The front cover of this timetable heralds an award given to Southern Pacific for having progressive passenger service in 1950. The award was given out by the Federation for Railway Progress, one of the efforts by maverick financier Robert Young … Continue reading
The Peninsula, of course, is the San Francisco peninsula, which includes San Mateo County. SP commuter trains continued south of the peninsula to San Jose and other communities in Santa Clara County. This flyer lists fares; the Streamliner Memories reader … Continue reading
This is the 24-page condensed version of yesterday’s timetable. A careful examination reveals that many of the pages in yesterday’s timetable have been reprinted here almost verbatim; the only differences are the page numbers and the deletion of timetable numbers. … Continue reading
This November, people once again debated the change to and from Daylight Savings Time. In 1950, a number of states pushed the clocks back in the fall, but it was far from uniform. The front cover of this timetable reminds … Continue reading
The front cover of this timetable advertises the Starlight, a “new, overnight ‘fun’ train between San Francisco and Los Angeles.” The all-coach train was fully streamlined, “just like the Daylights, only at night.” The train came equipped with a tavern-lounge … Continue reading
Marked “for train distribution,” this folding timetable shows only the Coast and San Joaquin routes. That means it has three panels of coast route schedules (one of which was mostly bus connections), two panels of San Joaquin route schedules, and … Continue reading
I noted yesterday that passenger train ridership was rapidly falling in the late 1940s, which may help explain why the number of pages in SP’s timetable shrank from 56 in 1948 to 52 in 1949. It doesn’t, however, explain why … Continue reading
The front cover of this timetable advertises the “new Golden State,” whose abbreviated name (it had previously been called Golden State Limited) covered up the fact that Southern Pacific was getting cold feet about passenger service. Originally, SP and Rock … Continue reading
Dated November 1, 1942, this issue of West doesn’t promote any vacation destinations or announce new trains, which would have been inappropriate in the midst of the world war. Instead, it relates how Union Pacific and Southern Pacific ceremoniously “undrove” … Continue reading
Here’s another menu with a cover painting by Michel Kady, similar to ones we’ve seen featuring Chinatown and other California scenes. This one is special because it has a train in the picture, something not found on most Southern Pacific … Continue reading
