Nostalgia & History > Train #51, The San Joaquin Daylight at LAUPT

SP SDP45 Ready to leave Los Angeles in March of 1971, the round end obs, now converted to a chair car, was a fixture on the train until the end on April 30th, 1971.

The weather that morning did not help the quality of the Kodachrome 25

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No apologies needed Drew! That was a neat little train, one of my favorites. I rode it once or twice back in the 60's when I was stationed at Edwards AFB & even have a little Super 8 footage of it too.
Thank you for posting these.

Tom

Boy Tom, that be something to see, especially the way the Antelope Valley looked back then, and when the base was full swing with the aricraft buisness for the US Air Force!

Looks like 99 on the track next to it.

I think that was going to be that nights #1 but I am not sure

During the short period of time the SJ Daylight had this observation car in the consist, my wife and I rode the train to Oakland. Of course I wanted to ride in the observation car, and headed there as soon as we boarded. But the conductor said we could not ride there as he was reserving it for a load of school kids that were to board a few miles up the line. It is my recollection that the rounded rear interior was wasted as there were no seats there, just a bare, slightly elevated floor - not the seating arrangement I expected. So it was off to a regular chair or coach car with some time spent later in the vestibule with the upper half of the dutch door open for a fine view. Great as that little train was I missed the magnificent red & orange colored corrugated Daylight cars.

About what time did that train go through Saugus in 1969-71? My mom had a weekend job within site of the tracks, and I went there a few times, but I don't remember if I ever saw "the passenger train" go by.

scottp Wrote:
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> About what time did that train go through Saugus
> in 1969-71? My mom had a weekend job within site
> of the tracks, and I went there a few times, but I
> don't remember if I ever saw "the passenger train"
> go by.

I used to remember 51 going through Mojave around 10AM or so. Sorry, I'm not more specific...maybe somebody has access to an
old TT.

Tom

I Think (??)!...

Daylight '99' left around 7:30 and '51' left shortly after, I will check my tables tomorrow at the PRS museum in San Dimas.
That would put 51 in Saugus at about 8 to 9:00am

Jim Baker

Number One arrived at 6:30a
51 left at 7a
1/99 left at 8:30a

Oct,1970 timetable shows #51 leaving LAUPT at 7AM, Saugus, a flag stop, at 8:01AM. #99 leaves LAUPT at 8:30AM.

The "econobox" S.P. baggage car appears to have an unusual paint scheme. It's definitely not the usual Lark dark gray normally seen. Is this really Lark light gray on the lower half of the carbody, and Lark dark gray on the upper half of the carbody, with a silver separator stripe? Were any other S.P. cars painted in this scheme?

- Doug Debs

DWDebs/2472 Wrote:
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> The "econobox" S.P. baggage car appears to have an
> unusual paint scheme. It's definitely not the
> usual Lark dark gray normally seen. Is this
> really Lark light gray on the lower half of the
> carbody, and Lark dark gray on the upper half of
> the carbody, with a silver separator stripe? Were
> any other S.P. cars painted in this scheme?
>
> - Doug Debs

What you seeins is the effect of shadows and reflections from the covers over the boarding areas.

drew1946 Wrote:
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> DWDebs/2472 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > The "econobox" S.P. baggage car appears to have
> an
> > unusual paint scheme. It's definitely not the
> > usual Lark dark gray normally seen. Is this
> > really Lark light gray on the lower half of the
> > carbody, and Lark dark gray on the upper half
> of
> > the carbody, with a silver separator stripe?
> Were
> > any other S.P. cars painted in this scheme?
> >
> > - Doug Debs
>
> What you seeins is the effect of shadows and
> reflections from the covers over the boarding
> areas.


And the sides of PC&F econoboxes are made of upper and lower sheets riveted together.

What was #52's time through Saugus?

scottp Wrote:
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> What was #52's time through Saugus?


My May of 1968 San Joaquin Division Timetable shows #52 as a flag stop at Saugus at 620pm. I can't find my 1971 timtable.

JDE

Back in '68 what was then Orange Empire Trolley Museum ran an excursion from LA to Bakersfield & back on the SJ. For us SP added an articulated chair car and put our CP mountain obs. 599 on the rear. 599 made a great camera platform and I took some movies of the trip. When we got to the "horseshoe curve" at Caliente, I got a near flat side view of the SDP45 on the point, not working very hard with only six cars. When the movies came back from processing, I showed they to my daughters, who would have been 6 and 7 years old at the time. When we got to the SDP45 shot, one exclaimed, "Daddy, that's a freight train engine!" The other one commented, "I don't like it! It's too square!" Out of the mouths of babes. (I happen to like SDP45's--they are very impressive, but in this case I was outvoted)