In the late 1930s, Southern Pacific had a series of wrap-around black-and-white photo menus that perhaps inspired Union Pacific/Southern Pacific’s post-war wrap-around color photo menus. This one shows Yosemite Valley, “off our San Joaquin Valley Route in California.” Unlike the … Continue reading
Category Archives: Southern Pacific
Here’s a luggage sticker advertising the Southern Pacific/Rock Island Californian. As described in the brochure for that train, the Californian was a budget service designed to compete with the Union Pacific Challenger. The sticker was probably issued about the same … Continue reading
Inaugurated in 1937, the Rock Island-Southern Pacific Californian was an attempt to compete with the Union Pacific Challenger in the Chicago-Los Angeles market. In other words, it was a low-cost train with tourist sleepers rather than Pullmans and low-cost meals … Continue reading
This 12-page booklet is undated, but it describes the Daylight (not yet called the Coast Daylight) as if it were brand new, which puts it to 1937. Another indication that the booklet came out with the new train is that … Continue reading
Although the San Francisco Overland Limited went from Chicago to Ogden on the Chicago & North Western and Union Pacific railroads, this menu is marked for the Southern Pacific. This suggests that the railroads each switched their own diners into … Continue reading
This 1928 booklet has paintings by Maurice Logan on both the front and back covers. However, this is one of those curious railroad booklets in which what should be the front cover (shown immediately below) is on the back. Logan’s … Continue reading
Here are five Southern Pacific blotters from the Dale Hastin collection. The first one, dated 1937, advertises “two famed trains to California,” the Sunset and the Argonaut. It lists SP agents in Birmingham and Chattanooga, neither of which were actually … Continue reading
This envelope seems to be dated 1-67, a time when the railroad had gained a reputation of being anti-passenger. It had reduced service on most routes to at most one train a day, cutting the Shasta Daylight (which is nevertheless … Continue reading
Southern Pacific operated a lot of passenger trains in the 1950s. Most of the changes from the 1936 timetable to this one from 1954 have to do with streamlining of former heavyweight trains. Click image to download a 31.4-MB PDF … Continue reading
“Santa Barbara is truly an all-year vacationland,” gushes this brief booklet from 1954. “Its temperature of 60 degrees (24-hour average throughout the year) is a delight to everyone.” Naturally, the best way to get there was on the Coast Daylight. … Continue reading