then it must be the Wabash, with one train the Banner Blue and the other the Cannnonball.
The Wabash also had an overnight Chi - St. Louis train with sleepers and a Detroit - St. Louis overnight. Plus through Pullmans on the Kansas City line interchanged there with UP.
Back to the 14 section cars--the Sunset still had San Francisco-New Orleans cars in 1930, but no 14 section cars; the Overland Limited did carry 14 section cars, none of the three roads has any more detailed description--these may have been the cars with larger washrooms.
Johnny
We're still looking for the parlors. One of the Wabash's day trains had two of the parlors. Which train was it that carried only numbered parlors? The other train was also a day train in a different market.
From Zephyr to Amtrak:
In 1947, the Wabash took delivery, from ACF, on Observation Parlor #1600, to be used on the City of Kansas City.
In 1950, the Wabash took delivery, from Budd, Dome Observation Parlor #1601, to be used on the Bluebird.
In 1952, the Wabash took delivery, from PS, on Dome Parlor #1602, also to be used on the Bluebird.
I have ridden in 1602, on the Southern.
D is obviously the winner. I may have had the railroad had the right train names and the car numbers. But which train on the Southern carried 1602? And when?
Dave, you put me on to the Wabash as being the road, and then I was able to check what lightweight parlors the Wabash had bought.
As well as I can tell, 1970 was the first year that the Southern began operating the parlor dome lounge on the Southern Crescent; I do know that it was in use in December of 1970, when I, along with several other members of the Heart of Dixie Railroad Club, went to Atlanta so we could ride behind the 722 and 630 the next day when they were ferried to Birmingham to be shopped during the winter. The car was operated on the days that the Southern operated the train south of Birmingham, running from Atlanta three days a week and from New Orleans the next day. I think that this practice continued as long as the Southern operated the train tri-weekly south of Birmingham--and ceased altogether when Amtrak began using its equipment on the train.
I had several more opportunities to ride in the car--once, all the way from Peachtree Station to New Orleans. By the time that I rode the Wabash from St. Louis to Chicago (in 1970), the train was coach only except for the diner which was added in Decatur.
I still think you should ask the next question as your answer was very informative. Besides, I had just guessed the Alton route, and rc pointed me to the Wabash by mentioning one of the two was the same market. I rode the Southern Crescent several times before Amtrak, usually in a through sleeper from NY, but was never on the train with the dome parlor. Just my luck at the time.
The Central of Georgia leased the dome parlor 1602 and dome coach 1613, built for the "City of St. Louis", from N&W in 1968. N&W retained the four Budd domes, all of which spent time in Amtrak Service. CofG used the 1602 on the Nancy Hanks II until 1971, with 1613 used in various ways, including at least one trip on the IC/CofG/ACL "Seminole". Southern controlled CofG, and quietly grabbed the two cars, taking ownership somewhere along the way.
The "Southern Crescent" operated daily north of Atlanta, but only three days a week between Atlanta and New Orleans. This was due to a tangled bunch of ICC decisions in 1970 that ended the California Zephyr and dropped the Sunset Limited to tri-weekly, but with a through sleeping car from New York to Los Angeles. Since the train operated on opposite days, the single dome parlor was adequate for Atlanta New Orleans service. Meanwhile car 1613 was put on the Salisbury-Asheville NC remnant of the Asheville Special, also tri-weekly.
Practice in 1975 was to move any passengers in the dome parlor into the through cars from New Orleans before arrival in Atlanta, so it could be cut off easily. I never rode it southbound, so I'm not sure how that was handled.
Wabash operated heavyweight parlor cars, including open platform observations, right up to the N&W lease in 1964. I'm not sure how long after that the N&W kept them up,
In March of 1969, I rode the Powhatan Arrow from Cincinnati to Norfolk, sitting a dome coach (except when I went to the diner to eat, and in October of the same year, I had a roomette from Roanoke to Cincinnati on the Pocahontas--and I sat in a dome coach part of the evening. These domes were obviously ex-Wabash cars.
The November 20, 1970 Southern timetable shows tri-weekly service between Birmingham and Atlanta, with a dome parlor car in the consist between Atlanta and New Orleans--the service was still daily as far as Birmingham. It also shows the through New York-Los Angeles sleeper.
The July 1, 1970 Southern/CG timetable shows a dome coach on the Nancy Hanks, and I rode in it from Atlanta to Savannah in February of 1971. In August of 1972, my bride, her three children, and I rode from Biltmore (then the station for Asheville) to Salisbury and back--in the dome.
