As a terminal railroad, the Pacific Harbor Line isn’t normally thought of as an operator of passenger trains. So it was quite a surprise to see this single-car passenger train emerge as a Union Pacific intermodal train pass in the other direction. PHL 3GS21B 34 was pulling Rail Ventures (RVIX) observation car 800344, the Yerba Buena, north (railroad east) on the Alameda Corridor, which normally sees only BNSF and Union Pacific traffic.
The Yerba Buena was built by Pullman-Standard in Mar h 1942 as Pullman 4-4-2 sleeper Imperial Drive, seeing service on the Southern Pacific-Union Pacific-Chicago & North Western "Overland Route" between California’s Bay Area and Chicago. These cars were originally painted two-tone gray, with many later repainted into UP’s yellow and gray scheme. Pullman sold the 18 Imperial sleepers to the host railroads on December 31, 1945, and this car became C&NW Imperial Drive. The car was repainted into C&NW colors in April 1953, and on August 1, 1970, was sold to Auto-Liner Corporation as their car 100, Happy Hollow. It was later sold to Great Western Tours before ending up as part of John Kirkwood’s Rail Ventures fleet. (Compton, California – April 8, 2009)
