Shasta 'Daylight'

When I was about seven or eight I used to see advertisments for Athearn 'PS-2' box car kits in our British magazine 'Model Railway News'. Much later in life I got to see PS-2 boxcars in the flesh (at various railroad museums!) and also what American freight trains looked like and I was very impressed.

So here's a 'marker' for items to appear soon on Western railroading and especially the 'Espee'. Here's a old photograph of the 'Shasta Daylight' in the 1950's passing the mountain of the same name, a place which has become very important to me over the years.

The two-tone orange and tuscan 'daylight' livery was agrguably the prettiest of the North American paint jobs although who could fail to love the ATSF 'warbonnet' colours. Both are just perfect for hot clear desert days.

Sadly the 'Shasta Daylight' vanished long ago but the Amtrak 'Coast Starlight' still uses this route in the middle of the night.