The birth of a Southern Pacific Daylight passenger train

In the early 50s most of the railroads still had an attitude that they could still save the passenger

train and invested millions of dollars in new equipment to save it. Southern Pacific purchased dozens

of locos to make it happen plus hundreds of new passenger cars.

 

Innovative ideas were used by the Southern Pacific including articulated passenger cars that shared

a wheel set between the cars so you could walk through without a door to deal with. Note the

short panel between these cars.

 

The owner of this train is member John Smith where John grew up in California and remembers the real

thing as a kid growing up in SP country.

 

This car I believe is the cooking section for the triple dining car where tables were on both sides of the

preparation car and perhaps one car was for first class and the other for the peasants. This is the

ultimate articulated car as it had 3 cars in this set. 3 cars... 4 sets of wheels.

 

The next best thing to travel was in a dome car for visibility but the second best is the observation car

where you can get a great view of where you've been! This is where kings and CEOs' hang out.

 

I got  a shot of the complete train leaving the yard as I had to get going home. No mention was made

as to the "investment" in this magnificent train. Very nice, John!