Southern Pacific Railroad - Timeline - Origins

Origins

One of the original ancestor-railroads of SP, the Galveston and Red River Railroad (GRR), was chartered on 11 March 1848 by Ebenezer Allen, although the company did not become active until 1852 after a series of meetings at Chappell Hill, Texas and Houston, Texas. The original aim was to construct a railroad from Galveston Bay to a point on the Red River near a trading post known as Coffee's Station. Ground was broken in 1853. The GRR built 2 miles (3.2 km) of track in Houston in 1855. Track laying began in earnest in 1856 and on 1 September 1856 GRR was renamed the Houston and Texas Central Railway Company (H&TC). SP acquired H&TC in 1883 but it continued to operate as a subsidiary under its own management until 1927, when it was leased to another SP-owned railroad, the Texas and New Orleans Railroad.

The Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway (BBB&C), was chartered in Texas on 11 February 1850 by a group that included General Sidney Sherman. BBB&C was the first railroad to commence operation in Texas and the first component of SP to commence operation. Surveying of the route alignment commenced at Harrisburg, Texas in 1851 and construction between Houston and Alleyton, Texas commenced later that year. The first 20 miles (32 km) of track opened in August 1853.

SP was founded in San Francisco, California in 1865 by a group of businessmen led by Timothy Phelps with the aim of building a rail connection between San Francisco and San Diego, California. The company was purchased in September 1868 by a group of businessmen known as the Big Four: Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, Jr. and C. P. Huntington. The Big Four had, in 1861, created the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR). CPRR was merged into SP in 1870.

• June 1873: The Southern Pacific builds its first locomotive at the railroad's Sacramento shops as CP's 2nd number 55, a 4-4-0.
• November 8, 1874: Southern Pacific tracks reach Bakersfield, California and work begins on the Tehachapi Loop.
• September 5, 1876: The first through train from San Francisco arrives in Los Angeles, California after traveling over the newly completed Tehachapi Loop.
• 1877: Southern Pacific tracks from Los Angeles cross the Colorado River at Yuma, Arizona. Southern Pacific purchases the Houston and Texas Central Railway.
• 1879: Southern Pacific engineers experiment with the first oil-fired locomotives.
• March 20, 1880: The first Southern Pacific train reaches Tucson, Arizona.
• May 11, 1880: The Mussel Slough Tragedy (a dispute over property rights with SP) takes place in Hanford, California.
• May 19, 1881: Southern Pacific tracks reach El Paso, Texas, beating the rival Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to El Paso.

• December 15, 1881: Southern Pacific (under the GH&SA RR) meets the Texas and Pacific at Sierra Blanca, Texas in Hudspeth County, Texas to complete the nation's second transcontinental railroad.
• January 12, 1883: The Southern section of the second transcontinental railroad line is completed as the Southern Pacific tracks from Los Angeles meet the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway at the Pecos River. The golden spike is driven by Col. Tom Pierce, the GH&SA president, atop the Pecos River High Bridge. The line now extends to San Antonio and Houston along the Sunset Route.
• March 17, 1884: The Southern Pacific is incorporated in Kentucky.
• February 17, 1885: The Southern Pacific and Central Pacific are combined under a holding company named the Southern Pacific Company.
• April 1, 1885: The Southern Pacific takes over all operation of the Central Pacific. Effectively, the CP no longer exists as a separate company.
• 1886: The first refrigerator cars on the Southern Pacific enter operation; the loading of refrigerator cars with oranges, first performed at Los Angeles, California on February 14, contributed to an economic boom in the famous citrus industry of Southern California, by making deliveries of perishable fruits and vegetables to the eastern United States possible.

• 1886: Southern Pacific wins the landmark Supreme Court case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad which establishes equal rights under the law to corporations.
• 1893: Southern Pacific train bandits John Sontag and Chris Evans are apprehended in the Battle of Stone Corral near Visalia, California.
• 1898: Sunset magazine is founded as a promotional tool of the Southern Pacific.
• 1901: Frank Norris' novel, The Octopus: A California Story, a fictional retelling of the Mussel Slough Tragedy and the events leading up to it, is published.
• 1901: Union Pacific Railroad acquires control of Southern Pacific. In the following years, many SP operating procedures and equipment purchases follow patterns established by Union Pacific.
• 1903: Southern Pacific gains 50% control of the Pacific Electric system in Los Angeles.
• March 8, 1904: SP opens the Lucin Cutoff across the Great Salt Lake, bypassing Promontory, UT for the railroad's mainline.
• March 20, 1904: SP's Coast Line is completed between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, CA.
• April 18, 1906: The great 1906 San Francisco earthquake strikes, damaging the railroad's headquarters building and destroying the mansions of the now-deceased Big Four.
• 1906: SP and UP jointly form the Pacific Fruit Express (PFE) refrigerator car line.
• May 22, 1907: The Coast Line Limited of the Southern Pacific Railroad is derailed west of Glendale, California. The accident causes several deaths and injuries, and its cause linked to anarchists.

