Altamont Commuter Express

ACE cab

Altamont Commuter Express train 06 has just left San Jose, Calif., on its late-evening run to Stockton on April 23, 2001. Elrond Lawrence Altamont Commuter Express trains operate on an 82-mile route between Stockton and San Jose, Calif., through the San Joaquin, Central, and Silicon Valleys. ACE trains use a combination of Caltrain and Union […]

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Coaster

Coaster trains operate on a 42-mile route between the Oceanside Transit Center and the Santa Fe depot in downtown San Diego, serving 8 stations. The tracks, once part of Santa Fe’s Surf Line, have long hosted intercity passenger trains between San Diego and Los Angeles. Today, Amtrak runs Pacific Surfliners on the route, linking San […]

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Project railroad: Selecting trains

Small trains give the illusion of traveling long distances in a garden railway. Marc Horovitz As mentioned in the first installment, since we had a little, tiny railroad, small equipment was called for. The smaller the equipment, we reasoned, the greater the illusion of distance travelled. So, we opted for the smallest equipment we could […]

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Marketing the Golden State Limited

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By 1919, a three-orange logo had replaced the single piece of fruit that adorned the covers of Golden State travel booklets. The lavish title page of a 1902 Rock Island route guide to its new cross-country passenger train, the Golden State Limited. Rock Island and Southern Pacific inaugurated the train on November 2, 1902. “Every […]

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On SP’s Narrow Gauge, 1949 Became the 1880s

Classic Trains logo

In June 1949, my friend Bob Wagner and I decided to head from our Los Angels-area homes for the Owens Valley in eastern central California to see, and hopefully ride, Southern Pacific’s former Carson & Colorado narrow gauge, which still operated with steam power 70 miles between Keeler and Laws. We got a late start […]

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