My Texas and Pacific Sunshine Special

Dominic Mazoch posted:

Was the SS broken up into 4 sections in NE Texas?  Like St. Lousis to:

1.  San Antonio/Laredo

2.  DFW/El Paso.

3.  Houston/Galveston/Corpus Christi/Brownsville.

4.  New Orleans?

Of course, this means the train ran over more of the MoPac, including the T&p.

I believe the New Orleans section was broken out in Little Rock and routed through Pine Bluff into Louisiana.  Pat B.

N My T&P 1950 timetable shows the Sunshine Special was T&P train 231 leaving NYC and arriving in Longview which lends credence to Tom Stamey’s comment that that was where the train was broken up. Apparently it got in at 7 PM and departed at 9:55 PM as their train number 8, the Westerner. which went on to LA. However I am no expert at deciphering vintage time tables. At least as late as the Mid 1970’s there was a vintage sign left at the Fort Worth T&P station and Hq building which featured the arrival time of the Sunshine Special. If you want a copy of this timetable call my office at (817) 335-9440, leave your name and mailing address, and I will make you a copy.

 Neither Little Rock nor Pine Bluff appear on the timetable for trains 21 and 22 to New Orleans. 

Dominic Mazoch posted:

Depending on the year, if I remember correctly, the PRR ran a connecting train from NYP to STL.  The connecting train name was the...drum roll...SUNSHINE SPECIAL.

The SS was the main STL-TX train until the TEXAS EAGLE.  For a few months, the PRR train was called the....drum roll...TE.  Then the train name got changed to the PENN TEXAS.

Considering the train used STL as its northern terminal, I could see run through cars from other railroads.  Head end and Pullmans come to mind.  A PRR R50 refer on the head end would be a possibility, I think.

Other consists can be put together one piece at a time - and it can be fun when you finish. And mix the MP and T&P pieces. They are “out there” if you look. Here are some of mine

andDiesel and RPO are MTH, TP box/mail and Reefers are Atlas, Heavyweight Coach is GoldenGate/Peterson Supply. 
TrainBub 🙂

Nice collection of rolling stock. Is that diesel the MP PA?  I missed out on the Golden gate T&P run, sadly, but did get a baggage from Rattler 21. As a kid I always enjoyed seeing the long strings of olive drab standard clerestory roof rpo, baggage etc. cars parked at the T&P depot, although sadly steam was long gone. 

Griff Murphey posted:

Nice collection of rolling stock. Is that diesel the MP PA?  I missed out on the Golden gate T&P run, sadly, but did get a baggage from Rattler 21. As a kid I always enjoyed seeing the long strings of olive drab standard clerestory roof rpo, baggage etc. cars parked at the T&P depot, although sadly steam was long gone. 

Yep. MP PA is part of MTH ABA set. Don’t have to use em all. In fact now days I’ll just buy one “A” unit. With a small layout, I’d rather look at diverse rolling stock as opposed to having the layout eaten up by an ABA. I was happy to be able to get the four recent T&P pieces of GGate ( And I think they will be more scarce than hens teeth). I also picked up a Pullman baggage car. Nice because it will look nice in ANY road consist. I will mix all this  in with a MTH 5 car streamline set (not room for all at once ). Looks like I will regrettably miss the Lionel “Sunshine Special” cars. Just NO more room (no basement). ☹️  They look quite Nice. 👍

Do the GGD cars stay coupled? I had to strap down the couplers on my baggage car pulling a 7 car consist behind it.

Sure wish I had not missed those passenger cars. Were they made with interiors?

Griff Murphey posted:

Do the GGD cars stay coupled? I had to strap down the couplers on my baggage car pulling a 7 car consist behind it.

Sure wish I had not missed those passenger cars. Were they made with interiors?

GGD cars have interiors. Couplers mostly decent for me but don’t have room for 8 passenger cars. Peterson Supply still has heavyweight blue and white MP coaches for sale if you like mixed consists. I’ve picked up two. You can buy just one if you wish. 
Ive campaigned Scott at GGD to follow his last heavyweight offering with a green (mostly) heavyweight coach offering with expanded roads. Call it a coachapalooza. 
ive also campaigned for MP and T&P Eagle (Texas and Colorado Eagles) streamline offering. 
The more requests the better. 
Cheers

Trainbub

The thing is I argue the major roads’ markets are saturated. Yet we see these tiny runs of T&P and afterwards people are crying because for whatever reason they were unaware that something was being run... 

I would bet Scott has had more than a few inquiries from folks who want a 600 class 2-10-4.

I’ll likely not live long enough to see another run of T&P F units, accurate or not! Took 68 years of my life for them to get done and I missed those!

Murphey posted:

The thing is I argue the major roads’ markets are saturated. Yet we see these tiny runs of T&P and afterwards people are crying because for whatever reason they were unaware that something was being run... 

I would bet Scott has had more than a few inquiries from folks who want a 600 class 2-10-4.

I’ll likely not live long enough to see another run of T&P F units, accurate or not! Took 68 years of my life for them to get done and I missed those!

 

Well Scott is currently offering GP7&9s and I believe work may be starting soon on them. Reservations are still open !!! There was MP (blue/grey) and T&P (swamp jolly orange) 7s and 9s but the 7s have been dropped for lack of reservations - the 9s survive (MP Jenks Blue, T&P blue and white). Check the website. Nice with fixed pilots !!!!  I think the 7s didn’t catch as Atlas had done the TP7 before in S H Orange and currently is supposed to be soon delivering the MP 7 in blue grey. 
here are the to be produced colors for the 9s /. Hmmm. Ended up above. Oh well. 
Trainbub

Will check it out tho I have the two MTH ones; the yellow iteration or what I call “sun- faded swamp Holly Orange “ - and the blue and white one, even have a Lionel buzz saw and eagle blue one,