I do not remember just what year the Southern Crescent became tri-weekly west of Atlanta; it was still daily as far as Birmingham in May of 1974 (the last Southern TT I have until the spring of 1978). Even then the coach porters, who changed in Atlanta had their income greatly reduced--for a two-day round trip to Birmingham certainly did not pay as well as a trip to New Orleans and back did--they had to find a place to spend the night in Birmingham.
The dome parlor was "swiped" by Southern from CofG some time after the Spring 1970 timetable change, which is when the tri-weekly changes went into effect. My guess is that CofG had discontuned parlor service some time earlier.
The Dome Coach was built by P-S to ACF blueprints in a joint UP/Wabash order in 1958, making it one of the last domes built.
The Wabash dome coaches operated under N&W on the Blue Bird as well as several original N&W trains. One was assigned to the last Detroit - St. Louis Cannonball. The Budd Dome Parlor Obs was withdrawn from the Blue Bird around 1968 or 1969, but stored serviceable. It ran in Amtrak service on various midwest trains until non-HEP equipment was withdrawn in the mid 1970s.
waiting for deggesty's question
Back when people relied upon trains to get from here to there and back, there was a train that was all-Pullman six nights a week and carried coaches on the seventh night. It also carried at least one car that did not travel the full length of the train's run. There was also an overnighter between the same two cities which carried coaches and sleepers, most of which were for the same city short of one terminal, and this train ran only six nights a week.
What were the cities served, the two trains--and how did they cope with the lack of Pullmans in 1945 and 1946?
The New Haven's Owl, all Pullman, and Narraganset, coach and Pullman, were at one time a similar operation, but did not have the "short of one terminal" characteristic, since both operated GCT - South Station. The Owl had a drop-pickup Providence sleeper at the time. With reduction in passenger demand, the Owl lost its most-of-the-time all-Pullman characteristic and the Narraganset was dropped, and later the State of Maine was combined at Providence. This is not what you are looking for, but worth mentioning is that parlor cars were used instead of sleepers in 1944 and 1945 and early 1946 when there was a prohibition on sleeper runs less than (?) 400 miles.
Possibly the SP with the Lark running through to San Diego and the other train running from SF only to LA? And possibly a setout pickup sleeper for San Jose? At one time the Lark did have such a sleeper that northbound continued to SF on a commuter local to provide service from LA to local stations to SF. Not sure if anything in the reverse was done. Possbily, again, parlors were used when sleepers were prohibited
Dave, you found the trains and the cities and how the New Haven provided some comfort for its first class passengers when the Pullman sleepers were not available. I was looking for the use of parlor cars, which began in 1945; the October, 1944, issue of the Guide shows sleepers in service.
The Providence cars did not operate to/from Boston, so they were the cars that were operated short of one terminal.
Incidentally, when the parlor cars were in this service, there was also a diner on the train, so the passengers were able to get a good breakfast before detraining--and the coach passengers were able to stay aboard as long as the first class passengers were--and they, also, could board early. Of course, the passengers to Providence had no diner waiting to serve them breakfast.
Further note, on the Lark--it was not affected by the 400 mile decree, since it is more than 400 miles to San Jose from Los Angeles.
I do not know if there was ever any through service to San Diego until Amtrak tried it for a time. There was one sleeper that operated to/from Oakland; it, of course, was taken off/added in San Jose.
The only through sleeper service to San Diego that I'm aware of (other than direct-from-the east service on the CRI&P/SP "Imperial") was a through sleeper that ran briefly from Washington DC on a B&O/AT&SF routing. That car was cut back to LA about 1953 before getting dropped in 1958.
The Oakland Lark usually had two sleepers along with its head end cars. Normal pair was a 10-5 and a 2-1-1 buffet observation. When SP's own 400 and 401 were wercked in two separate read-end collisions in 1941 and 1943, the cars were replaced by Pullman pool-service "American Milemaster" and "Muskingum River" which became the second 400 and 401, later 9500 and 9501, respectively. Round ends squared off by SP mid-1950s. American Milemaster is still in use as a test car by NS.
The use of only two sleepers is rather late in the Lark's history, because at one time it was an all-Pullman train, perhaps this is back in the heavyweight days. And at one time at least northbound there was a sleeper that was dropped at San Jose and carried San Francisco in a morning commute to give sleeper service directly to SF suburbs.
Question: What was the last streetcar line to serve Manhattan, other than the Queensboro Bridge Railway's 2nd Avenue - Queens Plaza bridge line that quit in 1957 as New York State's last streetcar line, using ex-New Bedford, MA, Osgood Bradley, modern-looking lightweight safety cars similar to Brill's Masterunits. What was the line that quite before it? Hint: It had a three-block stretch where the conduit was still in evidence even thought the whole line ran with only overhead trolley wire.
Further hint. some of the track used by this next-to-last streetcar line even touching Manahttan was originally installed by the New York and Harlem Raiilroad, once was owned by the New York Central System, and also once was owned by a subsidiary of General Motors.
This included the three-block portion where conduit was clearly visible. This portion saw horsecars, the horsecars plus trolley-pole electric cars, then both trolley-pole and conduit cars, then just trolley-pole cars.
Actually, it could be called the last line to serve Manhattan riders, since the Queensbridge line only had terminal in Manhattan, whereas this line could be used for several blocks of travel within Manhattan. After the conversion of the GM-owned New York Railways lines, started in December 1935 and finished with the 86th St. Crosstown in the summer of 1936, Third Avenue Railways, later Third Avenue Transit, was the only provider of streetcar service within Manhattan. This particular line was converted to buses in July 1948. My inspection of the manhole covers in 1947 revealed some said NY&H and some NYRy. Of course by then the conduit had long been out of use, but this indicates the conduit was probably maintained until the end of New York Railways service on the route.
Please let me know if this is too arcane a question.
Was this the line up by the Broadway bridge? If I remember it only came a couple of blocks into Manhattan, using overhead to avoid having to line up the conduit. Of course any cars going further south would have had to use a plow.
The bridge used by Broadway, the Avenue of that name, is named Kingsbridge, and it was the first bridge connecting Manhattan with the continental mainland, opened first during the Colonial era. It has been rebuilt many times. Classically, it was the main route from Old New York to Albany. Streetcar service started fairly late, about 1890, and streetcars from Yonkers used it to run down Broadway to 145th Street and then turn east to take passengers to the elevated line on 8th Avenue which jogged over to 9th/Columbus Avenue, the well-known 9th Avenue Elevated, an extension of the first West Side Patent Elevated Railway of Charles Harvey of 1868. In days before streetcar lines of the Third Avenue system started to be converted to buses, the only regular line using the this bridge was the "K" for Kingsbridge, officially the 125th Street, Amsterdam Avenue, and Broadway line. 125th and 3rd was the southern terminal, then went across 125th to Amsterdam Av. (10th) up Amsterdam to about 164th, where it turned left on the diagonal St. Nicholous Av. turning north at Broadway at 168th Street and ending where the old plow-pit (that had been used by the cars from Yonkers before the Broadway IRT subway was extended to 242nd St. Van Courtland Park), at 225th Street. This was a Manhattan streetcar line so it used conduit, and the Kingsbridge was a movable, rotating bridge equipped with conduit tracks, powered conduit tracks at that. It also had overhead wire, so several Bronx streetcar lines could access the double-story Kingsbridge carhouse at Broadway and 212th, At 225th Street one could transfer to the "C", the Bronx and Van Courtland Parks streetcar. which came over from West Fsrms Square mostly via Fordham Road and Kingsbridge Avenue, and then ride north as far as the City Line bordering Yonkers at 262nd Street. The Yonkers streetcars came south only to 242nd, reversing under the north terminal of the subway, now the 1, line, elevated north of Dyckman-200th Street. So the Kngsbridge had both streetcar tracks and elevated tracks for the subway line. The new vertical lift bridge has only the elevated rapid transit tracks. The north end is also the location of the Metro North Marble Hill Hudson Line Station. The present M100 bus follows the route of the old K streetcar. Although the K's official southern terminal was at 125th and 3rd, pullins and pullouts used the tracks of the month-earlier discontiniued T for the 65th Street and 3rd Avenue car house and would carry passengers.
But the principle you stated is correct. This was a Bronx trolley line that had permission to use overhead wire for three north-south blocks in Manhattan and four east-west blocks from Madison to 8th Avenue. Now name the line. And the bridge at the same time. A street map of northern Manhattan should provide the answer.
Street map only lists the Broadway Bridge. There is an area known as Park Terrace nearby.
Again, that is the Kingsbridge that Broadway uses, and there is no Madison Avenue or 8th Avenue nearby, and the New York and Harlem did not bridge at that point but the New York Central's connecting track, from Spuyten Dyevil on the Hudson line to Mott Haven on the Harlem line does follow the east bank of the Harlem River and its north bank where it passes under the Kingsbridge. You are confusing that later-built NYCentral line with the New York and Harlem. Look at the street map farther south. almost to where the NY&H had its bridge, as Metro North does today.
