Tidewater Southern Railway
Heralds
During my research of the TS, only two* heralds or logos have come to light that were used by the railroad in various capacities. Both are used liberally throughout this website and one was quite well-known within the railfan community at one point. But both have histories that remain murky and neither appear to have been widely used by the TS for reasons not fully known.
* - It appears that the Western Pacific did create a Tidewater Southern variant of its famous Feather River Route logo at one point. I have been told that this logo appeared in a WP publication and it was circulated as a railfan cloth patch at one point. However, I have found no evidence that this logo was ever used in any real way by the TS or its parent.
This is the earliest logo found for the TS, actually appearing during the Tidewater & Southern era. The name used to describe it has not surfaced in my research, but I have most often heard
it referred to as the "Sunburst" logo. It appeared on station signs, in window advertising, on letterhead and some official documents and on
steeplecab electric 100. In all cases found so far except on the 100, it was depicted in the black line form shown here. On
the cab sides of the 100, it was rendered in the same white as the roadnumbers. The best guess is that use of the "Sunburst" ended with WP control in 1917.
date unknown. location unknown (probably Stockton, California) In this very early photo, the
photographer unknown, Bay Area Electric Railway Association Archives. courtesy of Bart Nadeau. used by permission of BAERA, all other rights reserved.
The 'Sunburst' - 1910's
The Cornucopia - 1955
This is the more famous of the Tidewater's logos although, ironically, it was probably officially sanctioned for a much shorter time that the "Sunburst".
The Cornucopia is arguably one of the most complex and colorful logos ever used in railroading. It was applied only to an order of 25 PS-1 boxcars
delivered in the summer of 1955 and represented the most individual image ever presented by a WP subsidiary in the post-dieselization era. Who designed the Cornucopia and why it was applied are questions that I have not yet found answers to.
The Cornucopia, or "horn of plenty", was joined with the slogan "Serving California's Heartland". The lettering scheme for this series of cars was also different from others in the
WP family, although the typeface for the roadname and all data were a WP standard style. Of interest in the story of the Cornucopia is how limited the official life of the logo ended up being. In April 1958, less than 3
years after delivery of the 501 series, a recommendation was made by H. C. Munson, TS Superintendent, that the Cornucopia decals not be renewed when the cars came up for repainting. He stated in a letter to WP President F. B. Whitman that the
decals were "too complicated a picture with too many colors. It also costs about $80 per car to replace it." Finally, the life of the decals was placed at only three to five years. President Whitman concurred and a
decree was issued that the Cornucopia was not to be renewed on the cars. Most of the cars appear to never have been repainted, however, until receiving patch jobs after
