Argonaut (train)

The Argonaut was the Southern Pacific Railroad's secondary transcontinental passenger train, inaugurated in 1926, and operated between New Orleans and Los Angeles via Houston, San Antonio, and El Paso, Texas; Demming, New Mexico; Douglas and Tucson, Arizona; and Palm Springs, California, until its discontinuance in 1961. In addition to passenger cars from New Orleans to the west coast, it also carried sleeping cars from New Orleans to San Diego via the San Diego & Arizona Eastern, a SP subsidiary. Westbound trains carried sleeping cars from both New Orleans and Houston to San Antonio.

While the Sunset Limited was the premiere SP train on the "Sunset Route" — and probably on the whole SP system — the Argonaut was always a secondary train, running on a slower timetable than the Sunset Limited. The Argonaut needed fifty hours between New Orleans and Los Angeles, while the Sunset Limited needed only forty-two. Unlike the Sunset Limited, which was made for first-class luxury passenger travel, the Argonaut was always a train for economy travel, carrying mostly standard coaches and few standard sleepers, allowing normal people to enjoy transcontinental rail travel at moderate prices but with full dining and sleeping car service.

Throughout its entire life the train comprised olive green and black heavyweight passenger cars, pulled by steam locomotives like the GS-1 4-8-4 or MT-4 4-8-2, sometimes even a Cab Forward 4-8-8-2. In its last years, the train was pulled by EMD F7 or ALCO PA/PB diesel locomotives.

Additional material from Night Trains, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.

See also