Are you referring to the Grand Concourse?
The Grand Concourse has had a subway line under it since 1934 and a bus line from even earlier, but never hosted a streetcar line. A number did cross it, some at grade and some through tunnels, with underground stations, which were connected to the subway stations when that was built. In some cases the streetcar line passed under the subway line and one saw signs "Down to Surface Cars." The line in question did not have this feature.
Again, the line used three blocks worth of track on Madison Avenue that had originally been New York and Harlem tracks with conduit added when 4th and Madison was electfied, and the went over a bridge on former NY&H tracks that only had overhead wire. The terminal New York Central Station was called simply The Bronx for many years. In later years its main use was for employees at the Mott Haven coach yards. The station does not exist now. As far as I know New Haven trains never stopped there.
Insure that the part of the map you are looking at includes both Madison Avenue and the Mott Haven Junction
Most of the Bronx streetcar lines that had a few blocks of overhead wire in Manhattan were east-west lines, not north south. You are correct that what you term "The Broadway Bridge" (probably the official name today, without the historic sentiment that had us know it as Kingsbridge) was a north-south bridge with trolley wire (and for this case, also conduit for the K line), and there was the Willis Avenue bridge, removed for construction of the Triboro, and also the Third Avenue bridge, with streetcar tracks with wire retained for shop moves, but four bridges for east-west lines using wire in Manhattan, one used by four Third Avenue routes and one used by two Third Avenue routes, and one used by only one Third Ave. route, and the bridge in question used by one Third Avenue route and the pole-equipped NY and Harlem then New York Railways shuttle. Name the bridge and the Third Avenue route. The shuttle cars, two of the three in regular service, were towed to and from the carhouse by regular conduit cars in the late evening and early morning. Unlike Third Avenue, New York Railways and New York and Harlem did not own cars having both conduit and wire capability and lacked any plow-pits. At one time, Third Avenue had three, 225th and Broadway, 145th Street and Lenox Avenue for the 149th crosstown, which was the only one of the Bronx lines that did use conduit in Manhattan (on 145th St.) , and at the Brooklyn end of the Manhattan Bridge on Flatbush Avenue.
I don't seem to be able to find any New York maps of the correct era. There is a "Harlem River Park" in the right area.
PULL UP MANHATTAN AND BRONX BUS MAPS ON THE NEW YORK MTA WEBSITETHERE IS A BUS LINE THAT FOLLOWS THE OLD STREETCAR ROUTES
Inwood? It looks like the Bx20 route from Riverdale in the Bronx to Inwood matches your description.
too far north? does that bus line run anywhere on Madison Avenue? Remember, the conduit in the track belonged originally to the New York and Harlem. Does that bus line go anywhere near Mott Haven? Is there an Ironwood bridge that it crosses? It crosses the Broadway Bridge that I called the Kingsbridge, its historic name, and I have said several times that this is not the Bridge. And the only conduit track around was Third Avenue's K line.not the NY and Harlem. Marble Hill NYCentral Station still exists with considerable transfer traffic to and from the Broadway IRT subway's elevated station, but it could hardly serve people working in the Mott Haven coach yards.
I do note that now the M100, which was an almost exact replacement for the K street car, no longer crosses the Kingsbridge, but turns on Dyckman-200th Street to serve the Ironwood area, and for bus passengers, a transfer to your BX20 is necessary.
Turning to the Third Avenue streetcar line that shared the very last NY&Harlem streetcar tracks on Madison Avenue, the bridge did have the same name as the streetcar line, but now is named the Madison Avenue Bridge
The BX20, except for the part on Broadway, including the Bridge, that was formerly K streetcar territory, was always a bus line. Parents and I would use the Broadway IRT from W86th Street to W231st Street, use the bus up the hill, visit friends, and then return via a different route, walking down the hill and taking the C streetcar down Broadway to 225th Street, and east on Kingsbridge Road to that station of the Concourse IND subway, and then the CC, later, the D and AA, home. However, the first visit in my memory was when the 9th Avenue Elevated was still running, before June 1940, and we left the streetcar at Jerome Avenue, riding a subway train a few stops to Burnside Avenue station, and then transferring to a gate-car elevated train waiting across the platform on the center track.
please look at the areas of the maps that I suggested
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