The American Freedom Train engine

The American Freedom Train engine as seen in -Short 1-, is famously known as the Daylight. She currently resides at the -Oregon Rail Heritage Center- in Portland.

## Bio

Daylight is the most famous of all of the 28 GS-4s that were ever produced. She was built at the Lima Locomotive Works in 1941, and straight after that she was assigned to the Coast Daylight, Southern Pacific's premier passenger train between San Francisco and Los Angeles, California, but she also pulled many other of the SP's named passenger trains. After the arrival of newer GS-4s and GS-5s, Daylight was assigned to Golden State Route and Sunset Route passenger trains. Then she was reassigned to the Coast Division in the early 1950s. One of her career highlights happened on October 17, 1954, when she and her sister numbered 4447 pulled a special 10-car train for the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society from Los Angeles to Owenyo, California, and return. In late 1955, after being one of the last few GS-4 steam engines in the Southern Pacific livery, Daylight was painted black and silver and her side skirting (a streamlining feature of the GS-4 steam engines) was removed due to dieselization of the Coast Daylight in January of that year. Daylight was then assigned to Southern Pacific's San Joaquin Valley line, occasionally pulling passenger trains such as the San Joaquin Daylight between Oakland and Bakersfield as well as fast freight and helper services. Daylight was semi-retired from service on September 24, 1956, and was kept as an emergency back-up locomotive until she was officially retired on October 2, 1957, and was placed in storage along with several other GS-class engines near Southern Pacific's Bakersfield roundhouse. In 1958, when most of the GS class engines had already been scrapped, Daylight was removed from storage, painted black-and-silver at the time, and she was donated on April 24, 1958, to the city of Portland, Oregon, where she was placed on outdoor public display in Oaks Park. However sense she had been considered obsolete by this time, she was not actively chosen for static display. She was occasionally picked simply because she was the first in the line of locomotives that couldn't move under their own power and she could be removed from the display with the least number of switching moves, some say. However, Daylight's time on display was not fun. She was repeatedly vandalized and had many of her parts stolen, including her builder's plates and whistle. She quickly deteriorated due to neglect, and was evaluated for restoration in 1974 after becoming a candidate to pull the American Freedom Train. Her size, power, and graceful lines made it a good fit for the Bicentennial train. After finding that Daylight's bearings and rods were in good shape, she was chosen. After suffering from being a display figure for some years, Daylight was removed from display on December 13, 1974, and restored at Burlington Northern's Hoyt Street roundhouse in Portland and returned to operation April 21, 1975, wearing a special paint scheme of red, white, and blue. Because the original whistle was stolen, she had been fitted with two replacement whistles: a Southern Pacific 6 chime from GS-5 No. 4458, and a Hancock 3 chime from a Spokane, Portland, and Seattle 4-6-6-4. As part of the American Freedom Train, Daylight pulled a display train around the most of the United States. Afterwards, she pulled an Amtrak special, the Amtrak Transcontinental Steam Excursion. After nearly two years on the road, Daylight was returned to storage in Portland, this time under protective cover and not exposed to the elements. In 1981, Daylight was returned to her original "Daylight" colors for Railfair '81 and the opening of the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, California with UP FEF-3 No. 8444 (Now No. 844) and UP Challenger No. 3985. An SP 6 chime (used on later Freedom Train trips) was mounted on the fireman's side for the remainder of the 1980's. In 1984, Daylight pulled an all-Daylight-painted train from Portland to New Orleans, Louisiana and back, to publicize the World's Fair with UP 8444 there too. The 7,477-mile (12,033 km) round trip was the longest steam train excursion in US history. In 1986, Daylight went to Hollywood to appear in Tough Guys, and pulled business trains for the Southern Pacific. Daylight had a notable moment in 1989 when she and another famed 4-8-4 Union Pacific 8444 made a side-by-side entrance into Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal in 1989 for the station's 50th anniversary celebrations. The two locomotives then ran side by side on Santa Fe's and Southern Pacific's parallel main lines through Cajon Pass, with Daylight eventually having to stop due a hot axle box. She would later go on to pull several Southern Pacific - Rio Grande joint excursions, including "The Spirit of the West." In 1990, Daylight's SP&S whistle was set aside for the SP&S 700, and a Northern Pacific Hancock 3 chime was fitted. This whistle would remain on Daylight for the next 19 years. On April 26, 1991, Daylight returned to Railfair '91 in Sacramento, again with UP 844 and UP 3985. She attended the next year's event with newly restored SP 4-6-2 #2472. She would return to Railfair once again in 1999, co-starring with Santa Fe No. 3751, and Union Pacific's 844 and 3985. In 2000, Daylight was repainted black and silver for a Burlington Northern Santa Fe employee appreciation special special. It was traditional for Southern Pacific to paint freight locomotives in black so Daylight and other GS locomotives received this treatment when the diesels took over their passenger assignments. In the case of BNSF, which is a freight railroad, Daylight was given old historical treatment. Then she was repainted into the American Freedom Train paint scheme again in early 2002 after the events of 9/11. In the fall of 2004, Daylight returned into the classic Southern Pacific Daylight paint scheme, this time in its "as delivered" appearance. Then Daylight appeared in the summer of 2005 in the then-extant Montana Rockies Rail Tours company pulling (with a diesel helper behind it) two summer excursion trips between Sandpoint Idaho and Billings, Montana, including stops at the Livingston Depot. On May 18 and May 19, 2007, Daylight made another appearance with UP 844 in the Pacific Northwest for the "Puget Sound Excursion", on BNSF Railway tracks from Tacoma to Everett, Washington, round-trip.

Personality

Livery

Basis

Trivia

In reality, the Daylight is referred to as a female, but in the Bill and Ted series, the Daylight is a male.

Appearances

Gallery