The ''Coast Daylight'', originally known as the ''Daylight Limited'', was a
passenger train
A passenger train is a train used to transport people along a railroad line. These trains may consist of unpowered passenger railroad cars (also known as coaches or carriages) hauled by one or more locomotives, or may be self-propelled; self pr ...
on the
Southern Pacific Railroad
The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...
(SP) between
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
and
San Francisco, California
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
, via SP's
Coast Line. It was advertised as the "most beautiful passenger train in the world," carrying a particular red, orange, and black color scheme. The train operated from 1937 until 1974, one of the few passenger trains retained by
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...
in 1971. Amtrak merged it with the ''
Coast Starlight
The ''Coast Starlight'' is a passenger train operated by Amtrak on the West Coast of the United States between Seattle and Los Angeles via Portland and the San Francisco Bay Area. The train, which has operated continuously since Amtrak's formati ...
'' in 1974.
History
Southern Pacific
![Southern Pacific Daylight Horseshoe Curve](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Southern_Pacific_Daylight_Horseshoe_Curve.JPG)
Southern Pacific introduced the ''Daylight Limited'' on April 28, 1922. The train operated on a 13-hour schedule between the
Third and Townsend Depot
The Third and Townsend Depot was the main train station in the city of San Francisco for much of the first three quarters of the 20th century. The station at Third Street and Townsend Street served as the northern terminus for Southern Pacific's ...
in San Francisco and
Central Station
Central stations or central railway stations emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century as railway stations that had initially been built on the edge of city centres were enveloped by urban expansion and became an integral part of the ...
in Los Angeles, running on Fridays and Saturdays only. In 1922 and 1923, the train ran seasonally, beginning in April and ending in November. Daily operation began in July 1923. The SP shortened the running time to 12 hours for the 1924 season. Until the late 1920s, it made no intermediate stops (except for servicing). Its 12-hour schedule was two hours shorter than any other train on its route.
The streamlined ''Daylight'' began on March 21, 1937, pulled by
GS-2 steam locomotives on a -hour schedule. It was the first of the ''Daylight'' series that later included the ''
San Joaquin Daylight
The ''San Joaquin Daylight'' was a Southern Pacific passenger train (train numbers 51 and 52) inaugurated between Los Angeles and San Francisco's Oakland Pier by way of the San Joaquin Valley and Tehachapi Pass on July 4, 1941. Travel times were ...
'', ''
Shasta Daylight
The ''Shasta Daylight'' was a Southern Pacific Railroad passenger train between Oakland Pier in Oakland, California, and Portland, Oregon. It started on July 10, 1949, and was SP's third "Daylight" streamliner; it had a fast 15-hour-30-minut ...
'', ''
Sacramento Daylight
The ''Sacramento Daylight'' was a named passenger train operated by the Southern Pacific Railroad, part of the family of "Daylights" which included the ''San Joaquin Daylight'', ''Shasta Daylight'', ''Coast Daylight'', and '' Sunbeam''. It carrie ...
'', and ''
Sunbeam''. Coach fare San Francisco to Los Angeles was $9.47 one way; in 1938 it dropped to $6 to match Santa Fe's ''Golden Gate''s.
![Southern Pacific Coast Daylights 1945](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Southern_Pacific_Coast_Daylights_1945.jpg)
By June 30, 1939, the streamlined Daylights had carried on for an average occupancy of 344 passengers.
The ''Coast Daylight'' ran behind steam until January 7, 1955, long after most streamliners had changed to diesel.
A second train, the ''Noon Daylight'', ran the same route 1940–42 and 1946–49 with a suspension during World War II. The original ''Coast Daylight'' became the ''Morning Daylight'' during this time.
In 1949 the ''Noon Daylight'' was replaced by the overnight ''Starlight'' using the same equipment. In 1956 coaches from the ''Starlight'' were added to the all-Pullman ''Lark'' and the ''Starlight'' was discontinued in 1957. Amtrak later revived the name for its Los Angeles to Seattle service known as the ''
Coast Starlight
The ''Coast Starlight'' is a passenger train operated by Amtrak on the West Coast of the United States between Seattle and Los Angeles via Portland and the San Francisco Bay Area. The train, which has operated continuously since Amtrak's formati ...
''.
A 1966 study by the
Stanford Research Institute
SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic d ...
found that it cost the Southern Pacific $18.41 to transport a passenger on the ''Coast Daylight'' between Los Angeles and San Francisco (), roughly twice that of air or bus service . Reasons given included the labor-intensiveness of rail service, and the fact that a single consist could make only one trip per day.
Amtrak
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...
took over intercity passenger service in the United States on May 1, 1971. The ''Coast Daylight'' was retained as an unnamed train, with its northern terminus changed to
Oakland, California
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...
where it connected with the ''
California Zephyr
The ''California Zephyr'' is a passenger train operated by Amtrak between Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area (at Emeryville), via Omaha, Denver, Salt Lake City, and Reno. At , it is Amtrak's longest daily route, and second-longest overal ...
