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Kozzie- Glad to provide; hope it helps. If you get interested in the southwest, will be happy to respond if I know the answer. SP San Joaquin Daylight went LA-SF on the inland route--over the Tehachapis (including the famous Tehachapi loop) into Bakersfield, thence Fresno and up the valley to Lathrop, where it cut off LA cars to Sacramento (Sacramento Daylight), and then to SF. They also offered a bus connection to Yosemite at Merced and Fresno. When I rode it in 1967, they were running a 100% coach round end obs on the front, next to the RPO and, wonder of wonders, a genuine 1941 daylight articulated chair car, still with the fluting and still red and orange. The dome was off that day, and they had scrounged up a flat top full lounge car that still had the barber shop (non-functional and used for storage space) with the etched glass on the door that said so. That was the good news. The bad news (other than they kept trying not to sell me a ticket, including telling me that the train was sold out and that the plane would be faster) was that the lounge was right next to (you guessed it) that luxurious acme of epicurean delight--a former 6-6-4 Russellburger car that they were trying to pass off as "food" service. Trying to keep up with the Sunset! By the way, the train was not full either way, but despite the SP the load factors were well above the 60% norm. The Starlight runs on the coast line. UP/SP will/would not allow psgr trains over the Tehachapis post-1971 due to congestion, although we did a small consulting study for Caltrans about 20 years ago and showed how they could sneak an overnight train over the hill and not mess things up too much. In all fairness, the hill has extremely heavy traffic and a lot of single track with very heavy grades. You can take a San Joaquin down the valley from Oakland to Bakersfield over the parallel BNSF (ex-Santa Fe) line (that actually runs on the old SP line between OAK and Port Chicago on the Carquinez Strait) and then get on a dedicated bus to LAUPT, or you can ride Metrolink on the other side between LAUPT and Lancaster/Palmdale, but you can't ride over the hill unless you hop a freight (not recommended) or hire on with the RR. I'll sign off and let spfoamer fill in the gaps. Best wishes.
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