By 1958, off-season ridership on the Shasta Daylight had fallen so low that Southern Pacific applied to the Interstate Commerce Commission to reduce it to three-day-a-week service. Apparently, it didn’t get permission to do so, as it sent this notice … 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
For many years, General Motors issued a series of 7.5″x3.3″ cards for each of the locomotives it built for the various railroads. This card is for E-7 locomotives built for the Shasta Daylight. Click image to download a PDF of … Continue reading
The Southern Pacific distributed lots of postcards of the Shasta Daylight. Here is an artist’s impression of the train led by Alco PAs going by Odell Lake in the Oregon Cascades. Click on image to download a PDF of the … Continue reading
When it introduced the Shasta Daylight, the Southern Pacific did its usual flurry of advertising for the new train. However, the SP had a monopoly on passenger-rail service in the Shasta-Daylight corridor, where it competed with the Western Pacific in … Continue reading
On July 10, 1949, the Southern Pacific inaugurated the Shasta Daylight, which covered the 714 miles between Portland and Oakland in 15-1/2 mostly daylight hours. The train featured extra-large “skyview” windows to allow passengers to get better looks at the … Continue reading
