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SOUTHERN PACIFIC COMPANY: The SP has been refused permission to drop its San Joaquin Daylight, Sacramento Daylight, Sunset, and City of San Francisco passenger trains..... The TOPS (Operating Data and Information) computer has been connected and is in operation at most points between Portland, Oregon and El Paso, Texas.....28 cars were derailed on the Colton-Palmdale cut-off the last week in November. Cause was said to be a broken rail....Rumors are out that SP's last cab-forward, Number 4294 is in Sacramento Shops along with one of the roads famous Daylight type locomotives. Rumor haa it that they are being readied for operation in connection with the Centennial celebration of the driving of the golden spike in May, 1969. We will keep you posted on the developement of this rumor....1000 more forty-foot boxcars are being converted into "Yellow Stripe" wide door cars for lumber loading in Oregon....

ATCHISON TOPEKA AND SANTA FE RAILWAY: San Diegans for the most part continue to be powered with the new passenger power, the 350 and 400 Class. One San Diegan was later getting out of San Diego recently. Unit No. 350 split a switch near the harbor Drive overpass while on its way to the turntable....The Port of San Diego is keeping the 22nd Street yard full of hoppers with shipments of Soda Ash and Potash....From the Southwest Historical Society's "Clearance Card" we note that ten of the 900 Class, SD-24's are being converted into "hump" engines for use at Argentine Yard. Four units will be used on each hump 24 hours per day with two units left over for spares. Other news from the same publication indicate that a 31 mile line will be constructed near Carlsbad, N. M., to serve the Duval Corporation. The new line will be serviced by unit trains consisting of 66 cars each of 13,000 gallon tank cars loaded with moulton sulphur, making a 925 mile roundtrip to Gulf ports........ Santa Fe has announced that a "simulator" will be constructed in a surplus passenger car for the training of locomotive engineers. (The SP is also having a simulator installed in Los Angeles, but it will be in a permanent location).

PULLMAN COMPANY: All pullman car conductors will be removed from pullman handling trains sometime next year. Only about 325 Pullman Conductors remain in service now. It is interesting to note that before the railroads bought Pullman 11 years ago there were 4000 sleepers in service. Now only about 1000 remain. (Trainmen News).

MERGERS: A new railroad, 27,000 miles long came into being around Thanksgiving. It is called the Burlington Northern. The BN is made up of the Great Northern; Northern Pacific; Chicago, Burlington and Quincy; Colorado and Southern; Ft. Worth and Denver; Spokane, Portland and Seattle and the Pacific Coast Railroads...... The Penn-Central has been ordered to take over the bankrupt New Haven on February 1, 1969.....A new labor union representing most of the operating employees in the U. S. and Canada is to come into being on January 1, 1969. The new union will be called the United Transportation Union, and is the result of the unification of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginmen, Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, Order of Railway Conductors and Brakemen, and the Switchmen's Union of North America. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers chose not to join the other unions in the unification move.

DOLLARS: Net income of the nations railroads for the third quarter of 1968 has been reported as $107,000,000, according to the Association of American Railroads. That's $29,000,000 more than for the corresponding period last year. (Trainman News)....

SAN DIEGO AND ARIZONA EASTERN RAILWAY COMPANY: Trains 451 and 452 have been averaging 40 cars recently. In most recent weeks trains have been operated on the El Cajon line five and six days a week with an average of about 10 cars per day. Crossing Gates will be installed in the future at 28th Street in San Diego... .Another shipment of 25 cars of Plaster City gypsum moved to tidewater over the SD&AE the first week of December.