The City of Los Angeles was a streamlined passenger train that ran between Chicago, Illinois, and Los Angeles, California, via Omaha, Nebraska, and Ogden, Utah. Between Omaha and Los Angeles it ran on the Union Pacific Railroad; east of Omaha it ran on the Chicago and North Western Railway until October 1955 and on the Milwaukee Road thereafter. The train had number 103 westbound and number 104 eastbound.
This train was the top-of-the-line for UP, which marketed it as a direct competitor to the Super Chief, a streamlined passenger train operated by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, and the Golden State, a streamlined passenger train jointly operated by the Rock Island and Southern Pacific railroads. As with the City of Los Angeles, many of the train's cars bore the names of locales in and around its namkesake city.
CNW / UP used one of only two sets of EMC E2 locomotives ever built as motive power for the train beginning in 1937. The UP scored a public relations coup in the mid-1950s when the City of Los Angeles was prominently featured in two consecutive episodes of the then popular television series I Love Lucy. In 1955 the Milwaukee Road assumed the service, replacing the Chicago and North Western between Chicago and Omaha. Actor Ronald Reagan often traveled on this train and even did a full page print ad for it that appeared in the National Geographic magazine. In a cost-cutting move, the City of Los Angeles was combined with the City of San Francisco in 1960.
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In 1979 Amtrak created the Desert Wind, running mostly on the City of LA route from Los Angeles to Ogden, Utah where it connected to the Oakland-Chicago train. (After a year or two some of its cars ran through to Chicago.) The Desert Wind ceased operation in 1997.
The City of Los Angeles name has also been applied to a 48-seat diner built by the St. Louis Car Company in 1949. The car was originally UP No. 4808 and is currently owned and operated by the Union Pacific as part of their excursion fleet.
A typical City of Los Angeles train consist around 1955 included:
| Westbound Read Down |
Condensed Schedules All trains daily | Eastbound Read Up |
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| City of Los Angeles 103 |
City of Los Angeles 104 |
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| Sep. 11, 1949 | May, 1950 | Sep. 27, 1953 | Sep. 27, 1953 | May, 1950 | Sep. 11, 1949 | |||||
| 7.15 | 7.15 | 7.15 | Lv. | Chicago C.& N.W. | Ar. | 10.40 +2 | 10.40 +2 | 10.45 +2 | ||
| 3.00 +1 | 3.00 +1 | 3.00 +1 | Ar. | Omaha C.& N.W. | Lv. | 2.50 +2 | 2.50 +2 | 2.50 +2 | ||
| 3.10 +1 | 3.10 +1 | 3.10 +1 | Lv. | Omaha Un. Pac. | Ar. | 2.40 +2 | 2.40 +2 | 2.40 +2 | ||
| 9.25 +1 | 9.25 +1 | 9.25 +1 | Ar. | Cheyenne | Lv. | 6.30 +1 | 6.30 +1 | 6.30 +1 | ||
| 9.35 +1 | 9.35 +1 | 9.35 +1 | Lv. | Cheyenne | Ar. | 6.20 +1 | 6.20 +1 | 6.20 +1 | ||
| 6.20 +1 | 6.20 +1 | 6.15 +1 | Ar. | Ogden | Lv. | 9.45 +1 | 9.45 +1 | 9.40 +1 | ||
| 6.30 +1 | 6.30 +1 | 6.25 +1 | Lv. | Ogden | Ar. | 9.35 +1 | 9.35 +1 | 9.30 +1 | ||
| 7.10 +1 | 7.10 +1 | 7.10 +1 | Ar. | Salt Lake City | Lv. | 8.50 +1 | 8.50 +1 | 8.50 +1 | ||
| 7.20 +1 | 7.20 +1 | 7.20 +1 | Lv. | Salt Lake City | Ar. | 8.40 +1 | 8.40 +1 | 8.40 +1 | ||
| 9.00 +2 | 9.00 +2 | 9.00 +2 | Ar. | Los Angeles | Lv. | 5.00 | 5.00 | 5.00 | ||
| 39 h 45 m | 39 h 45 m | 39 h 45 m | ---Elapsed Time--- | 39 h 40 m | 39 h 40 m | 39 h 40 m | ||||
Notes:
Bold numbers indicate P.M.
+1 indicates the day after departure
+2 indicates two days after departure
Compare the run time to that of Amtrak's Desert Wind in 1979: Westbound (train 35) 48 hours and 30 minutes. Eastbound (train 36) 48 hours and 00 minutes.
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