''. Three days per week, it was extended to a
San Diego
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...
–
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
train. On November 14, Amtrak extended the Oakland–Los Angeles train to San Diego, renumbered it to #12/13, and renamed it ''Coast Daylight''. The Seattle–San Diego train became the ''Coast Daylight/Starlight'' (#11-12) northbound and ''Coast Starlight/Daylight'' (#13-14) southbound. Both trains were cut back from San Diego to Los Angeles in April 1972, replaced by a third ''San Diegan''. On June 10, 1973, Amtrak began running the combined ''Coast Daylight/Starlight'' daily for the summer months. Positive response led to Amtrak to retain this service, and the ''Coast Daylight'' name was dropped on May 19, 1974.
Proposed restoration
Amtrak has worked on plans for resuming ''Coast Daylight'' service from San Francisco to Los Angeles since the early 1990s. It may be merged with the existing ''
Pacific Surfliner
The ''Pacific Surfliner'' is a passenger train service serving the communities on the coast of Southern California between San Diego and San Luis Obispo.
The service carried 2,924,117 passengers during fiscal year 2016, a 3.4% increase from F ...
'' route, thus extending the line to San Diego. More specific plans have been made in the last few years. The latest review of the possibility of service restoration was made on August 14, 2014, the San Luis Obispo Council of Governments (SLOCOG) organized and hosted a meeting between the Los Angeles – San Diego – San Luis Obispo (LOSSAN) Rail Corridor Agency and the Coast Rail Coordinating Council (CRCC), where substantial progress was made toward identifying which specific policy initiatives would be given priority so that restoration of the ''Coast Daylight'' service might be effectuated before the end of the decade. A plan by Chicago-based Corridor Capital would involve the use of ex-Santa Fe
Hi-Level
The Hi-Level was a type of bilevel intercity railroad passenger car used in the United States. Car types included coaches, dining cars, and lounge cars; a sleeping car variant was considered but never produced. Most passenger spaces were on the ...
cars and
EMD F59PHI
The EMD F59PH is a four-axle B-B diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division from 1988 to 1994. A variant, the F59PHI, was produced from 1994 to 2001. The F59PH was originally built for GO Transit commuter opera ...
locomotives in a top-and-tail formation.
In 2021, shortly after president
Joe Biden entered office, Amtrak released a plan for route restructuring which specifically targeted new corridor service, and the Coast Daylight was listed as one of the routes desired for restoration.
Equipment
![Daylight tavern car lounge 1937 Southern Pacific](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Daylight_tavern_car_lounge_1937_Southern_Pacific.jpg)
The heavyweight ''Daylight Limited'' debuted in 1922 with five 72-seat coaches and a
dining car
A dining car (American English) or a restaurant car (British English), also a diner, is a railroad passenger car that serves meals in the manner of a full-service, sit-down restaurant.
It is distinct from other railroad food service cars that ...
.
American Car and Foundry
ACF Industries, originally the American Car and Foundry Company (abbreviated as ACF), is an American manufacturer of railroad rolling stock. One of its subsidiaries was once (1925–54) a manufacturer of motor coaches and trolley coaches und ...
delivered new 90-seat coaches in 1923; the Southern Pacific also added a 32-seat
parlor
A parlour (or parlor) is a reception room or public space. In medieval Christian Europe, the "outer parlour" was the room where the monks or nuns conducted business with those outside the monastery and the "inner parlour" was used for necessar ...
-
observation car
An observation car/carriage/coach (in US English, often abbreviated to simply observation or obs) is a type of railroad passenger car, generally operated in a passenger train as the rearmost carriage, with windows or a platform on the rear of th ...
.
4-6-2
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles and two trailing wheels on one axle. The locomotiv ...
"Pacific" steam locomotives hauled the train up and down the coast.
4-8-2
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels, eight powered and coupled driving wheels and two trailing wheels. This type of steam locomotive is commonly known as t ...
"Mountain" locomotives displaced the Pacifics in the early 1930s. The Southern Pacific removed the observation cars in 1931.
Pullman-Standard
The Pullman Company, founded by George Pullman, was a manufacturer of railroad cars in the mid-to-late 19th century through the first half of the 20th century, during the boom of railroads in the United States. Through rapid late-19th century ...
delivered two complete sets of equipment (consists) for the 1937 ''Coast Daylight''. Each consisted of a 44-seat
baggage-coach; a 48-seat coach; three pairs of articulated coaches, with 50 seats in each of the six coaches; a lunch counter-tavern car, a dining car, a 29-seat parlor car; and a 23-seat parlor-observation car. Each consist cost $1 million (equivalent to $ in adjusted for inflation), the most expensive passenger trains built in the United States to date.
