This post on the Golden State stems directly from the listing of a set of passenger cars in the For Sale section of the forum--I didn't know what they were. They're definitely good looking; red's my favorite color and it looks great with stainless steel--much like The Texas Special.
So I looked on the net and found out, according to those sources, that the Golden State was a lightweight, streamliner "name" train that was jointly operated by Southern Pacific and Rock Island between Chicago and Los Angeles from 1948 to 1952. It was, in fact, the successor of sorts of a previous name passenger train jointly operated by those roads dating back to 1902, the Golden State Limited.
For locomotive power, SP provided fresh E-7's and RI supplied E-6's, colorfully painted.
The passenger cars were distinctively red paint and stainless steel purpose-built for the train.
In keeping with the times, print advertising and marketing materials were abundant:
For more images and information, check-out this site.
