This page depicts Southern Pacific's Train 52,
the eastbound San Joaquin Daylight
(Oakland to Los Angeles),
on 28 November 1954,
during the brief time when Alco PAs powered the train with
Alco RSD-5 helpers for the crossing of the rugged Tehachapi mountains.
It is based on a photo from page 15 of
Southern Pacific Historic Diesels, Volume 8: Alco Roadswitcher Locomotives.
The 19 cars of this heavy train, swollen to capacity on this Sunday after
Thanksgiving, are not visible in the photo so I've shown what would
be typical for the period.
The San Joaquin Daylight
ran from 4 July 1941 until the end of SP passenger train
service on 30 April 1971. Amtrak elected not to continue
the train, though there now is an Amtrak
San Joaquin service
which runs between Oakland and Bakersfield.
Overview
Consist
Alco RSD-5, DF-115) is a freight unit added at Bakersfield as point helper for the mountain crossing to Mojave. SP's first RSD-5 order was placed on 4 April 1952, for nine T&NO units and 14 Pacific Lines units at a price of $197,429 each. 5296 was shipped from the factory at Schenectady on 11 May 1953, preceded by 5294 and 5295 plus the T&NO units. It quickly entered Tehachapi freight and helper service. Sparks from the exhaust set fire to the dry Southern California grasses, so a "garbage can" exhaust stack with a spark arrestor was quickly developed and installed. After less than seven years in service, the 14 Pacific Lines units had proven their 244 engines too frail for the rigors of the Tehachapis and were retired in November 1960. They were shipped back to the factory the following month and rebuilt as RSD-12 units with newer 251 engines. | (|||
Alco PA-2, class DP-11, later AP620A-5), delivered in September 1953. Construction number 80842 was part of order number S-3225, Southern Pacific's last order for Alco PA units. The final three PAs built for SP would be delivered the next month. These units were built to Alco specification DL-304D which included an improved 16-cylinder 244D engine with the newer, Alco-designed, water-cooled turbocharger. They were the first Pacific Lines PAs assigned to Los Angeles rather than West Oakland and thus normally ran on Coast Line or Sunset Route trains. | (|||
Alco PA-2, class DP-9, later AP620A-3). The photo shows a PA with new bright metal windshield framing and the fancy rain gutter behind the cab, features which were used together only on the five cab units of class DP-9, built to specification DL-304C and shipped from the factory in April and May 1952. They were accompanied by a pair of cabless PB-2 units (DL-305C), which lacked either feature. Today's trip would be a rare visit to Los Angeles for one of these units, which were based at West Oakland and assigned to the Northern District. | (|||
Alco PA) | (|||
60-B-8), baggage-express car, a Harriman-style heavyweight car built by Pullman in 1909, holds down head-end duties by itself without the usual RPO, perhaps to make room for passengers returning home at the end of the holiday. | (|||
77-CB-1), chair baggage car built by Pullman-Standard in 1937 (lot 65800, plan 7415) for the original Daylight. Each car included a 19'10" long baggage compartment, a news agent counter, and 44 seats. | (|||
79-C-1), 44-seat chair car built by Pullman-Standard in 1939 (lot 6593, plan 7422) for the Daylight. | (|||
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79-C-2), 44-seat chair car. These two cars, each of which was equipped with a radio antenna to provide news and music for the train, were built for the San Joaquin Daylight by Pullman-Standard in 1941 (lot 6638, plan 7422A) as part of a group of nine cars. (Four others were assigned to general Daylight service, while the remaining three were built for the San Francisco Challenger.) They later became notable as the last two cars to wear the San Joaquin Daylight herald. | (|||
83-C-5), 48-seat chair car built by Pullman-Standard in 1954 (lot 6940, plan 7571B), part of the last group of cars built for the Daylight pool. | (|||
77-D-3), heavyweight diner, the last SP diner to wear Coach Green paint, added to help feed all the extra mouths on this day's train. | (|||
77-C-3), 44-seat chair car built by Pullman-Standard in 1939 (lot 6515, plan 7376A) and painted in Union Pacific's Armour Yellow and Harbor Mist Grey for Overland service. The San Joaquin Daylight often hosted cars painted for other SP trains. | (|||
79-C-2), 44-seat chair car built by Pullman-Standard in 1941 (lot 6638, plan 7422A) for the Daylight pool and part of the same order as San Joaquin Daylight-assigned 2492 and 2493. | (|||
These train images are in a scale of 1 pixel = 12 in and were created by Karl L. Swartz. For more information about them, please see Not Quite Train GIFs.
Copyright © 2002-2004,2006-2008, Karl L. Swartz. All rights reserved.
All trademarks mentioned herein belong to their respective owners.
Daylight drumhead courtesy
The Coach Yard.
Animation implemented using Brian Clough's
Train Gif JavaScript Project
in conjunction with
Dr. Clue's DHTML library
.