Nostalgia & History > The Daylight: Eighty Years Today...

Let's let the late Richard K. Wright describe what's about to happen in this Max Goodland photo from March 21, 1937; the passage is lifted from Dick's self-published 1970 magnum opus, Southern Pacific Train 98-99:

"On March 20, both trains had an idle day and workmen swarmed around both, cleaning the equipment, spot painting the chips and nicks, and making final adjustments. Everything was to be perfect for tomorrow's inauguration... Early on March 21, both trains were taken to their respective stations, in San Francisco and Los Angeles. At 7:00 a.m. the ceremonies began, as NBC carried it live to the country. The moment of departure was drawing near as lovely Miss Olivia de Havilland, star of Warner Brothers Studio, stepped before the microphone: May you have a safe and speedy journey. With this bottle of California champagne I christen you the Daylight. Good luck and Godspeed!"

And with that, SP's bold answer to the Depression burned a red, orange, and black image into the retinas of all bystanders, and into the permanent consciousness of rail enthusiasts around the globe.

Daylight Mania, an incurable affliction sometimes clinically diagnosed as Red-and-Orange Fever, was thus born -- eighty years ago today, March 21. There are a few proud survivors of the physical equipment used on those illustrious trains over the years, and a simple TO search for "Southern Pacific Daylight" will draw more than needs mention here. Technically, I believe it can be said that SP Trains 98 and 99 were among the first major intercity streamlined trains of the era that were built to a lightweight car profile that would survive for half a century as the new standard for American rail passenger equipment. There were still vestiges of the experimental days of early lightweights: articulated car sets, truss construction, triple-bolster floating pedestal trucks that would always remain a distinctive and ultimately unique badge of SP's prewar Daylight equipment. Both trains ushered in a new era of lightweight climate-controlled cars and elegant, modernistic travel. Foam rubber cushions! Picture windows!! Smart fluorescent lighting!!! Air Conditioning!!! The bits and pieces had been around, but nothing really put them together with romance and elán like a Daylight amid the California poppies, lush rolling hills, and spectacular ocean shores.

Today in California -- March 21, 2017 -- lucky passengers on Amtrak's contemporary Coast Starlight will trace the lion's share of that journey of eighty years ago. Most probably won't look beyond the moment (if that far), but we can hope that an enlightened crewmember or onboard docent will use the P.A. system at least once for something more than a rundown of snack bar selections. But it doesn't matter. The Daylight is eighty and the world will never see its like again, but somehow... that legend still burns as hot, clean, and bright as a fire in the belly of a Lima 4-8-4 with a Daylight sun-and-wing hand-painted on its flanks. And even in 2017, as the stations roll by and the California surf continues to look spectacular from high atop Gaviota Trestle, a person given to belief in time travel will still be rewarded amply.

And we hope a glimmer of memory shines for Miss de Havilland today too, one hundred years young and living in Paris. A couple of stars never to fade -- and a rich, never-diminishing source of hyperbole for any new chronicler (or fresh-eyed viewer) of what some have called "The Most Beautiful Train in the World."

Happy Birthday... or as my Dad would say with a thrill as the family motored up Highway 101: "Here comes the Daylight!!"

~ BZ


 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/17 00:21 by Notch16.

---

---

Another classic, well-worded opus from Notch16.  Well done, sir!

Here is SP Daylight #4411 years later, still looking good.

Maertin



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/17 06:23 by LoggerHogger.

---

Nice piece.....too bad you weren't riding the train instead of motoring up the highway !

What do you mean Olivia DeHavilland's in Paris?

I've been standing in an ox cart dressed as a padre for over an hour waiting for 4449 to show up on track 15.

If this is someone's idea of a joke...

GREAT tribute to a great train.....the PNWC-NRHS really needs to get serious and restore the SP 3300, one of the original cars (a combine).  the noted Wright book is one of the reasons the ORHF exists in Portland today.    Arlen

What a magnificent tribute to wake up to!  Well done!
May I ask:  what is the source of the color art?  Is that an original brochure, banner or is that out of a book?
 

Happy birthday Daylight.  Nice tribute Bob, many thanks.  Where ever Dick Wright may be, I'm sure he's smiling.

Jeff Cauthen

SP did all kinds of brochures and route guides for all the Daylights, including the San Joaquin version which I rode a lot as a kid in the '40s and '50s between Madera and Bakersfield and, later Mojave and  Bfl. Great trains, as were the Santa Fe Golden Gates, Calfiornia's first high speed trains!

