Pool Service into California
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Fred Swanson
Many cars serving the auto industry were in pool service. Are there listings or other information on what lines to and from where, when?
Fred Swanson
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Garth Groff and Sally Sanford
Fred, Though it doesn't really answer your question, the Western Pacific was heavily involved in auto parts traffic. The WP served a Ford assembly plant in Milpitas, California. They had a small fleet (just five cars, 18501-18505) 40' double-door boxcars in auto transmission service which were converted from single-door cars and given racks 1955. Some of their 50' PS-1 double-door boxcars were also assigned to the Ford parts pool. IIRC, the Southern Pacific also contributed to this pool, and the WP and SP alternated in operating service to the plant. The Ford assembly plant closed in 1983, just after the UP took over the WP, but that's beyond our era of interest. WP also owned at least two other blocks of 50' PS-1 double-door boxcars with Evans auto racks for carting away the finished Fords. These were separate from the parts pool cars. There was also a large GM assembly plant in Milpitas, though it was only served by the SP. Later this built plant joint GM-Toyota cars, which wags called the "Toylet". I think this is now the Tesla factory. But again, I'm getting ahead of our group's mandate. At one time Sunshine offered a series of cars based on the Southern Pacific's and Cotton Belt's "Motor Special" trains that carried both auto parts and finished automobiles to California. Sunshine put out a special four-page illustrated flyer on these cars. Yours Aye, Garth Groff 🦆
On Fri, Nov 13, 2020 at 10:40 PM Fred Swanson via groups.io <fredswanson=rocketmail.com@groups.io> wrote: Many cars serving the auto industry were in pool service. Are there listings or other information on what lines to and from where, when?
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Just to add some where and when to the post, there were a number of automobile assembly plants in Southern California dating back to 1916. Below is a list, which may be incomplete. This list does not include several truck assembly plants that were located in Southern California as well. Bob Chaparro Hemet, CA ++++ Southern California Automobile Assembly Plants
Chrysler Commerce, 1929-1971
Ford Los Angeles, 1916-1930 (Santa Fe?) Pico Rivera, 1957-1980 (Santa Fe) Long Beach, 1930–1959 Commerce (Lincoln-Mercury)
General Motors South Gate, 1936-1982 Van Nuys, 1947-1992 (Southern Pacific)
Kaiser Frazer Long Beach, 1947-1955?
Nash Motors El Segundo, 1948-1955
Studebaker Vernon, 1936-1956 (Los Angeles Junction Railway)
Toyota (Truck Beds) Long Beach, 1972-2004
Willys-Overland Maywood 1928-1954
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Tony Thompson
Fred Swanson wrote: Many cars serving the auto industry were in pool service. Are there listings or other information on what lines to and from where, when? I don't know of such information all in one place. I was able to access SP car assignments by car number to a whole range of auto parts pools, and those data are in my Volumes 3 and 4 of the series, _Southern Pacific Freight Cars_ mostly in the form of tables of data. But I did not know who else was in the various pools. Tony Thompson
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George Eichelberger at SRHA did a clinic on SR pool cars a few years ago and he may have the SR cars involved. Fenton
On Fri, Nov 13, 2020 at 10:40 PM Fred Swanson via groups.io <fredswanson=rocketmail.com@groups.io> wrote: Many cars serving the auto industry were in pool service. Are there listings or other information on what lines to and from where, when? --
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