my ESPEE MODELERS ARCHIVE

California's Railroad to the U.S. 1861 - 1996

About this website, and the Southern Pacific Railroad

No one website can be a complete history, nor can it contain everything there is to know, about a railroad whose history spanned 128 years, longer (148 years), if you count in the prior history of lines taken over.

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

This website's original manifesto, was aimed at the modeler, however, 'we' have drifted into more prototype information, both as it has been contributed, or has been researched as necessary to answer a question.

The menu bar at the bottom of (hopefully all), the web pages, broadly outlines the categories that this website covers.

The search engine 'might' find something you are looking for on this website; although there are no guarantees that the information is here, or that you will find it...

I could give a list of books that I either have, or am aware of that deal with the Southern Pacific; but why invent the wheel, when others have all ready done so...

Various people have put together lists of books dealing with SP subjects:

The Southern Pacific Historical & Technical Society hosts a listing.

and

Leonard Ruback has put together A Compendium of Books Concerning The Southern Pacific Transportation Company

For those people interested in reading more about the history of the Southern Pacific now; here are two books to get you started; if they are still available that is:

• The History of the Southern Pacific
  Bill Yenne
  Bison, 1985, ISBN 0-517-46084X

• The Southern Pacific, 1901-1985
  Don L. Hofsommer
  Texas A&M, 1986, ISBN 0-89-96-246-4

• Sunset Limited: The Southern Pacific Railroad and the Development of the American West 1850-1930
  by Orsi, Richard J.
  University of Californa Press, 2005.

The Southern Pacific Historical & Technical Society publishes a quarterly magazine Trainline. While this is available separately, the cost of membership to the Society is probably not much more, and a subscription to the magazine is part of the membership...

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

There are a number of Mailing Lists that are dedicated to discussion of the Southern Pacific Railroad and its subsidiary's. Here are some of them