With the GGD Lark cars due in a couple of weeks I figure I can do a bit of a relevance thread about the Lark.
When GGD first announced the Lark I was, probably like just about everyone else, thinking "what's that". I did a little research and decided to reserve one. I had a chance to talk to Scott Mann about the train a little later and the result the project went from a do it when the reservations are in to an "uh oh", I'm not so sure about this at all. But that changed over time due to many changes and compromises by his builders and their desire for business. You see the sleepers are smooth sided, the diner is fluted and the head end cars are modified heavyweights.
In the ensuing years I have become quite enamored of the train for many reasons of it being so unique by being so generic.
In the 4-5 years before WWII the railroads were coming out of the depression in as positive a manner as any industry in the country. They were in fact leaders in that coming out. The NYC with it's streamlined 20th Century and the Pennsylvania with it's streamlined Broadway. The SP was in there with it's new Daylights. The Santa Fe with it's Super Chief. These are just a few examples. There are many others like the UP and CB&Q, just to name a couple.
These were all 1st class trains. They were also all overnight all Pullman trains with the exception of the Daylights. But the SP did have overnight trains between the same endpoints as the Daylights. These were the Cascade between the SF bay area and Portland OR and the Lark between the SF bay area and Los Angeles. Like the 20th Century with it's financial services clientele and the Broadway with its steel industry clientele the Lark likewise had oil, particularly Standard oil as a major client. Standard oil was known to have reserved an entire train to support company business requiring some mass temporary migration of executives and engineers overnight. So by 1939 SP started making plans to streamline its Lark.
But the SP way, for lack of a better description. Whereas those other railroads made each of those trains unique the SP did not.
The only streamlined SP Lark cars were the two triple diners. They were built to match the Daylights with their fluted sides. While on the outside they were very similar to the Daylight triple diners they were configured differently inside for a different purpose. They were set up to be mainly lounge cars that could serve meals at night due to the late departure hours but mostly to serve a full breakfast quickly and efficiently before the 9am morning arrivals. The observation car was also used to serve "continental" style breakfast in the morning.
Because mail was such an important business for SP they streamstyled a pair of heavyweight baggage cars and a pair of heavyweight RPOs to match.
The rest of the train was all Pullman. They were all room cars very similar to the '38 20th Century and Broadway. These other 15 cars of each train were built completely to Pullman specs. There was nothing SP about them. You could almost say the Lark was the closest thing there was to a Pullman vs railroad train. This is why the streamlined Lark, including the SP cars, began as generic Pullman Two Tone Gray in 1941.
Likewise, it was pulled by the same Daylight GS3-5s as the Daylights, nothing special here.
Before the war Pullman decided to make 119 6-6-4 sleepers to spec expecting the war to happen with its concomitant restrictions and presupposing that much war time passenger business would come from the government (government travelers were only reimbursed for sections not rooms). They were right on all counts. And so the Lark adapted during the war years by adding 6-6-4 sleepers to add or replace others. Because the observation cars were used as a meal cars it was one of the very few trains to be allowed to retain its observation cars throughout the war.
After the war and the Pullman legal decision to separate the operating and car building businesses SP ended up 40 or so passenger cars it really didn't want. So Pullman's Richmond Shops were quickly contracted to make it as much as it had been before. So from 1949 through 1951 all of the Pullman cars went through major rebuilding by the Richmond Shops which included relettering them SP rather than Pullman. Other than that it pretty much remained as before for the next 6 years. Then the second big change happened. In January 1956 the Lark became the last regularly scheduled long distance passenger train in the country to dieselize. The end of the Daylight GS4-5s altogether in regular service happened within a couple months afterwards.
From then on the train began to change downwards and deteriorate like all other passenger trains, probably even faster because air travel between San Francisco and Los Angeles had already become ubiquitous. Coach cars were added and consists became whatever was available. In a little more than 10 years it was gone altogether.
