About The Espee Archive

No website can be a complete history, nor can it contain everything there is to know about a railroad whose history spanned 143years.

In fact there is no one place in the world that holds this information.

This website's original manifesto was aimed at the modeler. It drifted into more prototype information, either as information was contributed or has research was required to answer a question.

For a list of books dealing with the various forms of Southern Pacific as a corporation and its various railroads, visit the Resources page of the Southern Pacific Historical & Technical Society.

For those people interested in reading more about the history of the Southern Pacific, these three books will get you started:

Basic history

The History of the Southern Pacific
Bill Yenne

Deeper history

The Southern Pacific, 1901-1985
Don L. Hofsommer

Complex history

Sunset Limited: The Southern Pacific Railroad and the Development of the American West 1850-1930
Richard J. Orsi

The Southern Pacific Historical & Technical Society publishes a quarterly magazine which is included as part of the membership.
While copies may be purchased at some model train stores, it is included in the cost of membership to the Society.

For a Timeline of the Southern Pacific Company - look for the November 1996 Issue 396 of Pacific RailNews.

As of December 2023, the current hosts are focused on the history of the Southern Pacific Company, and later the Southern Pacific Transportation Company.
The hosts are not focused on model railroads. The model railroad pages will not be updated.