, ends, and roof,  which are correct for the SP cars. When completed, the model went into service on my layout, as you see below.

I hope the MRH article helps a few who haven’t been able to acquire my Volume 3 in the freight car series, through its covering several parts of the section of that book on automobile cars.

Tony Thompson 

Yes, we had an earthquake

Last Monday, we experienced an earthquake here in Berkeley, with an epicenter just blocks from our home, stated to be intensity 4.3. This is no surprise; we live a few hundred yards from the Hayward Fault, a major part of the San Francisco Bay area fault system. In the following days, we had some aftershocks, located similarly nearby. These events remind me that over the years, I have met people who are shocked that we are willing to live in earthquake country.

The reality is that earthquakes are not frequent (nothing like hurricanes or tornadoes), and in any case, we actually live in the (relatively) right place: our location uphill from the Bay means that what is underneath us is rock. We get short, sharp jolts in earthquakes. People living on top of sediment or fill can instead experience extended shaking, and it’s that kind of earthquake motion that damages structures the most.

Still, after a quake, I always go around the house and check on things, including the layout. This kind of quake, at 4.3, mostly jiggles picture frames off vertical. On the layout, it usually does little, though of course anything delicately balanced may fall over. In a bigger quake, that could include rolling stock and structures, but not in a quake like the one we just had.

A typical outcome in a lesser earthquake like this one is that figures of people tip over. This can be noticed all over the layout. Here’s an example at the Shumala engine terminal.  Note that the ladders are standing, as is a figure in the background.

Another vulnerable scenic item is my billboards. These are built from the Walthers kits, and though they are fine ordinarily, they turn out to be “tippy” in an earthquake. This one has fallen onto the “Bob’s Hot Dogs” stand, and so has a patron at Bobs, and the workman on the tank car loading platform; but a figure in the road in the distance remains standing..

Anything else that’s tippy, along with a billboard, can also fall, as in the Union 76 service station sign in this view at East Shumala. Note here that the figures in the gas station scene are all still standing.

So these are all minor effects, easily picked up in a few minutes. Now to be sure, it may be different when “the big one” hits; but for these little quakes, it’s pretty minor. Having lived with this sort of thing for much of my life, I’m certainly not bothered. 

Tony Thompson 

Operating session #105

Last Sunday I conducted operating session #105 on my layout. It was in most ways a typical session, though with some restrictions on track usage on account of the recent track rebuilding between Ballard and Santa Rosalia (see my post. at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/09/trackwork-wars-part-15.html ). Because I knew the crews were pretty experienced operators, I did schedule a few more car moves than usual.They did just fine, finishing pretty much in line with average crew times or better.

Because this is September, and on my layout, we operate as on the day in 1953 that corresponds to the calendar day of our operation, thus it was September 21, 1953. A very visible feature of my operations in this season is the variety of foreign reefers that are in use, compared to most of the year when reefers to be loaded are almost exclusively PFE (for background, you can consult this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2025/08/operations-for-peak-harvest-season.html ). 

That meant that we had scenes like this one, with the Santa Rosalia Local picking up loaded FGEX and BAR reefers. (You can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish.)

My crew this time comprised Mark Schutzer, Mike Steward, Steve Van Meter and John Wiley. All handled their jobs well. The two teams were Mark and John , and Steve and Mike. Mark and John began at Shumala. Meanwhile, Steve and Mike were busy at Ballard, and here Mike was conducting (that’s him at left), 

As usual, once each crew had completed work where they were, the branch train returned to Shumala, and the former Shumala crew took a new train to Ballard for a second set of switching, while the new crew at Shumala handled the returned cars, along with cars set out by the passing Guadalupe Local. 

That second crew taking the Local to Ballard was Mark (at left) and John, and in this view, it’s Mark who was conducting. 

Meanwhile at Shumala, Steve took over conducting while Mike took over engineer duties. Steve is matching waybills to cars in this view.

All in all, the session went well despite the inability to switch at Santa Rosalia this time (that trackwork issue), and in spite of a broken feeder wire discovered too late to fix. Experienced operators, particularly those with layouts of their own, know well that “things happen,” and they can deal with the need to work around difficulties. That’s what this session did too.

Tony Thompson