The ''West Coast'' was a named train of the Southern Pacific Railroad from

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

to Portland via the

San Joaquin Valley The San Joaquin Valley ( ; es, Valle de San Joaquín) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven ...

. It had

through car In rail terminology, a through coach is a passenger car (coach) that is re-marshalled during the course of its journey. It begins the journey attached to one train, and arrives at its destination attached to another train. Through coaches save th ...

service to

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 ...

via the Great Northern Railway.''The Official Guide of the Railways''. The Railroad Journal. January, 1947. Pages 869, 882 Unlike the ''West Coast'', Amtrak's ''

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 format ...

'' takes the Coast Line through San Luis Obispo and Oakland; no Southern Pacific passenger train was ever scheduled to run from Los Angeles to Portland via Oakland. The first through train from Los Angeles to Portland started in 1924 and was named ''West Coast'' in 1927, by which time it was on the Cascade Line via Klamath Falls. In California it sometimes ran on the West Valley via Orland and Davis and sometimes on the East Valley via Marysville and Roseville; it always ran via Merced. It was always an overnight train between Sacramento and Los Angeles; in 1932-36 it was combined with the ''Owl'' south of Fresno. The train was discontinued north of Sacramento in 1949 and south of Sacramento in 1960.

References

Passenger trains of the Southern Pacific Transportation Company Named passenger trains of the United States Railway services introduced in 1927 Railway services discontinued in 1960 {{US-rail-transport-stub