San Diego to Pittsburgh 1945-12-25 Routings

 "Time Table" pamphlets, and books would be my best guess as where to begin on which roads they might have taken. Common, those schedules were combined into large hardcover books for official use, covering the whole continent. Every ticket agent had one.

   Getting the veteran war records for someone who is passed away can be done if you have good addresses, serial number, etc. But then again, a large number of records were destroyed in a fire during the 70's. 

My Grandfather was in Europe, but returned to the USA out west.

 They didn't "just go home"; it took awhile, and some stayed longer than others. 

  I know he returned to Detroit partially by the UP, & Katy to catch certain cars, or engines.  I'd have to go trough by date & sort the telegrams sent.

Farwest....great topic! My Dad was a Navy Officer and did not get home for Christmas 1945, but when he was allowed to come home to Pittsburgh (Freedom, PA) he mentioned The Santa Fe out of L.A. to Chicago. I'm not sure how he got to L.A. from San Diego. When he arrived to Chicago's Union Station, he met a PPR conductor who worked with his Dad, my grandfather. Dad was soon aboard the Broadway Limited, but not in a Pullman Car.....he was given some blankets and pillows from the porters who also worked with my grandfather and rode in one of the baggage cars. There is more to the story, but has the best ending ever! Rather than ride all the way into PGH. (another 20 or so miles) the new conductor picked up at Crestline Ohio, who also a pal of my grandfather's signaled for the engineer to make an "emergency stop" in the west end of Conway Yards (Freedom) so my dad could hop out and walk up the hill to 529 Fifth Avenue....his home. This is the only known time that the famed Broadway Limited stopped in Conway Yards!

The Southern Pacific "Lark" didn't go to San Diego.

Dad was Navy and came home in 1945 from Tokyo. He caught a troop ship east in late October or early November landed in San Diego, was sent up the coast on one train, then another--things were not at all organized and there was a lot of "oops, wait, no, you guys were supposed to go that way." He did get to see the Loop, and the conductor pointed out the Continental Divide, and they changed trains again somewhere high in the mountains--he wasn't sure why--which resulted in their going through the legendary North Platte Canteen. They went on to Chicago, where he ended up at Great Lakes where he'd started two years earlier. His paperwork got lost and he sat up there for three weeks with Christmas coming and a baby he'd never seen at home.

His discharge came through early on Christmas Eve. He went to Chicago, caught the first badly overcrowded train east and stood up in the vestibule with his seabag on his shoulder until a seat opened up. The conductor kept trying to hustle along, but when they hit Youngstown the last train had left and the station was closed. One taxi was left, and when Dad asked if there was a decent hotel, the driver asked where he was headed.

"You've never heard of it. Little place, Dilles Bottom, maybe ninety miles from here."

"Okay!" The driver took off southbound, and that is why, in the wee hours of Christmas morning, a sailor got out of a Youngstown taxi fifty feet from his house...

...and the driver refused to take any pay as he started his own two-hour drive home.

If you have a parent who served in WWII, you can get his (or her) full service record. Anyone other than the service member, spouse or kids gets a condensed version, so if you're able to get the full set, do it now and make copies. I have the online form bookmarked on one of the computers here--too hard to find it on the tablet. You'll need to mail in a signature page. Otherwise, your county has a Veterans' Service Officer who will help you fill out the paperwork and send it in. There's no charge for the service or the records (unlike Civil War records, which can be expen$ive.) If you have the veteran's service ID, it makes things easier, but their Social Security number will also work.

Dad's actual records weren't burned at the Jefferson Barracks fire, but they're in the huge pile that has been dried and awaits sorting. In the meantime, the Navy sends a record based on what his ship had, so we know where he was and when. 

Since Santa Fe sold him the ticket in San Diego, they probably kept him on the Home Road all the way to Chicago.  (After all, there's no reason to voluntarily split the revenue with a competing road.)  Thence from Dearborn to Union Station via Parmlee car and east on the Pennsy.

Santa Fe had by far the most trains from LA to Chicago . . . but . . . since SD&AE used the Santa Fe depot then, there's a small chance that they sold him an SD&AE/SP/CRI&P ticket to Chicago.  Makes me wonder if SD&AE had their own ticket agent in the Santa Fe depot.