Other Trains On The Golden State Route
There was always additional train service on the Golden State route. Among these trains were the Californian (passenger trains), Apache, Cherokee and the Imperial.
In the Depression years, the Californian became the coach/chair car and tourist car (second class, older sleeping cars) train. This train competed with the Union Pacific Challengers, the Santa Fe Scout and always featured low-cost dining car meals (as little as three meals for $1.00 per day) and a special car for women and children (and nursing babies). They all proved immensely popular until the end of World War II.
The connections at Tucumcari from Memphis on the Choctaw Route were variously referred as the Memphis-Californian or other terminology including the word “Choctaw.
Shortly after the World War II, the Imperial was introduced as trains 39 and 40 on yet another alternative routing. From Yuma, the train traveled though Mexico on the "Inter-California Railway" from Araz Junction, CA through Algondones, Mexico to the border towns of Mexicali (Mexico) and Calexico (California) and back to the Southern Pacific mainline at Niland. This alternative routing did not last long because of customs issues and starting and stopping at every station (required by Mexican law) which wreaked havoc on the car batteries and charging systems and air-conditioning.
The secondary train ultimately carried no name and a single rider coach until it was discontinued in the middle 1960’s. The last train became known as the Sunset-Golden State between 1964 and the final discontinuance in 1968.
Until the last years of service, the Southern Pacific had between four and six daily trains providing service on this portion of the route between El Paso and Los Angeles.
Read more about this topic: Golden State (train)
Famous quotes containing the words trains, golden, state and/or route:
“Ever notice how these European trains always smell of eau de cologne and hard boiled eggs?”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“I do not think that what is called Love at first sight is so great an absurdity as it is sometimes imagined to be. We generally make up our minds beforehand to the sort of person we should like, grave or gay, black, brown, or fair; with golden tresses or raven locks;—and when we meet with a complete example of the qualities we admire, the bargain is soon struck.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“He was discontented and wasted his life into the bargain; and yet he rated it as a gain in coming to America, that here you could get tea, and coffee, and meat every day. But the only true America is that country where you are at liberty to pursue such a mode of life as may enable you to do without these, and where the state does not endeavor to compel you to sustain slavery and war and other superfluous expenses which directly or indirectly result from the use of such things.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A Route of Evanescence
With a revolving Wheel—”
—Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)