Nostalgia & History > Classic psgr trains in S. California

In the late Sixties getting pictures of the name trains of the three railroads in Southern California was like shooting fish in a barrel. Being close to L.A. daylight shots were plentiful. But the calendar was running out... Here are some samples:
Photo 1: Santa Fe eastbound rounding the curve up from Cajon climbing to Sullivan's Curve. I don't know which train it was, but as you can see it was heavy with head-end cars.
Photo 2: Union Pacific E's panned eastbound near Walnut. In this case I liked the wires in the picture. I recall it was the City of Los Angeles.
Photo 3. Southern Pacific's Golden State westbound making its station stop at Alhambra. It was a long train.
JEB

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Rarely do we see photos of the Golden State, SP #3. 6046 had a very sweet sounding Nathan old casting P5 horn which I experiences many time when the locomotive was used on the Coast Daylight and Lark.

Again, thanks for posting these.

Regards, Jim Evans

#2 rocks! Thanks for posting.

Steve Mitchell
http://www.yardgoatimages.com

Nice shots, John... note the UP hogger w/ window down and door open--probably hotter than hell up there!
Speaking of hot, our sleeper on the City of LA in '69 had B/O A.C.--it was unbearable in there! My dad and I toughed it out while my mom and sisters retreated to a dome which was cool. Anyway, UP tried valiantly to fix it at Las Vegas where it was over 100 degrees that night.
That's one thing most fans don't talk about much.... the A.C. didn't work very well on those Budd/P-S/ACF cars in the late 60's/early 70's--esp. during the early Amtrak years.

Pic #3 is the combined Sunset/Golden State?

timz2 Wrote:
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> Pic #3 is the combined Sunset/Golden State?


Only the photographer would know, based on the date of the picture. Up to 1964, they ran as separate trains.

Copy19 Wrote:
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> Photo 1: Santa Fe eastbound rounding the curve up
> from Cajon climbing to Sullivan's Curve. I don't
> know which train it was, but as you can see it was
> heavy with head-end cars.

#1 looks like the Grand Canyon.

JL

I would agree that the Grand Canyon is,indeed,in Photo No.1.
The mix of Heavyweight and Lightweight cars was the clue!

Thanks for the posting.

Jim Baker, Whittier CA

As best I remember I took the picture in 1966 at the earliest, 67 at the latest. JEB


ATSF3751 Wrote:
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> timz2 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
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> > Pic #3 is the combined Sunset/Golden State?
>
>
> Only the photographer would know, based on the
> date of the picture. Up to 1964, they ran as
> separate trains.

SP combined the Sunset (trains 1 & 2) with trains 3 & 4, the Golden State on April 20, 1964. If this picture is from 1966, it is surely a summer photo as the combined trains would have been upwards of 16 cars.

Norm

The train in the first photo should be Number 24, the Grand Canyon. The train often ran on four coaches, as the train in the photo and it had a heavyweight coach on some runs. Note that the 5 passenger cat is smooth side and is likely a Valley series sleeper. Out of Los Angeles, at various times, the Grand Canyon did not have a diner or lounge car until Winslow, Az. A meal stop was made at Barstow and a news agent sold sandwiches, drinks and snacks on board.

The Sunset/Golden State was a long train after they were combined. Some of my notes indicated that during the Summer of 1965 and 1966 the trains were run in sections (June 26, 1965 1/2 3 E-units and 18 cars; 2/2 4 F units and 11 cars); July 1 1967 No. 5 E unit (including CRI&P 650) and 20 cars. In April a No. 2 was observed with 14 cars