Southern Pacific Steam
Our Southern Pacific steam collection includes the NEW Anthology, brilliant orange Daylights and narrow gauge in the Owen's Valley!
Daylights 2-set
Daylights 2-set
SP Daylights: As They Were See Southern Pacific's 4-8-4 Daylights in the 1940s and '50s filmed by Walt Whittaker. Daylight or GS 6 #4460 was captured in 1958 by Mac Owen and #4449 comes back to life in 1981.
Daylight on Tehachapi In this amazing outing a genuine Daylight locomotive with an authentic 15 car train in real Daylight colors, including baggage, diner and round end observation rolls from Portland, Oregon to Los Angeles.
SP Daylights: As They Were
View Will Whitaker’s study of the Daylight locomotive in the ‘40s & ‘50s including The Coast and Valley Daylights and a wide variety of Southern Pacific steam history. In the Tehachapis, over the Sierras and across the Nevada desert Whitaker caught all aspects of the famed GS 4: all color, all black, with skirts and without. Daylights pull freights, commuters, fan trips and football specials. They haul or are doubled with such name train legends as The Gold Coast, The San Joaquin Daylight and even The City of San Francisco. BONUS: SP's Centennial Engine steams through Niles Canyon.
In Southern Pacific’s 1958 official “Farewell To Steam” Daylight GS 6 #4460 crosses the Sierras six days before her boiler time expires. This foray was intended to be the final movement of steam anywhere on the Southern Pacific system and upon her return to Sacramento Shops her rods were severed with a cutting torch so that steam could never run again on SP tracks. 4460 made this dramatic trip, unassisted in either direction except where a bearing runs hot. The DVD closes with #4449's triumphant return heading for Railfair 1981, with the first cars in Daylight orange: storming the Cascades, snaking down to Dunsmuir and wide open on the valley floor. Here we witness #4449 bringing SP steam back to life!
29 minutes
Daylight on Tehachapi
The climb over Tehachapi Pass is filmed with plenty of dramatic helicopter coverage. We see it all: Caliente Horseshoe, the Great Loop, over Soledad Summit without diesels and down Mint Canyon—exactly as it was when the San Joaquin or “Valley” Daylight made this same run every day. Earlier in the show the engine bursts out of a snow storm on Cascade Summit, and snakes down beside the Sacramento River with Mt. Shasta as backdrop. The train crosses the great Carquinez Bridge and races along the San Francisco Bay at the same time of day as it used to when the real ‘Coast Daylight’ made the same trip daily more than 55 years ago. An historian’s delight and a Southern Pacific railfan’s dream come true!
43 minute