Passenger Trains > 80 years ago today...SP Coast Daylight

Eighty years ago today, Southern Pacific inauguated the streamlined Coast Daylight between San Francisco and Los Angeles.  "The Most Beautiful Train in the World" traversed the Coast Line in a style unmatched...and yes, undreamed of...today.

 Well said sir!  Thanks for the anniversary reminder .

Notch16 did a tribute over on Nostalgia and History.  See: http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,4253639

Marty 

Hi Everybody..  Hi Gene...   Tell me please if I am correct...  When the Coast Daylight and the Lark and others were running back in those early years,  did they pass thru the city of ATASCADERO, CA  ??  I think they did-- but I wanted verification..   WHY  ??
Because our frequent Trainorders poster ("AgentAtascadero") had his Father working there as the Station Agent, I do believe !!

Cheers.

KRK

KeyRouteKen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi Everybody..  Hi Gene...   Tell me please if
> I am correct...  When the Coast Daylight and the
> Lark and others were running back in those early
> years,  did they pass thru the city of
> ATASCADERO, CA  ??  I think they did-- but I
> wanted verification..   WHY  ??
> Because our frequent Trainorders poster
> ("AgentAtascadero") had his Father working there
> as the Station Agent, I do believe !!
>
> Cheers.
>
> KRK
      I'd have to say well, sort of.  Yes, Atascadero was a station on the SP Coast Line, and those trains did pass through, daily.  That being said, Atascadero was then an unincorporated community (incorporated somewhere around 1990), and the railroad passed  about a mile east of "downtown".  Lets say Close but no cigar, eh?
       As to the other point, yes, my Dad was the last agent at Atascadero, from '51 until '56, I think, when the agency/station was closed forever.  Turns out the agency was kept open as long as it lasted was the construction of Atascadero State Hospital, which opened in '56.  A LOT of building material was delivered there for the project. 
       Atascadero, a business hours only operation, was not an important part of the train order operations of the day, though orders were given there.  There were 24 hour stations 10 miles away on either side of Atascadero, at Santa Margarita and Paso Robles.
AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA