SHOW US YOUR LARK TICKETS.

Last year, I called attention to a private venture working with Union Pacific to run an overnight train between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

That venture is at the stage of issuing renderings of their latter-day Pullmans.

Dreamstar Lines, which hopes to launch luxury overnight train service between San Francisco and Los Angeles, has released conceptual renderings of Art Deco-inspired interiors for its equipment.

The company commissioned Designworks, a BMW Group company, to create initial concepts for its plan to retrofit cars with four types of accommodations, in addition to a lounge car.

Accommodations would include standard class, which the company compares to first class on an international flight, and three types of rooms with a private bathroom and shower:  bedrooms, sleeping two; suites, sleeping two in a queen bed with extra space;  and family, sleeping six (including two children).

The plan is to refurbish "existing bilevel cars," which could refer to former suburban gallery cars or to the remaining Santa Fe High Level coaches that have not gone to museums.  Standard class looks to be private spaces, not the extra-large reclining seats of airline first class or the old Canadian National Dayniter coaches.  No rolling tenements these.

Current plans are to have trains rolling sometime this year. I repeat, from last year.

We'll see whether a rolling upscale hotel is a meaningful value proposition in California.  If we had a bracket for Passenger Rail projects, I pick this one to turn a wheel before California's environmentally and politically hampered high speed rail project does.  "One small step in the right direction would be for Washington to stop bilking taxpayers for the sake of rail projects that might never be completed, let alone come close to being worth the cost."

Whether a regularly-scheduled high end sleeping car train, rather than de luxe cars for use on package tours as required, is a good idea anywhere remains open for debate.

As I finish this post, though, almost all the Amtrak overnight trains originating in Chicago are delayed or running late.