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

Happy Birthday to a classic train from a more civilized age! On a more somber note, I recall watching the last eastbound "California Zephyr" roar past the WP Team Track by the Jackson St underpass in Hayward, CA on this date - Saturday, March 21, 1970... Two of the great streamliners that defined classic passenger train travel in California...

Best wishes,

ShastaDaylight

What station did it depart in Los Angeles?

The old Central Station.    Present LAUPT was not open until May 1939.

Does any LA folks know where this was located?

• ​This is the intersection of 5th and Central.

---

Thanks for the nice comments!

I believe the color art is a luggage sticker, but I could be mistaken. It's a scan I've had from elsewhere; I do have an original sticker with space for name, car, train, date, etc. but this seems like a souvenir sticker. Some may know this one very well and I'd appreciate hearing.

Yes, SP 3300 -- the original original Daylight car -- is a worthy candidate for a boost from its current state. I visited the car in 1979 when it was at Purdy Metals in Lincoln CA, and have ridden it many times, both on Train 98 and on 53-54 and even Train 12, where it worked some of its last regular miles. The car got around the system due to its utilitarian configuration, and worked a lot of California miles.

I hope the damage it incurred can be repaired reasonably; I know that as a revenue earner the cost-benefit balance had to be weighed. But it is one of the most significant artifacts we have of the U.S. lightweight car transition, and its early build date -- actually 1936 for the car structure -- puts it as one of the first true "streamlined" but standardized cars: standard profile, single unit with couplers, and all the rest.

There are a number of surviving Daylight cars in storage, preserved, refurbished, or working states -- some like the beautiful and still steam-heated SP 2955 Parlor Observation from 1941 that regularly hauls guests behind Portland's GS-4, or like Niles Canyon Railway's SP 2473-74, also from 1941 and having a slow return to 1960s exterior configuration and 1940s-1950s interior appearance while earning revenue. But... there has never, ever been a full restoration to complete and authentic 1937 appearance of a true 1937 member of the original Daylight trains... and the first car in the first train is a pretty good candidate!

Happy Birthday 98-99, and Happy Birthday SP 3300!

~ BZ

My photos:

1. Martinez CA, 1968, Train 12 "Cascade"
2. Lincoln CA, 1979, Salvage Yard
3. Portland, OR, 1991

---

---

---

I wonder if all those who attended the ceremony, or who rode the inaugural train, only Olivia de Havilland is still alive? I wonder if she even remembers the event? She was just over 20-years old when she christened the Daylight.

Besides the birthday of the Daylight, it's also the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach, born in 1685, and perhaps the greatest composer ever.

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/17 00:49 by BCHellman.

Technology-Jeske Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Does any LA folks know where this was located?
> This is the intersection of 5th and Central.

That's correct. The station and platform tracks where sandwich between Central and Alameda St., with 4th Street being the west end (geographical north end) and 6th Street being the east end (geographical south end) .

The station sat along Central, right about where 5th street terminated. Where the parking lot is between the warehouses is where Central Station once stood.

Bob Z
Amen, sir, amen !   your words and priase of the daylight are beautiful beyond measure,  and that train richly deserves the golry you laid upon it,  and more.    I love that train more than I can put into words,  and march 21 has because of this always been a very  special day to me ever since I fell in love with the 4449 more than 40 years ago.    

Eighty years have come and gone but this train as you said so well set the standard for all future streamliner-era trains.  

"Coast Daylight",  your are gone but not forgotten.   Thank you Angus Daniel Mcdonald, and evyone in the Southern Pacific Railroad and Lima Locomotive Works, who had anything at all to do with this glorious train.    I am eternally grateful to everyone of you. 

Happy 80th birthday Southern Pacific Coast Daylight.

IIRC for several years the Coast Daylight was the most profitable passenger train in the nation, a success on every level.
Then along came PSA....and the Lockheed Electra....

Dave Huston of Daylight Sales  (Sweatshirts) in Sacramento used to say that if you had Richard Wright's DAYLIGHT book and $ 12,000,000  :
You could Have One !!

KRK
 

That little engine SP 23 in the photo next to the SP 4311 a narrow gauge locomotive?????????  Also where is the coach SP 3300 today????