Argonaut (train)

The Argonaut was the Southern Pacific Railroad's secondary passenger train between New Orleans and Los Angeles via Houston, San Antonio, and El Paso, Texas; Tucson, Arizona; and Palm Springs, California from 1926 until 1958 when it was discontinued west of Houston. (It was also dropped from May 1932 until May 1936.) In earlier years it carried sleeping cars from New Orleans to San Diego via the San Diego & Arizona Eastern, a SP subsidiary. Westbound trains carried sleeping cars from New Orleans and Houston to San Antonio.

The Sunset Limited was the premiere SP train on the "Sunset Route" — and probably on the whole SP system — and the Argonaut was a secondary train, running on a slower timetable than the Sunset Limited. The Argonaut needed fifty hours between New Orleans and Los Angeles, while after 1950 the Sunset Limited needed forty-two. The Argonaut ran Tucson to El Paso via Deming; the westward train usually ran on the EP&SW line via Douglas.

Unlike the Sunset Limited, which was made for first-class passenger travel, the Argonaut was always a train for economy travel, carrying mostly standard coaches and few standard sleepers, allowing people to enjoy transcontinental rail travel at moderate prices but with full dining and sleeping car service.

Through its life the train had 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