ABOVE: SP SD40E 7347, painted to commem- orate the 1984 Summer Olympics in L.A., piloted a Daylight-colored sister and 4-8-4 4449 down smog-filled San Timoteo Canyon on June 17, 1984, as the Louisiana World’s Fair Daylight train was on its way home to Portland, Ore. LEFT: On the morning of June 19, 1984, SP 4-8-4 4449 stormed up the one per cent grade of Santa Susana Pass near Chatsworth on her way out of southern Cali- fornia, homeward bound for Portland.
L.A. was hosting its own little shindig that year, the 1984 Summer Olympics. In fact, upon the Daylight’s arrival at LAUPT on May 12, SP unveiled a re- built SD40 wearing special paint and emblems honoring the Olympic games. SP’s Olympic diesel led the Daylight train back into L.A. during its return trip westward in June. Then it was an- other unassisted hill climb for 4449 up Santa Susana Pass, one more chance
for me to see and hear this famous 4-8-4 in her post-restoration prime, with smoke left hanging over the rock for- mations above Chatsworth as if SoCal’s anti-smog laws didn’t exist.
Just two months later, destined for northern Idaho, my parents and I traced much of 4449’s path home, northward alongside the SP past Dun- smuir and Mount Shasta, then across the border into Oregon, a new frontier
which (to this kid who grew up in southern California) always seemed as distant and “uncharted” as the north- ernmost woods of Canada or Alaska. On the evening of August 23, 1984, we parted ways with the SP at Chemult, Ore., as did a Burlington Northern manifest that diverged onto the Oregon Trunk, bound for the Inland Northwest just like we were. The attractive lady hogger smiling for my camera was one thing, but watching that green BN ca- boose vanish northward into the night made it clear: my days as a Californian had come to an end.
Bruce Kelly was associate editor of RAILFAN & RAILROAD from 1988-1996, and currently resides along the Union Pacific’s Spokane Subdivision in Post Falls, Idaho.
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