In December, 1964 my wife and I made a round trip from Seattle to Los Angeles for the Christmas holidays. We flew to Los Angeles and had planned to return to Seattle by train using the San Joaquin Daylight, the Cascade, and UP Train 457.

However, torrential rains in Oregon and Northern California in mid-December caused the closure of the Cascade line (as well as other lines, including the NWP) for an extended period. We were unable to get an airline reservation back to Seattle so we ended up taking the Coast Daylight from Los Angeles to San Francisco and then endured a 32-hour trip by Greyhound bus from San Francisco to Seattle!

These photos are from the Coast Daylight part of the trip.

The westbound Coast Daylight is stopped at the San Luis Obispo station. The ex-Shasta Daylight triple-unit diner, still in Daylight colors, is serviced during the station stop. A full length dome-lounge was the next car behind the diner (right, in photo).

An articulated chair car, also still in Daylight colors, was behind the dome-lounge.

This scene is looking along the station platform toward the front of the train, which is almost out of sight around the turn.

An A-A-B-B set of F-units (the first B-unit still all black) leads the train around the horseshoe curve just north of San Luis Obispo. The second car is an ex-Shasta Daylight Timberline Tavern car which had been rebuilt as a chair car - without vestibules!

The photo was taken from the dome-lounge.

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