The Drumheads
of a Few Famous Trains #1

The joint Union Pacific Railroad and Chicago & North Western Railroad Challenger was a Chicago to Los Angeles train - via Omaha and Ogden - that began service in 1935.  The Challenger was an economy coach and tourist-sleeping car train created in response to the easing of the depression which allowed the middle class to begin traveling again.   A second train, using the same name - and marketed to the same demographic - began service between Chicago and Oakland (San Francisco via ferry).  The Southern Pacific Railroad handled the train west of Ogden.

The Santa Fe Railroad, Union Pacific's arch rival, answered the challenge in 1938 with a competing all-coach streamliner named "El Capitan"; however this train was much faster, running at the speed of the elite Super Chief's timing of 39 hours 45 minutes.  Union Pacific would have to wait until after WW2 to match this speed.

The Golden State Limited was jointly operated by the Rock Island Railroad and the Southern Pacific Railroad, between Chicago and Los Angeles - via Kansas City and Phoenix - competing with the Santa Fe's Super Chief (see below) and the Union Pacific's City of Los Angeles.  The Golden State was always the third choice for going all the way from Chicago to Los Angeles, but was the preferred option for Chicago to Phoenix.

The Santa Fe Railroad had four trains marketed under the "Chief" name.   The 1st of the family, inaugurated in 1926 between Chicago and Los Angeles - via Kansas City and Albuquerque -  was simply called "The Chief".    The  Super Chief was a streamliner introduced in 1937 as a weekly high-speed service, between the same two cities, to counter the Union Pacific Railroad (the Santa Fe's arch-rival) which had introduced their own high-speed streamliner called City of Los Angeles a year earlier.  Both trains operated on a (then phenomenal) 39 hour 45 minute schedule; with both trains averaging over 55 mph on routes over 2,200 miles; after WW2 both became daily trains.  The Super Chief became one of the most famous trains in the world becoming known as "The Train of the Stars".   See the page about the Shiny Silver Car for additional information on the Super Chief train.   Eventually,  the Santa Fe added the Texas Chief between Chicago and Houston, and the San Francisco Chief between Chicago and San Francisco.  

The Sunset Limited, inaugurated in 1894, was a Southern Pacific passenger train which initially ran between San Francisco and New Orleans - via Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Antonio, and Houston.  In 1930, the train's western terminus became Los Angeles.  The train is (perhaps) the only one to have spawned a famous magazine: "Sunset Magazine" (which stop publishing in 2020).   Sunset began in 1898[5] as a promotional magazine for the Southern Pacific Railroad, designed to combat the negative "Wild West" stereotypes about California. (Of course, it's still a "Wild West"; but the sociopaths are now driving on the freeways instead of riding horses...) 

The Southern Pacific Railroad had a family of passenger trains marketed under the "Daylight" name; with the name meaning: "running during daylight hours" (not overnight).   The first of the series was the "Daylight Limited", which began service in 1922 between Los Angeles and San Francisco.  This train was replaced, in 1937, by the most famous of the series, which initially was simply called: "The Daylight".   The name was then changed to "The Coast Daylight" highlighting that it ran along the Pacific Coast.  This train proved to be immensely popular (becoming one of the most profitable train in the country) and eventually another train was added on the same route; resulting in two new names:  The Morning Daylight and The Afternoon Daylight; which indicated their departure times.  Eventually, there was a Shasta Daylight running between Oakland (San Francisco via ferry) and Portland, as well as the San Juaquin Daylight, which ran between Oakland (San Francisco via ferry) and Los Angeles (like the Coast Daylight) but via the San Juaquin Valley.   The Daylight's had a number of unique features include an extremely attractive color scheme, a number of well proportion streamlined steam locomotives which hauled the trains, and passenger cars which displayed unusual creativity in design.

The City of San Francisco ran between Chicago and Oakland (San Francisco via Ferry) on the original transcontinental route via Omaha and Ogden.  The train was jointly owned by the Southern Pacific, Union Pacific, and Chicago & North Western railroads.   The "City of" style of naming was first used by the Union Pacific for a revolutionary long-distance, high-speed, lightweight, Diesel-powered train between Chicago and Portland in 1935, which was the "City of Portland".   Based on the train's success, both the engineering as well as passenger popularity, another "City" train was added in 1936, between Chicago and Denver, named - appropriately enough - the "City of Denver" (in response to the introduction of the equality revolutionary "Denver Zephyr").  This was followed by the "City of Los Angeles" and then the "City of San Francisco".   All four trains cut the travel time between their respective cities by a third.   Initially, the trains ran weekly; but eventually - as new equipment was purchased - the trains became daily.  The "City of Los Angeles" also caused a "speed war" with the Santa Fe for the lucrative Chicago - Los Angeles passenger trade.  

In 1938, the westbound City of San Francisco covered the 2,259 miles between Chicago and Oakland in 39 hours 4 minutes for an average speed of 58 mph; the eastbound train was 18 minutes slower.  As this was over two mountain ranges (in California and Utah), sustained speeds over 100 mph were needed in the flatlands between Chicago and Cheyanne.

No other country has, to this day, matched the combination of speed and distance achieved by the five railroads competing for passengers between Chicago and: Portland, Denver, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.  These speeds lasted until about 1955.   See the FAQ: "Why doesn't the US have fast trains" in the "Fast Trains" page for why this is so.