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On August 12, 1939 the train derailed while crossing a bridge near Carlin, Nevada, killing 24 and injuring 121. The wreck appeared to have been caused by sabotage, but despite a major manhunt, offers of reward, and years of investigation by SP, the case remains unsolved.
The City of San Francisco is remembered for the blizzard in the Sierra Nevada that trapped the train for six days in January 1952 at 39°19′34″N 120°35′35″W / 39.3262°N 120.593°W / 39.3262; -120.593 17 miles (27 km) west of Donner Pass at Yuba Pass on Track #1 adjacent to Tunnel 35 (on Track #2), at about MP 176.5. Snowdrifts from 100 mph (160 km/h) winds blocked the train burying it in 12 feet of snow and stranding it from January 13 to 19. The event made international headlines. In the effort to reach the train, the railroad's snow-clearing equipment and snow-blowing rotary plows became frozen to the tracks nea Emigrant Gap. Hundreds of workers and volunteers, including Georg Gärtner, using snowplows, tractors and manpower came to the rescue by clearing nearby Highway 40 to reach the train. The 196 passengers and 20 crewmembers were evacuated within 72 hours, on foot to vehicles that carried them the few highway miles to Nyack Lodge. The train itself was extricated several days later.
In October 1955 the Milwaukee Road replaced the Chicago and North Western between Chicago and Omaha; in 1960 the City of San Francisco was combined with the City of Los Angeles east of Ogden. A May 1969 timetable is available online.
History
Timeline
The M-10004 trainset at Reno, Nevada on a trial run
1936: The City of San Francisco makes its first run between Chicago, Illinois and Oakland, California as streamline through service operated with a dedicated, diesel-electric powered articulated 11-unit consist.
1938: Upgraded on January 2, 1938 to a quarter-mile long 17-unit consist made up of a three-part 6,000 h.p. diesel-electric power set built by the Electro-Motive Corporation and 14 aluminum-alloy girder-type baggage-dormitory, diner, lounge, sleepers, and observation cars. Frequency remained at five trips per month each way.
August 12, 1939: Sabotaged track sends the City of San Francisco flying off a bridge in the Nevada desert; two dozen passengers and crew members are killed and many more injured, and five cars are destroyed.
July 1941: A second set of equipment enters service, allowing departures ten times per month thus replacing the short lived steam powered all-Pullman streamline Forty-Niner service that had operated five times a month between Chicago and San Francisco from July 8, 1937 to July 27, 1941.
1946: Service increased to thrice weekly on October 1, 1946.
1947: Train became daily on September 1, 1947 when a fourth train set was added to support daily operation in both directions of the City's 39-and-a-half-hour service thus finally supplanting The Overland as the only train providing premium daily service between Chicago and San Francisco on the Overland Route.
January 13, 1952: The City of San Francisco is caught in a blizzard and remains stuck for days. The incident was one inspiration for Railway series book, The Twin Engines.
May 1, 1971: UP ends the City of San Francisco train as Amtrak takes over long-distance passenger operations in the United States; Amtrak retains the name until 1972.
Other railroad uses of the name City of San Francisco
The City of San Francisco name has been applied to a 10/6 sleeping car built by Pullman Standard in the early 1950s. The car is now owned by the Boone and Scenic Valley Railroad and operates on the line's dinner and first class trains. Union Pacific itself has a dome lounge car used on excursion and executive trains which carries the "City of San Francisco" name.
DeNevi, Don. "Tragic Train: The City of San Francisco -- The Development and Historic Wreck of a Streamliner." (1979, Superior Publishing). ISBN 0875645259.
Heath, Erle Seventy-Five Years of Progress: Historical Sketch of the Southern Pacific (1945) San Francisco: Southern Pacific Railroad. p.39
A railroad train "consist" is defined by 49 CFR §210.7 as "one or more locomotives coupled to a rail car or rail cars." Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration. Code of Federal Regulations, Title 49, Parts 200 to 299, Transportation. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office (2005), p. 59
Heath 1945 p. 39
The Official Guide of the Railways and Steam Navigation Lines of the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico and Cuba, Volume 70, Issue 8 (1938). New York: National Railway Publication Company, p. 39
"Railway Age" Vol. 11 (1941). New York: Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation. p. 305
Heath 1945 p. 39
Beebe, Lucius Morris The Overland Limited. Berkeley, CA: Howell-North Books (1963) p. 50.
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