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Spirit of California

Former Sacramento–Los Angeles Amtrak passenger train

Summary

Former Sacramento–Los Angeles Amtrak passenger train

Field	Value
box_width	300px
name	Spirit of California
image	Spirit of California at Glendale station, August 30, 1982.jpg
image_width	300px
caption	The Spirit of California at Glendale station in 1982
type	Inter-city rail
status	Discontinued
locale	California, United States
first	October 25, 1981
last	September 30, 1983
formeroperator	Amtrak
start	Los Angeles, California
stops	11
end	Sacramento, California
distance	552 mi
journeytime	12 hours, 50 minutes
frequency	Daily
trainnumber	15, 18
seating	Reserved coach
sleeping	Bedrooms and roomettes
catering	Café
stock	Heritage sleepers
Amfleet coaches
gauge
owners	SP
map
map_state	collapsed

Amfleet coaches 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 8:25pm, arriving in Sacramento at 9:30am the next morning. The southbound train departed at 7:55pm and arrived at 9:00am 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. The name was chosen over the objection of Caltrans director Adriana Gianturco, who preferred The Nightingale.

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

(December 27, 1981). "'Spirit of California' derails 'Med Flyer' and a host of others". The Modesto Bee.
Rabin, Jeff. (December 15, 1981). "Gianturco fails to name train 'The Nightingale'". The Fresno Bee.
(October 22, 1981). "New LA-Northern California train service set". [[Lodi News-Sentinel]].
Amtrak. (October 31, 1982). "National Train Timetables".
(December 24, 1981). "New Train 'Spirit of California'". [[Ventura County Advisor]].
(November 1982). "Amtrak standard consists, February/March 1982". [[Pacific RailNews.
"Amtrak on the Property" (May 1986). ''[[Passenger Train Journal]]'', p. 27. PTJ Publishing.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

former-amtrak-routes railway-services-introduced-in-1981 railway-services-discontinued-in-1983

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