Second on the Hoosier State as Amtraks current Orphan Train!
My nominee for the pre-Amtrak worst was SPs Sunset Ltd. with the Automat car and No Dinner and really Dirty/Ratty Equipment and Staffed by people Handpicked by SP Management to run off Passengers! :angry: It worked till A-Day! UP (the Octopus that ate Railroads) still treats Amtrak with this attitude as a Heritage of this Sad time in Passenger Rail History!
Of course, ,Jim, in the later years. But it was a fine train when first streamlined, about 1950
The Sunset was a premier train for Southern Pacific as early as 1912, when it was known as the Sunset Express. At that time, the train ran between San Francisco and New Orleans as completely electric-lighted, with a full diner, an observation car with a library, parlor, club-room, writing desk, daily stock market reports, observation rotunda and even a telephone connection that was available for 30 minutes before departure in major cities en route. It had regular Pullman sleepers including drawing rooms, and tourist Pullman sleepers (berths and sections) and reclining chair cars.
By 1926, it had been renamed the Sunset Limited and was an all-Pullman train with through sleepers between San Francisco and New Orleans, Los Angeles and New Orleans, Los Angeles and Jacksonville, Los Angeles and Dallas, and San Diego and New Orleans. The club car had a barber and a bath for men. The observation sleeping car, with drawing rooms and compartments, had a maid, a manicurist and a bath for women.
Southern Pacific also ran the Argonaut daily between New Orleans and Los Angeles, with through sleeping cars between Los Angeles and St. Louis by way of the Texas and Pacific and the Missouri Pacific. The Argonaut ran between Los Angeles and New Orleans until 1960 with diner, sleepers and chair cars, when it was truncated to a Houston-New Orleans run with no services other than coaches. It was dropped completely between 1965 and 1967.
By 1934, cars on the Sunset Limited had been air-conditioned. Pullman sleepers ran between San Francisco and New Orleans, Los Angeles and New Orleans, Los Angeles and St. Louis, and Los Angeles and Mexico City, by way of Tucson.
There was full dining car and a sun parlor observation car with barber, valet and shower bath. The Sunset also included chair cars between Los Angeles and New Orleans.
By 1941, the observation parlor car included a radio. During WW II, the observation car was dropped and the only services were between Los Angeles and New Orleans, and the schedule lengthened by an hour because of heavy troop train traffic over the route. My parents had a drawing room on the Sunset in 1944 when my father had a 30-day leave before he had to report to San Francisco from Alexandria, Louisiana in preparation for going overseas to the Pacific battle front.
After WW II ended, the Sunset again ran with a full lounge car, and with through sleepers between Los Angeles and St. Louis as well as the full Los Angeles-New Orleans services, and a through San Francisco-New Orleans sleeper.
It had been streamlined by 1955, and through sleepers had been added between Washington DC-Los Angeles using the Southern RR's Crescent east of New Orleans. There were also through sleepers between Dallas and Los Angeles. In addition to the dining car, there was a coffee shop lounge car for coach passengers as well.
By 1960 the Sunset had become an extra-fare train but no longer had through sleepers to the East Coast, only between Los Angeles and New Orleans, and Dallas and Los Angeles. The lounge car still featured shower bath and valet services. But the string of harsh cutbacks by Southern Pacific in the 1960s were already beginning to be evident as the Argonaut had been reduced to a chair-car-only train between New Orleans and Houston despite a 10-hour ride.
In 1965, dining, lounge, sleeper and chair car services were offered between Los Angeles and New Orleans only.
By 1968, the Sunset still had its special service charge despite the fact that there were no longer any sleepers, only reclining chair cars (and advance reservations only required between June and September), and an automatic buffet car. There was no checked baggage service except for intrastate travel between stations within Texas where apparently the state railroad regulators refused to let SP drop the service. (SP did this on all its lines except on the Overland Route for baggage from San Fransisco to points beyond Ogden, where the UP took over.) The extra fare Golden State, which ran between Los Angeles and Chicago using SP and the Rock Island east of Tucumcari, New Mexico, had been dropped by 1968.
But whether through being shamed or (probably more likely) through government regulatory action, the Sunset again had sleepers, a diner and a lounge, and checked baggage service, by spring 1971, just before Amtrak took over the route. Perhaps the SP added the services back in expectation of the Amtrak takeover. Perhaps someone on this forum knows the particulars of this story.
