The original Starlight was the replacement for the Noon Daylight. If I am not mistaken, sometime after the launch of the Starlight, the Coaster was dropped from the time card and the Starlight began to carry a heavyweight sleeper in its consist, although SP never advertised this. Ridership for both the Lark and the Starlight began to slip about 1953, and coaches were added to the Lark beginning in 1956, some would say to deliberately siphon coach passengers away from the Starlight and smooth the way for its eventual discontinuance, which came in 1957.

Myself, I never understood the logic of calling numbers 11 and 14 the "Coast Starlight." "Coast" describes only 113 miles of its run, and "Starlight" is (to me, anyway) synonymous with a journey that begins after dark and ends the following morning. And arguably the most classy train SP had left just before Amtrak, the Cascade, got no mention.