• 1907: With Santa Fe, Southern Pacific forms Northwestern Pacific, unifying several SP- and Santa Fe-owned subsidiaries into one jointly owned railroad serving northwestern California.
• 1909: The Southern Pacific of Mexico, the railroad's subsidiary south of the U.S. border, is incorporated.
• 1913: The Supreme Court of the United States orders the Union Pacific to sell all of its stock in the Southern Pacific.
• December 28, 1917: The federal government takes control of American railroads in preparation for World War I

• 1923: The Interstate Commerce Commission allows the SP's control of the Central Pacific to continue, ruling that the control is in the public's interest.
• 1929: Santa Fe sells its interest in Northwestern Pacific to SP. NWP becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of SP.
• 1932: The SP gains 87% control of the Cotton Belt Railroad.
• May 1939: UP, SP and Santa Fe passenger trains in Los Angeles are united into a single terminal as Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal opens.
• 1947: The first road diesel locomotives owned solely by SP (i.e. aside from yard switchers) enter operation on the SP.
• 1947: Southern Pacific is reincorporated in Delaware (formerly Kentucky).
• 1951: Southern Pacific subsidiary Southern Pacific of Mexico is sold to the Mexican government.
• 1952: A difficult year for the SP in California opens with the City of San Francisco train marooned for three days in heavy snow on Donner Pass; in July an earthquake hits Tehachapi pass, closing the line over Tehachapi Loop from 21 July to 15 August.
• 1953: The first Trailer-On-Flat-Car (TOFC, or "piggyback") equipment enters service on the SP.
• January 1957: the last standard gauge steam locomotives in regular operation on the SP are retired; the railroad is now dieselized except for fan excursions.
• 1959: The last revenue steam powered freight is operated on the system by narrow gauge #9.
• 1959: Southern Pacific moved more ton-miles of freight than any other US railroad (the Pennsylvania Railroad had been number one for decades).
• 1965: ICC rejects Southern Pacific's bid for control of the Western Pacific.
• 1967: SP opens the longest stretch of new railroad in a quarter century as trains roll over the Palmdale Cutoff through Cajon Pass.
• May 1, 1971: Amtrak takes over long-distance passenger trains in the United States; the only SP revenue passenger trains thereafter were the commutes between San Francisco and San Jose.
• 1976: SP is awarded Dow Chemical's first annual Rail Safety Achievement Award in recognition of the railroad's handling of Dow products in 1975.
• 1980: Now owning a 98.34% control of the Cotton Belt, the Southern Pacific extends the Cotton Belt from St. Louis to Santa Rosa, New Mexico through acquisition of part of the former Rock Island Railroad.

• 1984: Northern portion of subsidiary Northwestern Pacific sold to independent shortline Eureka Southern Railroad which begins operation on November 1.
• 1984: The Southern Pacific Company merges into Santa Fe Industries, parent of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, to form Santa Fe Southern Pacific Corporation. When the Interstate Commerce Commission refuses permission for the planned merger of the railroad subsidiaries as the Southern Pacific Santa Fe Railroad SPSF shortens its name to Santa Fe Pacific Corporation and puts the SP railroad up for sale while retaining the non-rail assets of the Southern Pacific Company.
• 1985: New Caltrain locomotives and rolling stock replace SP equipment on the Peninsula Commute, marking the end of Southern Pacific passenger service with SP equipment.
• August 9, 1988: the Interstate Commerce Commission approves the purchase of the Southern Pacific by Rio Grande Industries, the company that controlled the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad.
• October 13, 1988: Rio Grande Industries takes control of the Southern Pacific Railroad. The merged company retains the name "Southern Pacific" for all railroad operations.
• 1989: Southern Pacific acquires 223 miles of former Alton trackage between St. Louis and Joliet from the Chicago, Missouri & Western. For the first time the Southern Pacific served the Chicago area on its own rails.
• March 17, 1991: The Southern Pacific changes its corporate image, replacing the century-old Roman Lettering with the Rio Grande-inspired Speed Lettering.
• 1992: Northwestern Pacific is merged into SP, ending NWP's existence as a corporate subsidiary of SP and leaving the Cotton Belt as SP's only remaining major railroad subsidiary. The Northwestern Pacific's south end would eventually be sold off by UP and turned into a "new" Northwestern Pacific.
• 1996: The Union Pacific Railroad finishes the acquisition that was effectively begun almost a century before with the purchase of the Southern Pacific by UP in 1901, until divestiture was ordered in 1913. Ironically, although Union Pacific was the dominant company, taking complete control of SP, its corporate structure was merged into Southern Pacific, which on paper became the "surviving company"; which then changed its name to Union Pacific. The merged company retains the name "Union Pacific" for all railroad operations.

In the tables "SP" does not include NWP, P&SR, SD&AE, PE, Holton Inter-Urban, Visalia Electric (except 1970 includes PE, which merged into SP in 1965; it reported 104 million ton-miles in 1960). "T&NO" total for 1925 includes GH&SA, H&TC, SA&AP and the other roads that folded into T&NO a couple years later. "SSW" includes SSW of Texas.

1971 Moody's shows route-mileage operated as of 31 December 1970: 11615 SP, 1565 SSW, 324 NWP, 136 SD&AE, 44 T&T, 34 VE, 30 P&SR and 10 HI-U. SP operated 18337 miles of track.