Lark Train Wreck
September 11, 2008 – 10:10 pm
The photos are of a train wreck on Cuesta Grade.
The only caption information we have is Lark wreck near San Luis Obispo.
Judging from the cars and clothing this appears to be the late 1910’s to early 1920’s.
Please post a comment if you have better information.
Before Amtrak became the national rail entity individual railroads ran independent passenger services.
Southern Pacific used to have overnight service with deluxe sleeper cars between Los Angeles and Oakland-San Francisco in a train called the Lark.
(They also had a Morning Daylight and Noon Daylight.)
As the automobile became more popular, railroads had to compete to survive.
The problem with passengers is they want to be treated like humans, not freight. Apparently Southern Pacific was uncomfortable with this concept.
Passenger service requires a company to hire a lot of pesky employees, buy expensive deluxe sleeper cars and it messes up the timetables for more profitable freights.
By the mid-1960’s the railroad union was locked in a battle with the Southern Pacific to maintain the trains and jobs. The railroad had lost interest in the passenger.
By May 1971 Amtrak was formed as a government owned corporation to keep the form of transportation alive.
6 Responses to “Lark Train Wreck”
It states “myth” not facts.
Passengers deserted trains [ in droves as it were] in favor of automobiles and airplanes.
SP hardly had to turn folks away; it had to hang onto a losing proposition and did as well as they could for as long as they could, and when it became obvious that the fight was lost SP did what it could to end the suffering.
The railroad lost interest in spending lots of money for a service no one wanted to buy.
I suggest the writer do some actual research , look at some of the ad campaigns SP tried before they threw the towel in, for one simple example. This story is just another in a long line that make so-called journalism look inane, irresponsible and witless.
By Ed Workman on Sep 13, 2008
By Joe Dunlap on Sep 13, 2008
David, utterly erie that you posted these pictures just hours before the terribly crash of the Metrolink train in Chatsworth. Different time, different condtions, but similar outcomes no doubt. When all is said and done, no matter how much time and effort is spent in trying to eliminate the possiblilty of things like this happening, the price of man in motion is still going to be the occasional collison.
By Joe Dunlap on Sep 13, 2008
Thanks for the comments, differing opinions are welcomed; please include links if you have them. In the interest of furthering discussion, the post was based on the following linked sources.
The first is the Telegram-Tribune newspaper article January 28, 1966 above:
“Southern Pacific is deliberately sabotaging service in order to win approval of its plan to discontinue the overnight passenger run between Los Angeles and San Francisco a railroad union spokesman charged Wednesday.”
“The railroad will ask the Public Utilities Commission for permission to abandon the 55-year-old Lark claiming it lost $830,000 during the first nine months of last year.”
***
“Southern Pacific claims the Lark only averages 90 passengers on each trip and that’s not enough to keep the train in the black. Union officers said SP by its operation of the run, ‘arranged’ the loss so that it could win permission to discontinue the Lark.”
Union officials also said that passengers could get not anything to eat or drink until just outside Los Angeles or San Francisco. They also said the depot was closed overnight so waiting passengers were left in the cold at 2 a.m. or later waiting for the train.
Quoting from page 52 of the book ‘Southern Pacific Railroad’ by Brian Solomon [the Southern Pacific link highlighted blue in the post]
“Unlike some Western roads — notably Santa Fe and UP — that continued to maintain a network of premier trains, SP began to slash schedules and decimate its famous liners. [SP president D. J.] Russell’s notoriously pessimistic views and negative public statements reflected a realistic assessment of public interest in the railroad’s passenger service, the day of the luxury limited was coming to an end. However, his negative attitudes and public pessimism drew criticism from the media, government agencies, and passenger-train enthusiasts and he has been condemned for dooming SP’s trains. If there was a good side to all this it was and is the belief that SP’s anti-passenger stance of the 1960’s was in part the catalyst for the creation of Amtrak.”
***
“Some historians have argued that SP drove away its passenger business by providing substandard service. One change that particularly angered passengers and railroad observers was the substitution of ‘Automatic Buffet Cars’ for traditional railroad dining cars.”
***
“Today, there is considerable irony that one of Amtrak’s finest and most popular trains is the Coast Starlight, a combination of SP’s old Cascade and Coast Daylight streamliners, and that Amtrak’s multi-schedule San Joaquin service–based in part on SP’s old San Joaquin Daylight–is enjoying unprecedented growth and popularity. Even railroad presidents can be wrong.”
By David Middlecamp on Sep 15, 2008
Any more????
By Rick Evans on Sep 19, 2008
There will be a few train posts over the next few months. This is all we have on this event though.
By David Middlecamp on Sep 19, 2008