Posted on 02/21/2022 7:04:45 PM PST by thecodont
Picture it: A car-free trip to Santa Cruz, for an attractive fare, on a train that took you to the beach in the morning, back home that night, and showed you some great scenery along the way.
That describes the Sun Tan Special, operated by the Southern Pacific railroad between San Francisco, San Jose and Santa Cruz on summer weekends and holidays for most of the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s.
It was more than just a conveyance. “[It’s] a happy train, filled with people in a vacation mood,” says a 1940s Southern Pacific flyer. “It gives you six hours on the beach and there’s plenty of room.”
[...]
Disagreements over freight, a trail, costs, jurisdiction, traffic and the best way to help the environment create a complex territory for a train that was created for larky summer weekend fun at the beach.
But if the Sun Tan Special returns, that's the terrain it will have to travel.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Happy train out of San Francisco. Oh boy~
Just nostalgia.
The special isnt going to be resurrected, however novel and fun it might be. The cost to keep the rail line in SCruz is over the top, we have a referendum now where it will likely get shot down in favor of trail only.
That California died 70 years ago. If it makes you feel any better, feel free to ride on the never-to-be-constructed High Speed Train to Nowhere...
It won’t work now. It’ll be full of thugs.
Not that I know. Cowbells, Carmel, Moss Landing….down to Malibu in LA.
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