Nostalgia & History > Before and after May 1, 1971

Before and after.  The first picture is one of the last SP train 99's in late April 1971.  It is about to duck into Tunnel 5-1/2 near Metz.  Note the SOU sleeper, in its last days the Daylight carried a through sleeper from San Francisco to Washington, DC via a connection with the Sunset at LA, and the  Southern at New Orleans.  The second picture is the second northbound Coast Starlight at Salinas on May 2, 1971.

JBWX

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Both of these should be in a book.

Adam

In the early days of Amtrak your train in Salinas was still #99, the Coast Daylight, and would then become #12 the Coast Starlight when it passed Oakland. Amtrak timetables kept the 98-99 numbers for a while until they worked out their own numbering system.
Even after it became #’s 11,12,13,&14 timetables still called it the Coast Daylight Starlight.
SR

Posted from iPhone

Stunning quality.
Bob

Nice!  Also of note is the PFE trailer on the TOFC flat car to the left in the 2nd photo.  

Cheers,
Jim

refarkas Wrote:
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> Stunning quality.
> Bob

Yes, stunning is right!  Great power as well!

Great pair of photos with crisp color and detail.

Rich

Adding to the compliments above. These are great shots and memories. Thanks for sharing!

An excellent pair for sure.
JB

Healthy dose of matching SP Budds and the double headlights make these even better.  BSB

First they are wonderfully clear and detailed pictures.  The first photo demonstrates how SP effectively cut costs while maintaining the basic standards of cleanliness, functionality and safety.  As I recall, the 99/98 portion of the train had about 7 employees staffing it.  The sleepers and diner/lounge were unstaffed I believe.  But east, as the Sunset, it had a staff of about 14 on-board.  One can understand why SP refused to pursue cultivating long distance passenger service on trains that were only marginally populated.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/06/21 08:35 by Hou74-76.

BoilingMan Wrote:
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> In the early days of Amtrak your train in Salinas
> was still #99, the Coast Daylight, and would then
> become #12 the Coast Starlight when it passed
> Oakland. Amtrak timetables kept the 98-99 numbers
> for a while until they worked out their own
> numbering system.
> Even after it became #’s 11,12,13,&14 timetables
> still called it the Coast Daylight Starlight.
> SR
>
> Posted from iPhone

Those early days after May 1 must have been chaotic, as schedules, crews, equipment, and so on had to be sorted out. 
JBWX

Hou74-76 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> First they are wonderfully clear and detailed
> pictures.  The first photo demonstrates how SP
> effectively cut costs while maintaining the basic
> standards of cleanliness, functionality and
> safety.  As I recall, the 99/98 portion of the
> train had about 7 employees staffing it.  The
> sleepers and diner/lounge were unstaffed I
> believe.  But east, as the Sunset, it had a staff
> of about 14 on-board.  One can understand why SP
> refused to pursue cultivating long distance
> passenger service on trains that were only
> marginally populated.
Crews for the sleepers and diner deadheaded from SF to LA to their jobs. One sleeper was working as a parlor car



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/06/21 10:10 by WAF.

I pulled out my May 1, 1971 Amtrak public timetable, which may or may not reflect what actually happened in those early chaotic days.  The most interesting thing is a errata sheet made with a copier and stapled in showing a revised schedule and routing for the Chicago-San Francisco service "accout D&RGW not in Railpax."  The Coast route had a 11-12 tri-weekly between San Diego and Seattle, and a 98-99 between Oakland and Los Angeles the other four days.  The Coast route trains do not show a train name, just a number, with 11 running Seattle to San Diego, and 12 running San Diego to Seattle.  I would guess for dispatching purposes all the trains ran as extras (that was back in the days of timetable and trainorder operation).  Need to dig through my boxes and see what other trivia I can dig up.

JBWX

Outstanding photos, both the quality and subject.

Jim B

I've often wondered how the cutover was handled in the first few days, especially when it came to on board services.  For example, I assume they went from automats to diners on some trains - were SP's commissary and dining car departments able to support the improved on-board service right away?  And ticketing must have been a nightmare.  Did they just stop taking advance reservations sometime in advance of Amtrak day?
 

All trains ran extra in non CTC territory. Everything else was normal with Amtrak billed for services performed

Was Salinas a TO station for eastbounds only, or did Photoshop remove the westbound semaphore blade off the TO signal?

East (south) bound only, CTC westbound to Watsonville Junction.  The CTC was fairly new, when I hired out in 1959 it was still ABS in both directions.  The north end of the Coast (later Western) Division by 1971 was an interesting combination of short stretches of DT, CTC, and single track TO territory.

JBW

I hate to pick nits as that is an awesome photo but I am almost positive "Train 99" is actually Train 98, the eastbound Coast Daylight - the hill would be on the engineer's side if the train was westbound. Both photos are awesome but I love the Train 98 photo.