Shasta Daylight

The ''Shasta Daylight'' was a Southern Pacific Railroad passenger train between Oakland Pier in Oakland, California, and Portland, Oregon. It started on July 10, 1949, and was SP's third "Daylight" streamliner; it had a fast 15-hour-30-minute schedule in either direction for the trip through some of the most beautiful mountain scenery of any train in North America. The ''Shasta Daylight'' replaced heavyweight trains on the same route that had taken nearly a day and night to complete the run. The ''Shasta Daylight'' was the first diesel powered Daylight and the only Daylight to run beyond California. The scenic route of the ''Shasta Daylight'' passed its namesake Mount Shasta in daylight hours.

History

Shasta Limited

The ''Shasta Daylight'' was a replacement for the ''Shasta Limited'' that had run on the Shasta Route since October 1895. The first ''Shasta'' followed the original route through the Siskiyou Mountains, via Medford, Grants Pass, and Roseburg, Oregon. This line had steep grades and sharp curves; in summer 1926 the fastest schedule Portland to San Francisco was 27 hours.

Shasta route upgrade

During the railroad's management by Edward H. Harriman, plans to upgrade the Shasta Route were unveiled. But his death and the government's attempt to break up Southern Pacific's merger with Harriman's Union Pacific, followed by an attempt to subtract the Central Pacific from the SP, delayed construction. Not until 1927 was the new Cascade Line via Willamette Pass and Klamath Falls opened as the main route between the Bay Area and the Northwest.

Shasta from 1931

The original ''Shasta'' never operated on the new line. Starting in 1931, the train ran as its own only between Portland, Oregon, and Dunsmuir, California, south of the junction of the Siskiyou and Cascade Lines at Black Butte, California. South of Dunsmuir, the ''Shasta'' was consolidated with the ''Klamath''. One year later the Shasta was combined with the ''Cascade'' between Eugene, Oregon, and Portland. Through service from Oakland to Portland via the Siskiyou line would end on February 13, 1938.

Shasta from 1946

The train suspended operations during World War II but returned on August 4, 1946, as trains 327 and 328, local trains between Dunsmuir, California and Grants Pass, Oregon. The name ''Shasta'' was retained until July 10, 1949, when the ''Shasta Daylight'' began service. The local train continued unnamed (although locals nicknamed it "The Scoot") until discontinued on February 26, 1952.

Greyhound bus service

When ''Rogue River'' was discontinued four years later, all passenger service on the Siskiyou Line ended, and connecting Greyhound bus service to cities on that line were shown in the Southern Pacific timetable.

In the presence of Mount Shasta

Advertising

In 1953, Southern Pacific advertised the ''Shasta Daylight'' as the "Sweetheart of the Northwest". While Portland and Seattle were served by colorful first-class transcontinental trains such as the ''Empire Builder'' on the Great Northern Railway, the ''North Coast Limited'' on the Northern Pacific Railway, and the ''City of Portland'' on the Union Pacific, no other railroad could compete against the Southern Pacific who held almost a monopoly in the Portland - Bay Area market. The bright-colored streamliner seemed to blend right in with seemingly endless evergreen forests, sky blue lakes, and ruggedly handsome mountain peaks. Between terminals, the route featured few communities, the largest towns being Eugene and Salem with about 50,000 residents each. Less than 12,000 lived in Albany and Klamath Falls, Oregon, and Redding, California. Dunsmuir and Davis only had about 5,000 people. Stops at Chemult, Oregon, and Gerber, California, had a handful of permanent residents; between were miles of barely developed landscape.

Descriptive writing

Writer and trainfan Lucius Beebe described the experience as "riding all morning in the shadowy presence of Mount Shasta, a brooding, symmetrical cone of everlasting snow that dominates the right-of-way for hundreds of miles." But there were other highlights: Shasta Lake, the Sacramento River Canyon, the Klamath Basin, and the Cascade Range. Beebe further noted, "At its terminals in Oakland and Portland are the visible and tangible evidences of urban concentration and what passes for civilization, the neon lights, the meter cabs, and the hurrying traffic of commerce and manufacture. But what lies in-between them is largely wilderness where the solitary inhabitant is likely to carry a gun in the crook of his arm and have a wild-looking dog for company."

Dome cars

Southern Pacific began rebuilding prewar cars into unique dome cars which featured both high-level seating and low-level lounge with high skylight, marketed with the romantic motto "Stairway to the Stars". These cars were effectively named '3/4 Dome Cars' by railfans, due to their odd design being similar to (but not complete) 'Full Dome Cars' seen on the Santa Fe, Great Northern and Milwaukee Road. ''Trains'' magazine editor David P. Morgan said these domes were the best in operation on any American railroad. The cars were painted in the Daylight color scheme.

Decline

Donald J. Russell became President of the Southern Pacific in 1952. He was on hand to dedicate the rebuilt dome cars when they began service, but he was a bottom-line man and was aware of the popularity of automobiles and the airlines. SP's passenger revenues were dropping. Russell wanted to expand his railroad, moving into pipelines, communication, and real estate and offering faster, more efficient freight service. Seeing a trend, Russell told stockholders that the passenger train would one day disappear. "You can't make the people do what they don't want to do," he said.

New color scheme

In 1959 the Southern Pacific debuted a new color scheme for their diesel locomotives, dark gray with a red nose. It became known to fans as the "bloody nose" scheme. ''Shasta Daylight'' promotions, previously showing a Daylight-colored set of PA units, were airbrushed to black and red.

Citing low ridership during the winter, SP asked the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to allow the ''Shasta Daylight'' to run tri-weekly between September 15 and December 14 and again from January 15 to May 28. The train would run daily during summer and the Christmas holiday season.

As the train rolled into the 1960s, Daylight cars were repainted in the aluminum stripe with red letterboard format used on the ''Sunset Limited''. During this time, the train was a combination of the two color schemes plus the gray SP baggage car. The PA's were replaced with FP7 units. What could have been an opportunity for the train, the 1962 Seattle World's Fair

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