In the articulated coaches restrooms were split, with the men's restroom in the odd-numbered car and the women's restroom in the even-numbered car. Seating was 2×2, with a center aisle down the middle. Luggage storage was located adjacent to the
vestibule. The coffee shop-tavern had two seating areas. At one end of the car was the coffee shop, with 24 individual stools arrayed around a counter. At the other end was the tavern, with booth seating for 18. Between the two areas was a kitchen. The dining car could seat 40 patrons at 10 tables. The parlor-observation car seated 10 in the rear, rounded-off observation area and a further 23 in the adjoining parlor section.
Prior to the full reequipping in 1940 the Southern Pacific made several changes to augment capacity. In 1938 it replaced the coffee shop-tavern cars with individual tavern and coffee shop cars. The original cars were rebuilt as full taverns and assigned to the Los Angeles–
''
Argonaut
The Argonauts (; Ancient Greek: ) were a band of heroes in Greek mythology, who in the years before the Trojan War (around 1300 BC) accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, ''Argo'', ...
''. The following year the Southern Pacific swapped the individual 48-seat coaches with an additional articulated coach pair from the
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
–
Dallas
Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
''
Sunbeam''.
The 1937–1939 equipment ran as the ''Noon Daylight'' with the inauguration of the ''Morning Daylight'' in 1940. For the ''Morning Daylight'', the Southern Pacific ordered two new sets of equipment from Pullman-Standard. These included a 44-seat coach-baggage car; three pairs of articulated coaches, with 46 seats in each of the six coaches; a triple-unit coffee shop-kitchen-dining car; a 44-seat coach; a tavern car; a 27-seat parlor car; and a 22-seat parlor-observation car.
The ''Morning Daylight'' would be completely reequipped just a year later. The 1940 baggage-coach, tavern, and parlor were retained. It was assigned new articulated coach pairs (with the number increased from three to four), triple-unit coffee shop-kitchen-dining car, 44-seat coach, and parlor-observation car. Effectively it was the same train as in 1940, but a year newer, with an additional articulated coach. The ''Noon Daylight'' mixed old and new equipment:
* the baggage-coaches from the 1937 train
* the articulated coaches from the 1940 ''Morning Daylight''
* the triple-unit coffee shop-kitchen-dining cars from the 1940 ''Morning Daylight''
* a new articulated coach pair, seating 46 like all the others
* the 44-seat coach from the 1940 ''Morning Daylight''
* the parlor car from the 1937 train
* the parlor-observation car from the 1940 ''Morning Daylight''
With the discontinuance of the ''Noon Daylight'' in 1949 its cars were reassigned to the ''San Joaquin Daylight'' and ''Starlight''. The ''Coast Daylight'' gained new 48-seat coaches from Pullman-Standard in 1954, three per train.
Dining cars were eliminated in the 1960s, replaced by
Automat
An automat is a fast food restaurant where simple foods and drinks are served by vending machines. The world's first automat, Quisisana, opened in Berlin, Germany in 1895.
By country Germany
The first automat in the world was the Quisisana ...
cars that offered food from
vending machine
A vending machine is an automated machine that provides items such as snacks, beverages, cigarettes, and lottery tickets to consumers after cash, a credit card, or other forms of payment are inserted into the machine or otherwise made. The fir ...
s instead of made-to-order meals in the dining cars, cutting the cost of the train's dining crew.
Locomotives
Two ''Coast Daylight'' locomotives survive:
Southern Pacific 4449
Southern Pacific 4449, also known as the Daylight, is the only surviving example of Southern Pacific Railroad's "GS-4" class of 4-8-4 "Northern" type steam locomotives and one of only two GS-class locomotives surviving, the other being " GS-6" ...
, a
GS-4 steam locomotive
A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...
which was a Bicentennial
American Freedom Train
Two national Freedom Trains have toured the United States: the 1947–49 special exhibit Freedom Train and the 1975–76 American Freedom Train which celebrated the United States Bicentennial. Each train had its own special red, white and blue p ...
engine in 1975–76, and
Southern Pacific 6051, an
EMD E9
The E9 is a , A1A-A1A passenger train-hauling diesel locomotive built by General Motors' Electro-Motive Division of La Grange, Illinois, between April 1954 and January 1964. 100 cab-equipped A units were produced and 44 cabless booster B units ...
diesel locomotive
A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving whee ...
.
; Steam Locomotives
; Diesel Locomotives
See also
*
Passenger train service on the Southern Pacific Railroad
Notes
References
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
*
*
External links
Friends of SP 4449
{{Former Amtrak routes
Passenger trains of the Southern Pacific Transportation Company
Named passenger trains of the United States
Railway services introduced in 1922
Articulated passenger trains
Railway services discontinued in 1974
Former Amtrak routes
Proposed Amtrak routes