Stories of SP trains from 1958-1965, reflect (to me) an era when SP no longer smiled upon it's passengers, but at least made an attempt at running solid trains. I was never victimized by: no plates/silverware on #102 departing Oakland. Dining car crew bought paper plates and heavy plastic cutlery at Sacramento. The father of a girl I was dating said that the family took the "San Joaquin Daylight" from Oakland-Los Angeles. No. 52 was on-time all the way to Glendale, where shortly after departing they were stuck while freight trains were routed around them. They arrived about 2 hrs. late into LA. I was never told that the train I wanted to ride was "sold out". I never had a phone call terminated at 7pm, while making reservations.

The trains were clean, but spartan by standards of old. The Automat may have sufficed on trains like the "Owl", and wintertime "Coast Daylight" and "SJ Daylight" but should never have been used on cross-country trains like "City of SF" and "Sunset". It was sometimes hard to tell where and when the chicken and the egg began trading places.

---Mike55