The Contemporary Daylight

The last regularly scheduled revenue steam powered Southern Pacific Coast Daylight passenger train between San Francisco and Los Angeles operated in January of 1955, 18 months before I was born.  As a youngster I was fascinated by photos and written descriptions of the red, orange and black streamliner that streaked along the Pacific Ocean and California coastline for over 100 miles.  The Daylight originated and terminated a short distance from the hospital of my birth (the French Hospital) and the neighborhood where I originally grew up in Los Angeles (Solano Avenue).  Coincidentally, my wife and I live today across the street from the “other” Daylight terminal station, the former Third and Townsend Street Station in San Francisco.

 Not having the chance to personally experience the original steam powered Daylight, the train existed in books and some brief film clips until some significant railroad-related events occurred in the middle seventies and early eighties.  The only surviving Southern Pacific Lima-built GS-4 steam locomotive, the 4449, which had been donated to the City of Portland, Oregon, was selected to power segments of the American Freedom Train tour during the Country’s bicentennial celebration in 1976.  The steam engine required extensive rebuilding for the tour, and the money, components, facilities and mechanical expertise needed were collaborated to make the restoration and tour happen.  The operations of the 4449 and the American Freedom Train had a big impact on the railfan community, as mainline steam power had taken the path of “progress” yielding to diesel-electric locomotives across the United States in the middle to late ‘50’s.  So the sights, sounds and smells of SP superpower steam “rose from the dead” some twenty years after the Southern Pacific had gone out of its way to ensure that steam powered passenger excursions would never grace “the Friendly SP” again.

The collection begins with the activities surrounding the opening of the Sacramento Railroad Museum in Sacramento, California in 1981.  The 4449 had come "back to life" in the seventies, and the new Railroad Museum provided another important milestone and reason for the locomotive to travel away from its home in Portland at the Brooklyn Roundhouse.  The summit of contemporary Daylight opportunities occurred in 1984 as a result of the celebration of the "World’s Fair" in New Orleans, Louisiana.  Logistic arrangements for a public, passenger train trip from Portland to New Orleans and return were made, and a consist of Daylight-painted vintage lightweight passenger cars was assembled.  The sight of a complete train of red, orange and black passenger cars with “Southern Pacific” letterboards and Daylight insignia was without doubt the epitome of nostalgic possibilities at that time.  In fact, most of the coaches on the “World’s Fair Daylight” originally served on a sister Southern Pacific “name” train, the “Shasta Daylight” streamliner inaugurated in 1949.

A substantial portion of the 1984 “World’s Fair Daylight” trip from Oregon to Arizona and return is covered in the collection.  The train ran down “the Valley” from Oakland to to Bakersfield and over Tehachapi.  For better or worse the train climbed up Soledad Canyon on the eastbound trip without a diesel helper and at times slowed to walking pace as the steam booster was cut in.  On the return trip from New Orleans the train retraced the original route of the Daylight along the scenic California coast from Ventura to Vandenberg.

In the late eighties the 4449 was summoned again for use in a motion picture filmed in the California desert east of Palm Springs.  A small movie train was assembled and operated from Portland to the desert and return.  The train presented another opportunity to photograph a "pure-Daylight" consist, even though it consisted of only four cars in back of the engine's water tender.

Another unusual and unexpected Daylight operation occurred in 1991.  A tragic derailment of a tank car carrying pesticides at Cantara Loop (north of Dunsmuir, California) motivated the Southern Pacific to do whatever it could to help the community recover from the environmental and economic damage caused by the toxic spill into the Sacramento River.  A public excursion train featuring the 4449 and a complete Daylight consist was operated for the benefit of the Dunsmuir area.  This was an attempt by the railroad to compensate (at least in spirit) the region which had experienced a significant economic impact from the loss of fishing and recreational activities on account of the disastrous chemical spill.

Researching, planning for and photographing these trains resulted in many opportunities to experience "Southern Pacific" steam powered passenger railroading many years after diesels effectively “took over”.  It was a period that I remember frequently and fondly.  We hope you enjoy the photographs, maybe they will stimulate memories of your own personal experiences with the trains.