SPH&TS TUCSON CONVENTION
I close out this year’s activities with a report on our trek to Tucson for the Southern Pacific Historical and Technical Society convention. With my sister living in Tucson, the first SPH&TS convention I attended was there in 1992. A subsequent convention was held there in 1998 and then the long break until this year, 2025. The folk in Tucson put on a fine convention. Too bad many semi-regulars chose not to attend, but the effort was worth it for the 110 or so of us who made it.
The convention featured an extra fare set of tours on the Wednesday prior to main convention hotel activities. We were presented with an outstanding tour of the Port of Tucson which has extensive logistics facilities for a wide variety of products including both food and manufactured items passing through Tucson. The Port facilities have an extensive rail network tied into easy access to the Sunset Line of the former SP.
Our first tour stop was alongside a warehouse and provided us an opportunity to inspect the leased yard locomotives seen in the background.
Port facilities were nearby the Sunset Line mainline.
The Port of Tucson handles a robust transportation modal shift between highway and rail for major freight forwarding companies like Schneider.
We toured a couple of the warehouses the Port manages including one cold storage facility. Lots of shrimp was stored on shelves we could see. One did not linger in the cold room!
Our tour took us by former El Paso and Southwestern facilities, purchased by the SP in 1926. This is the former EP&SW depot, built in the 19-teens, but made redundant with the SP purchase.
Alongside the EP&SW depot was a freight house that the SP converted into a company hospital. A feature of the hospital development was a fountain in a plaza. That fountain remains as the rest of the property has been developed as a Federal courthouse.
Displayed on the former SP (now Amtrak) depot grounds is SP 1673, an SP Mogul (2-6-0 wheel arrangement).
Housed within the former SP depot is a display of the former Centralized Traffic Control machine used for dispatching (controlling train traffic) along the Sunset Route from Tucson.
With our touring done on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday had full days of presentations on many topics related to SP operations around Tucson. Here, host Mike Bording is introducing Mike Jarrell who gave an updated presentation on the SP streamliner, the Sunset Limited, a topic Mike Jarrell has documented in an SPH&TS book.
Former SPH&TS President Paul Chandler (back to camera) opened up his home and model railroad to us on Saturday afternoon. Paul’s layout is inspired by boyhood memories growing up in Lodi, California.
We had a good time in Tucson. I hope our SPH&TSociety returns!
