Your Colorful Southern Pacific

This was the Southern Pacific at work on the Yuma District of the Sunset Route. The best material from our discontinued video, “Sunset Salute”, is combined with a wealth of newly discovered material to make this new DVD video. 

See mixed freights and ‘intermodal’ trains as well as locals and transfer freights. We also bring lots of ‘foreign’ and pool-power. Visit the Imperial Valley lines to remember the Sugarbeet trains of the SP. Learn how the beet cars were loaded and follow the beets to Betteravia where they were processed at the Holly sugar plant. Beet trains handed off to the SMV Railroad at Guadalupe, CA are covered from the 1970s and 1992. And don’t miss a cab ride on the SP-owned Carriso Gorge line just before hurricane Kathleen closed it to through traffic in 1976.

Featuring...

• Yuma AZ to Colton CA
• Desert beauty
• Beaumont Hill 1991 - 1995
• Helpers and Foreign Power
• Imperial Valley SA&E Ry. cab ride c. 1975
• Sugar Beet Trains c. 1992
• Beet loading and processing
• Betteravia Sugar Factory
• Santa Maria Valley Railroad
• SP Coastline action

To quote Model Railroad News magazine, “Well Charles Smiley has done it again …this is a very entertaining and informative video. You want stuff to model? It’s in here, though I can’t tell you what you’ll glom onto and turn into a feature on your layout. Maybe you’ll just watch this for an hour and 35 minutes instead of broadcast TV. What a thought!”