Misplaced Pages

Spirit of California

The Spirit of California at Glendale station in 1982
Overview
Service type	Inter-city rail
Status	Discontinued
Locale	California, United States
First service	October 25, 1981
Last service	September 30, 1983
Former operator(s)	Amtrak
Route
Termini	Los Angeles, California Sacramento, California
Stops	11
Distance travelled	552 miles (888 km)
Average journey time	12 hours, 50 minutes
Service frequency	Daily
Train number(s)	15, 18
On-board services
Seating arrangements	Reserved coach
Sleeping arrangements	Bedrooms and roomettes
Catering facilities	Café
Technical
Rolling stock	Heritage sleepers Amfleet coaches
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Track owner(s)	SP
Route map Legend Dist. Station 0 mi Sacramento 14 mi 23 km Davis 40 mi 64 km Suisun-Fairfield 58 mi 93 km Martinez 77 mi 124 km Richmond 87 mi 140 km Oakland 129 mi 208 km San Jose 197 mi 317 km Salinas 331 mi 533 km San Luis Obispo 449 mi 723 km Santa Barbara 486 mi 782 km Oxnard 547 mi 880 km Glendale 552 mi 888 km Los Angeles This diagram: view talk edit

The Spirit of California was a passenger train operated by Amtrak between Los Angeles and Sacramento, California. It operated from 1981 to 1983 with financial support from the State of California. It was the first overnight service between the two cities since the Southern Pacific Railroad discontinued the Lark in 1968 and one of few state-supported Amtrak trains with sleeper service. The train used the Southern Pacific's Coast Line, complementing the Coast Starlight which served the route on a daytime schedule.

History

The last overnight service on the Southern Pacific's Coast Line was the Lark, which ended on April 8, 1968. During the 1970s Amtrak operated the Coast Starlight, which departed Los Angeles every morning for Seattle, Washington. The southbound Coast Starlight arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area in the morning and in Los Angeles by dinnertime, and at the time did not serve Sacramento, the state capital.

The new train departed Los Angeles at 8:25 pm, arriving in Sacramento at 9:30 am the next morning. The southbound train departed at 7:55 pm and arrived at 9:00 am the next day. The California Department of Transportation, Caltrans, budgeted $1.7 million towards the train's first year of operation and expected 160,000 passengers the first year, rising to 300,000 in five years. The train carried coaches, a cafe, and two sleeping cars. Service began on October 25, 1981. Caltrans held a naming contest, with the winner "Spirit of California" announced on December 24.

Governor George Deukmejian cut funding for the train after taking office in January 1983. The train's supporters scrambled to find additional funding. A proposal to get funding from the state of Nevada in return for extending the train to Reno did not pass the Nevada legislature. The Spirit of California was discontinued in 1983, running for the final time on the night of September 30 – October 1, 1983.

Equipment

The Spirit of California's usual consist was:

• EMD F40PH diesel locomotive
• Heritage baggage car
• Heritage sleeper
• Heritage sleeper
• Amfleet I café
• Amfleet I coach (60-seat)
• Amfleet I coach (60-seat)

References

1. ^ "New LA-Northern California train service set". Lodi News-Sentinel. October 22, 1981. Retrieved August 26, 2013.
2. Amtrak (October 31, 1982). National Train Timetables. Retrieved April 18, 2015.
3. "New Train 'Spirit of California'". Ventura County Advisor. December 24, 1981. Retrieved August 26, 2013.
4. "Amtrak on the Property" (May 1986). Passenger Train Journal, p. 27. PTJ Publishing.
5. "Amtrak standard consists, February/March 1982". Pacific News. 22 (1): 10. November 1982. Archived from the original on March 1, 2017.

External links

• A Railfan's Memory of the Last Run of the Spirit of California

• Former Amtrak routes
• Railway services introduced in 1981
• Railway services discontinued in 1983