It started on July 10, 1949, and was SP's third "Daylight" streamliner; it had a fast 15-hour-30-minute schedule in either direction for the 713-mile (1,147 km) trip through some of the most beautiful mountain scenery of any train in North America.

This line had steep grades and sharp curves; in summer 1926 the fastest schedule Portland to San Francisco was 27 hours.

Not until 1927 was the new Cascade Line via Willamette Pass and Klamath Falls opened as the main route between the Bay Area and the Northwest.

Stops at Chemult, Oregon, and Gerber, California, had a handful of permanent residents; between were miles of barely developed landscape.

Writer and trainfan Lucius Beebe described the experience as "riding all morning in the shadowy presence of Mount Shasta, a brooding, symmetrical cone of everlasting snow that dominates the right-of-way for hundreds of miles."

Beebe further noted, "At its terminals in Oakland and Portland are the visible and tangible evidences of urban concentration and what passes for civilization, the neon lights, the meter cabs, and the hurrying traffic of commerce and manufacture.

But what lies in-between them is largely wilderness where the solitary inhabitant is likely to carry a gun in the crook of his arm and have a wild-looking dog for company.

He was on hand to dedicate the rebuilt dome cars when they began service, but he was a bottom-line man and was aware of the popularity of automobiles and the airlines.

Russell wanted to expand his railroad, moving into pipelines, communication, and real estate and offering faster, more efficient freight service.

Shasta Daylight promotions, previously showing a Daylight-colored set of PA units, were airbrushed to black and red.

[7] Citing low ridership during the winter, SP asked the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to allow the Shasta Daylight to run tri-weekly between September 15 and December 14 and again from January 15 to May 28.

[1][3] As the train rolled into the 1960s Daylight cars were repainted in the aluminum stripe with red letterboard format used on the Sunset Limited.

Russell's successor, Benjamin F. Biaggini, claimed "...the cold fact looms that the long-distance passenger train is dead and no amount of prayer or wishful thinking can bring it back to life.

That it was able to survive up to the creation of Amtrak proved a savior to West Coast rail passenger service, although Mount Shasta is passed at night.

It has been acquired by the Canadian Pacific Railway and renovated as an executive car; it carries the number CP 3605 and is named "Selkirk."