Pearl Harbor anniversary makes me think of dad and the Daylight

Wednesday is the 75^th anniversary of the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, plunging the United States into World War II, ending the country’s isolationist era, and sending the railroad business into an overdrive frenzy. When I think of that conflict, I think of my father, John, an agricultural agent who had graduated from Clemson with an Army ROTC scholarship. At the start of the war, he was called to active duty with the U.S. Army, and assigned to the infantry school at Fort Benning, Ga. I also think about Southern Pacific 4-8-4 No. 4449, that gorgeous orange, red, and black GS4 based in Portland, Ore.; it’s a mighty mainline passenger locomotive that has delighted us in steam for the last 40 years. No. 4449 was only 7 months old when the war broke out, and she spent much of the next four years moving passenger trains and troops along the west coast. My dad was one of the passengers that she and her sister locomotives carried between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Their brief intersection has been a source of a lifetime of fascination for me.

Dad ran the infiltration course at Fort Benning, training young men to go into battle in Europe, Africa, and the Pacific. And then when dad was a 31-year old lieutenant colonel, the Army reassigned him. It was summer 1945, and he would be part of the invasion force for the Japanese mainland. The Army sent him by rail to New Orleans on a Southern Railway train, and then by Southern Pacific all the way to San Francisco, where, after a few days at the Mark Hopkins Hotel, he was set to board a troop carrier.

Early in my life, dad told me the story of his trip to the west coast, and the admiration he had for SP’s colorful Daylight, the train he rode behind steam. Dad was not an overt railfan, but he always thought highly of railroads (trained in agriculture, he appreciated their low impact on the land and their environmentally-friendly attributes early on). He declared the Daylight the most beautiful train he’d ever seen, praised the accommodations, and said how much he wished he could have ridden the train another time. As I became a budding young railfan in the 1960s, and with his story foremost in my mind, Dad gave me three items that today are the most cherished items in my personal collection, two black and white postcard pictures of the “world’s most beautiful train” and a brochure describing the route along the Pacific shores. He was proud of his service, and he was elated that it had given him the chance to ride the Daylight train, an experience that would have normally eluded agricultural agents in South Carolina.

Dad was fortunate that he did not have to see combat. The war ended while he was at sea, and his ship was diverted to Manila, where he became part of the occupation force in the Philippines.

Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, only a handful is with us today. The number of Pearl Harbor veterans is dwindling fast. Dad has been gone since 1993. Of course, No. 4449 is alive and well, having seen a 1,472-day inspection in 2015. If we’re lucky, she’ll be back on the mainline in 2017. And if that happens, I think I will go for the trip and take dad’s postcards and trip guide with me so that he can ride the world’s most beautiful train once more.

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Daylight No. 4449 and 11 other big mainline steam locomotives in steam today will be featured in the 2017 Trains special magazine and companion video, both entitled Big Steam is Back. Look for details soon!