The Exposition Flyer
Before the California Zephyr, there was the Exposition Flyer. Intended to be a temporary service to the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco, the success of this train kept it running for a decade, and directly led to the California Zephyr
The Exposition Flyer -- New Thru Train Service. This advertising pamphlet was issued prior
to the train's June 10, 1939 inaugural run. Some of the interior panels:
Western Pacific Exposition Flyer Timetables
1939 Milepost Memorandum -- This publication is part timetable, part guidebook,
listing sights along the WP's portion of the Exposition Flyer's route.
Expo Flyer Advertisement Locomotive is not WP's, however.
1947 Flyer Timetable -- Corrected to July 6, 1947. Single sheet, folded in half. Interior view
of the schedules...along with the schedules for trains 39 and 40 (the Flyer), it includes the
schedule for trains 1 and 2, the Feather River Express. The express was later replaced with the
Royal Gorge, which was then replaced with the Budd RDC-2 Zephyrette.
1943 Dining Car Menu with a San Francisco motif. Back describes the City's cable cars.
Menu opens to display the luncheon selections: page 1, page 2.
Exposition Flyer matchbook. (Thanks to Mike for the scan)
Exposition Flyer at the Tobin Bridges -- For a few months before the 1949 inauguration
of the California Zephyr, the Western Pacific operated its newly delivered equipment -- both cars
and locomotives -- on the Exposition Flyer, the train that the CZ would replace, as this postcard
shows. The card's back caption reads: "Streamliner on Western Pacific Railroad crosses Feather
River on high bridge as highway traffic travels on the lower bridge in this rugged canyon."
Published by Mike Roberts Color Productions. No post mark. (A. Radecki collection)
The "Explosion" Flyer
During its decade of operation, the Flyer had enough wrecks that it became known in some circles as the "Explosion Flyer" (another "legend" is that this name reflected the explosive growth of the train, sometimes running in eight sections, during WWII, rather than any tendency to jump the track). Here are a few old newspaper clippings. Unfortunately, there was no information included with this old collection as to the date and paper(s) that these came from.
"Three Killed in Head-on Collision" -- "A little after 10 on the night of Sept 22, the engineer of Western Pacific's crack Exposition Flyer looked down a stretch of track near Pleasanton, Calif, and saw the most horrifying sight that can meet a trainman's eyes. There not many yards away loomed the giant shape of a "deadhead" -- an unattached freight locomotive, hurling toward him down the single strip of track. Both engineers threw on their brakes. Passengers in the Exposition Flyer, an hour out of Oakland, were jarred from their seats. An instant later the two locomotives met head on.
"A hurricane of escaping steam roared into the cab of the Flyer, suffocated and scalded to death the imprisoned engineer and fireman. Both engines left the rails in twisted agonies of hot metal, dragging with them the baggage car and two passenger cars. The Flyer's baggageman, hurled clear through the front end of his car into a litter of sheared steel, died in a hospital a few hours later. Only these three trainmen were killed. Twelve other persons, nine of them passengers, were injured. The engineer of the freight locomotive had managed to jump, after applying his brakes, and escaped along with his firemen. Neither could explain the accident. Only official comment was made by a division superintendent of the line. "Evidently." he said, "somebody made a serious mistake."
"The wreckage of a crack California express (left) litters the torn
tracks morning after a collision with a deadhead freight locomotive outside Oakland."
"Front ends of passenger and freight locomotives after they had been pulled
apart following collision earlier in week on Western Pacific near Sunol, Cal. The passenger
engine is at the right. Three trainmen were killed and ten persons hurt."
"Three persons were killed and 11 others injured when the Western Pacific's
crack Exposition Flyer and a lone freight locomotive (right) collided head-on between Sunol
and Pleasanton, Calif, last night. Among the dead were the engineer and fireman of the
passenger locomotive (left). -- AP Wirephoto"
Landslide in California -- "A California landslide interrupted the schedule and
halted the Western Pacific's Exposition Flyer in the Feather River Canyon near Oroville. Despite
the force of the slide, which hurled the locomotive and baggage coach off the rails and down the
slope, none of the 200 passengers was injured. Only James Curry, baggage man, was missing. --
AP Wirephoto"
Air View of Fatal Wreck -- "Two persons, one a soldier, were killed and 77
injured when a Western Pacific railroad flyer jumped the tracks at Pilot, Nev, Friday. Railroad
officials, after a preliminary investigation, blamed "excessive speed" through a turnout switch. A
section foreman, J. A. Nusse, who declared he "had a premonition of a wreck," is credited with
leaping into the cab of the wrecked locomotive and saving Engineer B. R. Kreiss and his fireman
from certain death in escaping steam. Nusse then used live steam to extinguish the engine stoker
fire and probably prevented flames from sweeping the wrecked coaches. Lt. Carol Bard, navy
nurse from Winona Minn, was among the injured. -- AP Wirephoto"
