Was this when they closed the dining cars? Was there a time when there were both automats and dining cars? Thanks.
Automat cars where brought in when SP was loosing on dining car services. Staffing a car that wasn't popular anymore was a loosing venture late in the passenger train era on the SP. Automats solved this problem by providing food to people when they wanted it by use of vending machines.
So, every time I see this thread, I keep thinking it was made 2 days late and is really in commoration of February 17th 1885, the day the SP and CP were combined under the Southern Pacific Company.
