SP 4449 Cars

[kevin1978]

I have a Heritage Railway magazine (UK Publication) which has photographs of SP 4449 in 1991/92 with a matching set of Daylight red and orange cars.  However in more recent photos it seems to pull a mix of cars with different liveries.  Does anyone know what happened to it's original set of matching cars?  I understand that the owners of 4449 have to hire in cars did they origianlly own the matching set?

Thanks,

Kevin
 

[SP1353]

In the early 90's the 4449 had several outings where it pulled SP company service cars which were painted in the daylight scheme. These cars included ex-Shasta Daylight cars with tall windows, ex-Sunset Limited, Bud-built corrugated sided stainless cars, and even several "econo-bag" baggage cars. With the UP aquisition is SP, these cars were surplus, as UP has quite the fleet of company service passenger cars. The cars were sold or donated to various destinations. I remember taking camcorder video of the 4449 with a matched consist (except for the SP observation on the very end) southbound on the coast line en route to the 50th birthday party of LAUPT, or Union Station in Los Angeles. I sat in the back of my folks' old station wagon while my dad dropped the hammer to pace the train. For someone who was too young to ever know the actual Daylight, it was an awesome experience.

[kevin1978]

Thanks for the answer!  Going back to my magazine photos I see now that the cars are actually quite different - they are just painted in daylight colours.  That must have been quite an experience to see the matching train in LA Union Station!  As near as it has got to the real thing in perservation.