Kitchen Cars

The Pacific Limited was built by American Car & Foundry in 1955 as lunch counter/diner No. 4003, one of only four cars in that configuration for Union Pacific. As the name implies, it had a typical lunch counter in addition to regular seating. It was reacquired by UP in 1993 and named Pacific Limited.

The Pacific Limited began in 1913 as an all-Pullman electric-lighted train between Chicago, Illinois, and Ogden, Utah, where it split and went to Los Angeles and San Francisco, California. An all-Pullman train meant first class service and fares, with no coach service. There was a Pullman Standard observation sleeping car, Pullman drawing room and compartment sleeping cars, Pullman tourist sleeping cars and dining car service. As newer equipment was put into service, the Pacific Limited added coaches. In 1947, it was combined with the Portland Rose, another all-Pullman train which had added coach service when the streamliners went to daily service.

While traveling by train from one point to another may have been an exact science, the process of determining fares was left to numerous tariff books. In 1913, the fare from Chicago to Sacramento, California, was $46 for a drawing room, $36 for a compartment, $13 for a double lower standard berth and $7 for a double lower tourist berth each way plus the regular ticket which was $72.50, round trip from Chicago to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Oakland or San Diego, California.