Nostalgia & History > Owl in Daylight

I was going through my slides the other day and came across this one from a
friend I used to trade with and I saw the Train # was the eastbound Owl traveling
through the Antelope Valley in the Mojave Desert.

SP FP7 # 6454 is at Dennis Siding just north of Palmdale. Slide is not dated.
​{Not a Kodak mount}

Thanks for looking

​Jay

---

Really cool - now you don't happen to have a going away shot to show the consist, do you, he says, hopefully?

Lee Hower - Sacramento

Nice shot! Old SP RR LA based passenger train crews worked to and from Fresno, CA. LA based engine crews worked to and from Bakersfield, CA.

In my teen years the family used to drive up to Mojave from Los Angeles have breakfast at Reno's Restaurant across from the depot and occasionally I have seen the San Joaquin Daylight arrive westbound at the depot.
I do nor ever recall seeing the Owl eastbound along the highway here, so this must be very early in rye morning.
It must have been a bit late in the photo, but I have no timetable access here where i sitting.
Thanks, Jay, for posting!

James R.(Jim) Baker
Whittier, CA

mcfflyer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Really cool - now you don't happen to have a going
> away shot to show the consist, do you, he says,
> hopefully?
>
> Lee Hower - Sacramento

The consist appears to be cut off after the Chair Cars. It looks like:

66-B-1 St. Louis Car Co. Economy Baggage
66-B-2 Pacific Car & Foundry EcoBag
80-BP-60-1 St. Louis Car Co./SacGenShops RPO
Budd "Sunset" Coffee Shop
P-S "Shasta"-style Chair Car
P-S "Daylight" Articulated Chair

The oddity is the Budd Coffee Shop. I don't know 57-58 practice as well as I know 51-52; this seems like a deadhead, since there's likely an Automat immediately following that Daylight Artic, then a sleeping car or two, possibly two considering the three Chair Cars which suggest a fuller passenger loading. (Deadheads on 51-52 usually ran immediately behind the power.)

Could the Coffee Shop and Shasta car following have been a charter or tour group move?

Nice photo! Guessing 1964, judging by the ice bars on the FP7s; most got plows by 1965.

~ BZ

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/17 13:02 by Notch16.

Notch16 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> mcfflyer Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Really cool - now you don't happen to have a
> going
> > away shot to show the consist, do you, he says,
> > hopefully?
> >
> > Lee Hower - Sacramento
>
> The consist appears to be cut off after the Chair
> Cars. It looks like:
>
> 66-B-1 St. Louis Car Co. Economy Baggage
> 66-B-2 Pacific Car & Foundry EcoBag
> 80-BP-60-1 St. Louis Car Co./SacGenShops RPO
> Budd "Sunset" Coffee Shop
> P-S "Shasta"-style Chair Car
> P-S "Daylight" Articulated Chair
>
> The oddity is the Budd Coffee Shop. I don't know
> 57-58 practice as well as I know 51-52; this seems
> like a deadhead, since there's likely an Automat
> immediately following that Daylight Artic, then a
> sleeping car or two, possibly two considering the
> three Chair Cars which suggest a fuller passenger
> loading. (Deadheads on 51-52 usually ran
> immediately behind the power.)
>
> Could the Coffee Shop and Shasta car following
> have been a charter or tour group move?
>
> Nice photo! Guessing 1964, judging by the ice bars
> on the FP7s; most got plows by 1965.
>
> ~ BZ
>
> 
The Automat must have been bad ordered? 

58 arrived Mojave around 0700, which put it in daylight. In the late '40s I sometimes rode my bike to the depot to see it and watch the extensive mail work. Mojave, being in the middle of several communities, handled a lot of mail and many of the SP and ATSF trains were loaded with head-end cars. I worked in the post office for a short time in 1954 after graduating high school, and left to go to work as a public-safety dispatcher which was a lot more interesting although I never heard as much gossip in my life as I did at the PO - we knew just about everything about everyone which my older colleagues loved to exchange....

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

My SP pass was not good on the Lark, but my pass plus about $5 would get me an upper on the Owl from LAUPT to Oakland.  Plus there was employee parking right at LAUPT.  So when I was in the Navy it was a regular means of transportation back and forth to the Bay Area.  But the automat was pretty bad.  That was about 1962.  Thanks for the picture.

JBWX