This is the first of fifteen Southern Pacific timetables I’ll be presenting over the next month. This one is for the Portland-San Francisco/Oakland Shasta Route, including both the Cascade and Siskiyou lines. It shows some branch line trains along this … Continue reading
Category Archives: Southern Pacific
Southern Pacific opened up the Natron Cutoff in 1926, allowing trains to go over the Cascades instead of the Siskiyous. This postcard folder has a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge before it was painted orange. In fact, it is … Continue reading
This postcard folder is postmarked “Mailed from Summit Siskiyous, Top of World, Mt. Shasta 14,444 ft. elevation.” There’s no date on the postmark, but it must be later than yesterday’s, which was mailed with a penny stamp, as this one … Continue reading
Not counting the cover, this folder has twenty-two postcard-sized photos. About half are of scenes in California and half in Oregon. Although there are numerous photos of Southern Pacific trains and it uses Southern Pacific slogans (“the road of a … Continue reading
Southern Pacific once had a line to Tillamook on the Oregon Coast. Completed in 1911, it was originally called the Pacific Rail & Navigation Company. Southern Pacific formally took it over in 1915. Someone has written “1915” on this postcard … Continue reading
Published by the Passenger Department, Southern Pacific Company, this little booklet has four pages of text followed by two dozen full-page photos plus a centerfold photo of Yosemite Valley. Though nominally black-and-white, most of the photos are printed in a … Continue reading
This menu uses the exact same photo that was used in a 1947 menu but cropped to fit on the front cover rather than wrap around to the back, with the result that one of the towers of the bridge … Continue reading
At first glance, this menu cover has the same photo as one we’ve seen from 1958. But a closer look reveals that the photos are different and were taken some years apart. This photo is zoomed out a bit to … Continue reading
In 1954 and 1955, Southern Pacific converted seven lounge and observation cars into three-quarter length dome cars. At one end of these cars, a lower-level lounge was overtopped by a high, domed ceiling, producing an expansive atmosphere accurately conveyed by … Continue reading
This 1951 brochure unfolds to be 32 inches long and provides a station-by-station description of the trip from Portland to Oakland and San Francisco. At the time the brochure was made, passengers still rode a Southern Pacific ferry from Oakland … Continue reading