SP 6515 - Ex-EPSW 66ft Baggage - Walthers ACF

While the SP is known for its round-roof fleet, a surprising number of clerestory roof cars were also owned by the SP.  The number of clerestory cars climbed rapidly in 1928, when the SP bought the El Paso Southwestern with all of its rolling stock.

Ex-EPSW baggage car, SP 6515 running in No.56 at Magunden.

For comparison (below), the all-steel baggage cars that SP ordered in the 1900-1920s all had "Arch Roof" design, commonly mis-named "Harriman" roofs.  The SP also had several hundred 60ft baggage cars built using the same style roof.

For comparison, SP 6444, one of about 150 of the 70ft "Arch Roof" SP Baggage car fleet. (Soho Model shown)

History

Among the baggage cars in the acquisition were eleven 66ft HW steel baggage cars (EPSW .  These cars renumbered into the SP system as 6510-6520 (class 66-B) and can be seen in many photos of trains around the SP system.  Often though, these photos are at about 7/8 view, so no car number can be read, but these cars certainly did wander around the SP system. 

SP 6515 Left Side - Walthers 70ft ACF Baggage

These cars continued into the 1940's and were rebuilt with full-length letterboards over the doors by the early 1950s as the cars were repainted with "Southern Pacific" on the letterboards and dropped the "Lines" from the name.

Walthers AC&F 70ft Baggage is a good starting point for a model of these eleven cars before their rebuild.  To be totally accurate 4 feet should be cut from the car's length, but the proportions to me look ok without that change.  Several of them, including the SP 6515 continued into the early 1950s still painted for SPL... although the 6515 was getting pretty dirty!

SP 6515 Right Side - Walthers 70ft ACF Baggage

It should be possible to fill in the upper area above the doors, down to the level of the letterboard for modeling the post-1950 era rebuild, but on this model I decided to keep the earlier version and weather the car fairly heavily.  The head-end cars often don't get a chance at the wash rack regularly, since they are at the REA building being loaded or unloaded during most of the layover time between trips.

Mechanical Changes

The mechanical changes I've made are minimal on this car.  The truck screws need washes on them, I seem to have misplaced some of them, so made one from sheet styrene on this car to keep the truck on the left end from slipping over the screw head.

Here's a bottom view of the Walthers car with strip lead weights installed in the center sill.

The other basic changes include installing body mounted couplers and installing extra weight in the form of a lead sheet strip down the centersill to make the car a little bit heavier.  Reports of it derailing at the head-end of a long heavy passenger train prompted this additional weight being added.

Painting

Here's SP 6515 set out at Bakersfield's Mail Dock working the sealed mail for Nos.55, 56 (Mail) , 57, & 58 (Owl)

The car is painted with StarBrand Dark Olive Green and I think this car mostly is using the older MicroScale decals for SP Passenger cars.  I might eventually replace these with ThinFilm-160s which is more accurate.

Closing

Photos of these EPSW cars show up in consists of the Shasta (Nos.327/328), the Starlight (Nos.94/95), and in the distance in several other trains.

Here's No.327-328, the Shasta, with one of the eleven Ex-EPSW baggage cars being used as the baggage car.

Hopefully this blog will show that SP did have some variety in their head-end fleet, that it wasn't only 60 and 70ft "Arch Roof" baggage cars.

Jason Hill

Related Articles:

Index for Modeling HW SP Passenger Car Classes

Index for Modeling SP Lightweight Passenger Car Classes

Index for Modeling HW Pullman Pool and SP Sleeping Cars

Modeling Mail Trains Nos.55 & 56, the Tehachapi

The Shasta, a revised "Pike-Sized Train" from 1987 - Modeling Nos.327/328

Modeling the Starlight (Nos.94/95) - as a "Pike-Size Train