Nostalgia & History > Coast Daylights last mile

The Coast Daylight has just passed MP1 along 7th st and will soon make the final turn into San Franciscos Third & Townsend Station. The year is 1959 but I can still remember taking this shot.

http://www.snowcrest.net/photobob/index1.html

---

Great Pic BOB

I finally am getting to SF.....Espee99

photobob Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
The year
> is 1959 but I can still remember taking this
> shot.
>
No mean feat at our age!
Africansteam

Tom, I agree. The "Daylight scheme" was the best ever. At least I have good memories of my childhood watching the GS4's leaving or arriving at San Jose in the 50's and 60's, it was awesome! When they abolished the colors and took away the cabooses, the romance faded away. By the way, thanks for the memory Bob.

......My eye says that is a "Halloween" painted PA, (vis-a-vis black body, orange "turkey feathers", and (I'll be damned), the block gothic lettering! Was it? What was the lead unit number?

Thanks for sharing the image!

Bob

ATSF100WEST......Out

The unit number was 6062 and it was red and grey. I seemed to remember that a few of the units semed to be painted in what looked like a Day-Glo type of red. Heres another example on unit 204. Both photos were taken in late afternoon winter light and although the slides are 45 years old they have not shifted color. They were shot on ASA10 Kodachrome. Even in deep shadows the red seems to light up.

---

Looks like regular "bloody nose" paint to me, but the lettering is definetely the billboard style that was more common on bridges and advertising than on locomotives.

Dan

ATSF100WEST Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ......My eye says that is a "Halloween" painted
> PA, (vis-a-vis black body, orange "turkey
> feathers", and (I'll be damned), the block gothic
> lettering! Was it? What was the lead unit number?
>
> Thanks for sharing the image!
>
> Bob
>
> ATSF100WEST......Out

It didn't matter what the shade of red was to me. I still think those PA's were the sleekest passenger engines around. They just always looked like they were "cuttin' the dew", even standing still.

Bob -
Everytime I see a photo of yours I wonder if maybe the US goverment would for the sake of photography, break up the Big Railroads into little SP, WP, BN, CN, IC, RG, PRR, NYC, NW, Southern and C&O, B&O, WM!

Thanks for the great posts!

/Mitch

They probably started breaking up the lash-ups in the late 50's when they started shifting over to the grey and scarlet and at the same time shifting to the stainless steel with red stripe (Sunset Limited" paint scheme. The name long distance premier trains (Lark, Coast Daylight, Overland, City of San Francisco,)stayed "solid" pretty long in the game compared to some of the other trains, Del Monte's, Valley Daylight, etc.

I can remember that the Coast Daylights were behind Daylight E's and then suddenly everything was grey and red and stainless steel and red on the passengers. Some freight Black Widows lasted into the early 70's. I was born in late 53 so the memory of a 6-7 year old isn't going to be perfect.

Several of the ex-T&NO PAs received this style of painting and lettering (commonly called Gothic). At least one that was repainted this way also had the anti-climber, buffer, and pilot painted red. It's unclear to me whether these units had been repainted at Hardy Street while still on the T&NO, or at LA after they were transferred to the Pacific Lines.

The lettering was the same style used on freight cars, and was applied to a couple of dozen or so units of various types repainted in late 1958, before Roman was settled on.

The red did indeed seem to have an orange tint to it. There were some units repainted in the Seventies that also had this color. It was quite obvious when compared to regular SP scarlet.

I had made a number of trips on the Daylight to LA when the power was the GS steam and the train was super. Later I took my children just to San Jose to show them how great it was. Well, the power was some anonymous diesel. And for breakfast all we could do was buy frozen waffles from a machine and heat them in a toaster on the plastic table.

Recently the kids have told me what a great treat it was to go on that train and have so much fun in the diner. Oh well; that's nice for them.

For me, that was the end of the Daylight.