Southern Pacific Transportation Company |Southern Pacific
Transportation Company| SP system map (before the 1988 DRGW
merger) |Locale||Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado,
Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico,
Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Utah| |Dates of
operation||1865–1996| |Track gauge||4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)
with some 3 feet (910 mm) gauge branches| |Headquarters||San
Francisco, California| The Southern Pacific Transportation
Company (reporting mark SP), earlier Southern Pacific Railroad
and Southern Pacific Company, and usually called the Southern
Pacific or (from the railroad's initials) Espee, was an American
railroad. It was absorbed in 1988 by the company that controlled
the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad and eight years later
became part of the Union Pacific Railroad. The railroad was
founded as a land holding company in 1865, later acquiring the
Central Pacific Railroad by lease. By 1900 the Southern Pacific
Company was a major railroad system incorporating