U.P. Diner #3669 was one of the first all steel, 36-seat diners built by Pullman Standard Car Manufacturing Company, purchased for the deluxe Los Angeles Limited train which travelled between Chicago and Los Angeles via the Chicago & North Western and Union Pacific Railroads. It was described as a "palatial train for particular people...The trip between Chicago and the Coast . . . an exposition of what the West stands for—socially, commercially, and from an agricultural standpoint."
Aboard the Los Angeles Limited were all the accustomed transcontinental amenities: barber and lady's maid, heavy embossed writing paper, fingerbowls, and deluxe ambiance. The cuisine was equal to that of the finest metropolitan hotels.
Later, Diner #3669 served in the Overland Limited between San Francisco and Chicago. With the advent of high speed Streamliners, dining cars of light weight construction became a necessity, resulting in the older and heavier diners of #3669's class being relegated to trains on slower schedules. Just as technological changes occur, so too do changes in styles. "Aero-dynamics" and "streamlined" were catch phrases during the 1930s, and the battle for modernist reduction had begun. During this period, #3669's rich, mahogany interior was painted over to mimic her modern, metal counterparts.
During the war years this particular car was used many times to serve our military forces while they were enroute from base to base in the U.S. as well as to points of embarkation, and later proudly returned many South Pacific veterans to their homes at the close of World War II.