Arizona Limited

The "Arizona Limited" was an extra-fare streamliner train operated by the Southern Pacific Railroad and Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad from 1940 until 1942 on the Golden State route from Chicago, Illinois, to Los Angeles, California, via Tucumcari, New Mexico, and Phoenix, Arizona. It was aimed at travelers wanting to get away from winter weather conditions. Like the Santa Fe Chief, the "Arizona Limited" was streamlined in steam on the Southern Pacific. The Rock Island used both pre-war EMD E6 and Alco-GE DL109 locomotives out of Chicago. These had the famous maroon and silver "Rocket" liveries. The train itself was painted in the pre-war Pullman two-tone grey livery.

The train was an all-Pullman extra fare limited assembled prior to World War II for the specialized purpose of providing winter Pullman sleeping car service to Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona. The Rock Island-Southern Pacific Golden State, traveling the "low altitude route", had also serviced Arizona and the southern California (Palm Springs) resort areas since its inception on 2 November 1902.

As the Union Pacific and Santa Fe Routes to the West Coast both had to climb passes in excess of 7000 feet, the Rock Island in particular advertised their route as low altitude, the highest point being about 4400 near Lordsburg, New Mexico. The route had less snow, more sun, was more dependable and had less breathing problems for pre-antibiotic tubercular patients who frequently traveled west in search of sun and dry weather.

Additional trains on this combined Southern Pacific-Rock Island route included the "Californian", the "Imperial" and the "Apache". The Golden State route also directly served Palm Springs, California and was the only rail route to do.

The Santa Fe became an active competitor on the Chicago-Phoenix route after World War II. The Southern Pacific scheduled direct Pullman service on the Golden State from both Phoenix and Tucson for a number of years in the 1940's and 1950's. To meet this service, the Santa Fe rail line to Ash Fork (and later Williams Junction) carried winter service all-room Pullmans in addition to the regular Phoenix-Ash Fork sleeping car. These cars were switched out with either the Chief or the San Francisco Chief to provide direct competition on the winter Chicago-Phoenix route [Railway Official Guides, 1948, 1954, various issues] .

For a period of time in the 1950's, travelers could select from direct Phoenix-Chicago sleeping car service on the Southern Pacific-Rock Island "Golden State", "Imperial" and the Santa Fe (the Phoenix-Ash Fork train never had an official name but was affectionately called the Hassayampa Chief after a nearby river [David Myrick, Railroads of Arizona, vol. 4] ). The first run of the "Arizona Limited" left Chicago on 15 December 1940 and provided two-night out service to Tucson and Phoenix. The train ran every-other-day. Its consist was semi-streamlined. The Rock Island refurbished heavyweight baggage dormitory car (6014) and diner (8028) for the train. These cars ran at the front of the train, with the streamlined sleeping cars and observation car trailing.

During its two seasons, Dec-April 1940-41 and 1941-42, the Arizona Limited carried four to six streamlined Pullmans from the "Cascade" (pre-war 10 roomette-five double bedroom car) and "Imperial" (pre-war four double bedroom-four compartment-two drawing room car) Pullman pool [www.rits.org, extracted 3 Aug 08] . Some of these cars had run on the earlier Treasure Island Special, a combined Chicago and Northwestern-Union Pacific-Southern Pacific Chicago-Los Angeles once-a-week train to the 1939-1940 San Francisco Worlds Fair.

Lounge and observation space on the "Arizona Limited" was provided at various times by two special Pullman cars, both having an observation-lounge, two double bedrooms, one compartment and one drawing room, the "American Milemaster", which was had been on display at the 1939 New York World's Fair, and the "Muskingum River", the all stainless steel sister car to the "American Milemaster".

After the discontinuance of the train, both of these observation cars were transferred to the streamlined Southern Pacific Los Angeles-San Francisco [Lark] as both of its observation cars had been wrecked in 1942. The American Milemaster, renamed as simply EMD ET800, exists today as an EMD test car [Arthur D. Dubin, More Classic Trains, pps. 339] .

Muskingum River was unique in that is was constructed of flat-paneled stainless steel; that is, there was no fluting, as was the case on virtually all other stainless steel streamlined cars. The car was wrecked in 1959 [www.railwayclassics.com, extracted 3 Aug 08] .

Both cars has their trademark tear-drop Pullman-Standard observation ends "squared off" in the middle 1950's to make them flexible for switching and mid-train use.

In the "Arizona Limited"'s second season from 1941–1942, the "Milemaster" and the "Muskingum" were replaced with the two-car set comprising the observation car "California Republic" and the duplex sleeper car "Bear Flag", which previously served on the Union Pacific Railroad's "Forty-Niner".

The "Arizona Limited" made its final run in 1942 following US Federal Government restrictions on seasonal train operations.

References/ Sources

*cite book | last = Schafer
first = Mike
authorlink =
coauthors = Joe Welsh
title = Streamliners: A History of the Railroad Icon
publisher = MBI Publishing Company
date = November 14, 2002
location =
pages = 160
url = http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0760313717
doi =
id =
isbn = 978-0760313718