Paradise Lost

In June of 1961, the shower bath and valet service in the French Quarter lounge cars was discontinued. The Audobon diners came off the train in September of 1963; in their stead shortly thereafter came Southern Pacific's infamous "Automatic Buffet" cars equipped with an assortment of self-service coin-operated vending machines. One of their culinary delights was two slices of dry bread wrapped in cellophane on a paper plate; a self-service toaster was available on the table.^[*] Fortunately, the Pride of Texas hamburger-grill cars continued to operate with the train providing adequate if uninspired food service for the Sunset's run.

Also at this time, SP saw an opportunity to cut costs by combining the Sunset with the Golden State west of El Paso. The westbound Sunset had its late evening departure time moved up to noon, while the eastbound schedule was tweaked as well. The new schedules and the Sunset-Golden State combination became effective as of April 19, 1964; a commentary on the "Sunset Transcon" video states that the combined train sometimes ran up to 37 cars long!

But service cutbacks and schedule changes were only a small part of the picture. Travelers' reports of the period indicate that there were some real shenanigans going on. It was not unusual, for example, to call in to make a sleeping car reservation and be told, "The sleeper is booked"—only to find, if you were not thereby dissuaded from your trip, that in fact the sleeper was completely empty. Advertisements for airlines and bus lines were prominently posted in passenger areas. Worse, trains would be mysteriously held up for extended periods just outside of their destination cities until after connecting trains had departed, causing frustrated and stranded passengers to vow, "Never again!"