In the 1940’s, the Southern Pacific “Morning Daylight” was possibly the world’s most beautiful train, its orange and red striping being reserved for the SP’s premier train lines. This “Morning Daylight” consist ran between Los Angeles and San Francisco along the beautiful California coast, past cities such as Ventura, Santa Barbara, Salinas and San Jose. Heading up the “Morning Daylight” was the specially built steam locomotive, the GS-4, one of the most well known steam engines ever designed.

The SP “Morning Daylight” was an all Pullman built lightweight passenger train consisting of:

1 Baggage-Chair car (44 seat)                                          1 Coffee Shop (1^st third of articulated car)

1 Kitchen car (2^nd third of articulated car)                     1  Dining car (final 3^rd of articulated car)

10 Articulated Chair cars (each 46 seat)                        1 Chair car (44 seat)

1 Tavern car (56 seat)                                                         1 Parlor (27seat)  

                                                        1 Parlor Observation car (22 seat)

The “Daylight” cars are fitted with operating outer diaphragms, which makes the entire train appear as one contiguous unit rather than separate individual cars.   Cars were added and subtracted from the consist as traffic warranted.