Photos from the Vault

Extinct bird, Lark luxury train service

April 8, 1968
There used to be a luxury overnight train, the Lark,  that traveled between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Southern Pacific lost interest in passenger service as America fell in love with the automobile. The postal service had abandoned rail-mail transportation in 1965 and now final bell tolled for the Lark. The UPI article said:

“For the railroad buffs who signed up for the Lark’s final run, there was one consolation. They did not have to remember the famous train as the four or five car embarrassment it had become in the ’60’s.
So many persons had signed up for the last trip, SP officials said, that extra cars had to be added.”

Elliot Curry wrote the farewell article for the afternoon printing of then Telegram-Tribune:

Lark makes last run
Southern Pacific still has

good trains — for hoboes

Travel had become so heavy between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 1910 that the Southern Pacific Railway decided to put on an all-Pullman overnight limited between the two big California cities.
This became the Lark, which replaced the Owl on May 8, 1910, and has been in continuous service through San Luis Obispo for 58 years, lacking only one month.
It will never make that last month, because the Lark came to the end of a long chapter in railway history this morning when it finished its last run.
The California Public Utilities Commission last month authorized the S-P to discontinue what had once been called the most luxurious sleeper train in America. In the early days, the Lark was used chiefly by businessmen as a “rolling hotel,” between Los Angeles and San Francisco, saving the daylight hours for business.
Originally the Lark made the overnight run in 13 1/2 hours, cutting 30 minutes off earlier schedules. By the 1940’s when the Lark reached its zenith, it made the run in 11 1/2 hours.
The luxury Lark came into service on March 2, 1941. At that time it carried 17 cars, made up of 12 Pullman sleepers, a combination sleeper-cafe-lounge car, diner, lounge and two baggage cars. The Pullmans were made up into seven drawing rooms, 13 compartments, 91 double bedrooms and 50 roomettes, accommodating a total of 279 passengers.
It was also during the 1940’s that the Lark club was put into service. This was a diner-lounge more than 130 feet long without a partition. Three separate cars were permanently joined to make up this unit which provided the ultimate in luxury train travel. Groups sometimes made reservations a year in advance so they would be assured of the overnight use of the club facilities.
While the prestige of the Lark had grown over a period of some 40 years, its decline came much faster.
Auto travel whittled away some of the railway business as freeways spread and accommodations for the highway traveler improved. The killing shot, however was fired by the airlines. The air corridor between San Francisco and Los Angeles is the busiest in the world.
A famous newspaper ad published by the Southern Pacific in 1966 said it all, when it asked: “The Lark: What future is there for a bird that can’t fly?”
The Lark got down to where it was carrying less than 20 Pullman passengers nightly. It was combined with the Starlight, an overnight chair car train, on July 15, 1957 and that ended the luxury era.
The Southern Pacific first tried to stop the Lark in 1966, but the PUC ordered it continued and urged the railway to try and restore patronage by advertising and improved service. Nothing came of those efforts, however, and it became increasingly apparent that the Lark had become a ghost.
The decline of the railway passenger train has been going on for a long time and the end is not yet in sight. Old-timers recall when San Luis Obispo had as many as six passenger trains each way every day. After April 7 there will be only one–the Daylight.
While southern Pacific divests itself of train passenger business, it expands in other directions. Business Week magazine said last month that during the past 10 years, S-P has bought 34,000 new freight cars and 900 new diesel locomotives. Millions of dollars have been poured into computerized traffic control.
It has finally come to pass that the best trains on the S-P are the ones hoboes ride.

The Central Coast Railroad Festival is this weekend.

This day’s paper also carried on the front page the news of local memorials for murdered civil rights leader Martin Luther King.