1994 Profile of Southern Pacific Lines
Mileage: 8991
Locomotives: 1665
Freight cars 32,363
Company
Service: 1154
Passenger cars(1970) 407
Major Terminals: Roseville, Eugene, Portland, Los Angeles,Tuscon, San
Antonio, Dallas,Houston, New Orleans,
Memphis (via Cotton Belt),St.Louis,Chicago.
The principal subsidiary of
the Southern Pacific Railroad was the St.Louis Southwestern Railway, better known as the Cotton Belt Route, whose profile
for 1994 is as follows:
Mileage: 2375
Locomotives: 307
Freight cars, 17,407
Major Terminals: Memphis, St.
Louis, Texarkana, Pine Bluff,Fort Worth. The Cotton Belt gained fame for its Blue Streak Merchandise family of fast freight
trains headed up by the Blue Streak Merchandise itself. This freight train operated for 60 years hustling high priority freight
from Memphis and St. Louis to Los Angeles and other points on the Southern Pacific system. For many years right up to the
end, the two railroads operated essentially as one in operation.Southern Pacific train symboling was done as follows:
First Number was the blocking code:
0 pure train
1first alternate
2.second alternate
3.third alternate and so on.
Second number was the section number for the train,whenever it was run in 2 or more sections. This was
followed by two pairs of letters of which the first indicated the originating terminal and the second, the
train's final destination while the last letter indicated the type of train. The
following are the train type codes used by SP:
AB loaded autoparts
HJ empty autoparts
K-chemical
D-drag
E-general service empties
FG forwarder
L-loaded unit trains
N-empty unit trains
M-mail
P-perishable
R-empty reefers
S-sugar beets
Q sugar beet empties
TC-Trailers and Containers
YZWV General merchandise
This was revised in 1985 as follows:
A-Amtrak
B-M/W
C-unit coal train (loaded or empty)
D-Detour
F-Forwarder
G unit grain train (loaded or empty)
I-Interchange
J-Joint operations
L-Local
M-General Merchandise
O-Officer special
P-paper or unit potash train (loaded or empty)
Q-Sprint Train
R-Road Switcher
S-Unit sulphur train (loaded or empty)
T-TOFC/COFC
U- other unit train (loaded or emtpy)
V-Perishable
W-work train
X-extra or drag train
Y-yard job
Z-light engines
Thus, 01BRLAT is first section of Brooklyn-Los Angeles TOFC/COFC if train to be run in more than one
sectionn. The famous oddball exception to this rule would be the MBSMFF, Memphis Blue Streak Merchandise Freight Forwarder,which
was one member of the Blue Streak Merchandise fast freight train family,which by 1985,contained several
members.