On May 15, 1915, Carl Laemmle opened Universal City, home to his newly built Universal Pictures, a studio so large that it became its own city. To publicize the event, Universal chartered this train from New York to Los Angeles. I don’t know if that banner stayed in place for the whole journey (which back then would have taken nearly a week) or just when the train pulled into a town. Either way, I hope those seven men (studio executives or just extras?) didn’t have to stand there the whole way.
** UPDATE ** : Charles Hepperle from San Bernardino Depot Book and Video said: “The photo was taken at the Santa Fe depot in San Bernardino, CA. The Santa Fe locomotive was built by Baldwin in 1913. The red borders in the large photos show the enlargements below that have the same depot building and trees. Below are my comparison photos.”
He also adds: “1915 seems plausible for the photo year. I’m sure that the banner was only used for photo ops along the way. The photo in San Bernardino shows the train being westbound so it was probably near the end of the promo tour. It was probably a chartered train using most or all Pullman cars. Most likely it would have traveled from New York to Chicago (if that was the route) on another railroad then changed to the Santa Fe in Chicago. The locomotive wouldn’t have traveled the entire way — it could have been used from Albuquerque, NM or Barstow, CA to Los Angeles, CA but this is only my speculation.”
Looks like maybe San Bernardino’s old station with a Santa Fe (AT&SF) run train. It took about 3 1/2 days to go New York-Chicago-Los Angeles by that time, but locomotives were usually switched out traveling across their local district where the engine crews worked. So this one may have been fresh from the roundhouse at the big shop complex there where the banner would have been a-fixed for that last sixty miles into downtown. Actually riding on the engine would have run afoul of federal laws and other agreements so I’d guess it was largely a publicity stunt within the confines of the house tracks.
Thank you, Al!
Turns out that the opening of Universal City was delayed for a month until they could complete this publicity trip and hold some kind of beauty pageant.