I have been looking about for a daily arrivals and departures at Cincinatti for maybe 1948 or thereabouts. I can cobble something together from available timetables but it would be a lot easier and I would be less likely that I'd miss services if I could just see everything in one.
I appreciate there's a list of named services on Wikipedia but I am thinking there must've been more.
I've looked under the usual stones but does anyone have any pointers?
If you can find a copy of the Official Guide for that particular period, your task might be a bit easier. There were also a lot of unnamed locals operating during that era, too.
I am interested in this topic, so please let me give it a try!
PRR:
NYCRR:
B&O:
C&O:
L&N:
N&W:
Southern:
I am 100% sure there should be more trains on the list, but I don't have time to dig deeper.
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
B&O also had through trains - The National Limited, The Diplomat and the Metropolitan Special. There were several numbered trains that operated from Detroit through CUT to Louisville. I believe there was also a local that operated over the secondary lines between Cincinnati and Pittsburgh.
C&O 'might' have had a train operating between Cincinnati & Chicago - a maid of all work local.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
From the February 1948 Official Guide:
Cincinnati Union Terminal hosted these railroads for passenger service:
Baltimore & Ohio
Chesapeake & Ohio
New York Central System
Louisville & Nashville
Norfolk & Western
Pennsylvania
Southern Railway System (CNO&TP)
It also hosted the Erie at its Freight House.
B&O: National Limited, Diplomat, Cincinnatian, unnamed 11/12 from Baltimore/Washington, 33/34, Washington Express from Pittsburgh, four numbered trains to Louisville, three to Detroit. The Cincinnatian name was soon moved to one of the Detroit trains.
C&O: FFV, George Washington, Sportsman from Washington. 19/20 Hammond IN (Chicago via Erie)
NYCS: Royal Palm, Ponce de Leon, Florida Sunbeam, six pairs of numbered trains to Cleveland, Ohio State Limited, Cincinnati Special, Carolina Special, plus various locals
L&N: Azalean, Humming Bird, Pan American, 3/4, 7/8. 17/18,29/30 to Winchester.
N&W: Cavalier, Pocahantas, Powhatan Arrow, 23/24
PRR: Cincinnati Limited, 213,267,227,202,206,222. From Chicago: Southland, Union, Cincinnati Daylight Express, Cincinnati Night Express
Southern: Royal Palm, Ponce de Leon, Florida Sunbeam, Carolina Special, Skyland Special
These are mostly from the condensed schedules. Many of the trains carried Pullmans that ended up on connecting trains, or which made across-the-platform connections for other destinations. I'm sure I missed a couple but the list illustrates how many trains called there on a given day.
Thanks everyone forthese great tips. Embarrassingly I'd never heard of the Official Guide and found a scanned one from 1945 on streamliner schedules. Amazing amount of detail. Thanks for outlining those from 1948 redrye.
I've long pondered where'd have been the place to see so many of the locomotives and trains I like best and Cincinnatti must be the place. In one day sandwiches and flask in hand I could have seen A Niagara, a P7d, an F-19 and a N&W J, but by the look of things so, so much more. The mind boggles ;)
Thanks again!
From its 1947 inception until early in 1950, The Cincinnatian operated the Baltimore-Cincinnati route. In 1950 it was switched to the Detroit-Cincinnati route. The streamlined P7d's could handle additional cars on the Detroit route. On the Baltimore route the schedule limited the train to 5 cars.
The Cincinnatian was also supposed to be competition for C&O's Chessie, which never started...
rcdrye The Cincinnatian was also supposed to be competition for C&O's Chessie, which never started...
I really do have to make a table of this stuff.
In 1949 the Cincinnatian and the Powattan Arrow would have been lined up for departure at the same time as the George Washington arrived. That would have been sight to behold.
More research needed.
Representation of the Westbound trip
Thanks BaltACD it's a great simulation isn't it?
I'm lucky enough to have a Key Imports Cincinnattian which is definitely the pride of the fleet. More than that it currently has pride of place on the living room mantle. Not sure my wife is as fond of it as I am though, or the dusting exclusion zone ;D. That was one of the things that drew my curiosity to CUT.
I seem to have come through on the Cardinal in 1988 but at that point in my life knew nothing about Cincinnati at all
There's great footagr of the Cincinnatian here as well as EM-1s and a streamlined C&O 4-6 4
https://youtu.be/VyoOTgqM76Q
TheFlyingScotsmanThere's great footagr of the Cincinnatian here as well as EM-1s and a streamlined C&O 4-6 4 https://youtu.be/VyoOTgqM76Q
I have watched that video several times. A great testament to the train and its time.
I do wish someone with some B&O geographical knowledge had edited the footage together in geographical order. The opening scene appears to be a engine at Grafton before or after the engine change.
The routine operation of the Cincinnatian had a engine change at Grafton in both directions. There were four streamlined Cincinnatian engines. The routine operations kept three of the four busy on a daily basis. The spare, I believe, was kept around Baltimore and it is highly likely that the four were routinely rotated through the daily operations, with a different 'spare' being in Baltimore each day.
Mt. Royal station that is pictured before the early morning Westbound departure, is now operated by the Maryland Institute of Art.
Yes I took that first scene to be the engine change at Grafton too. Mein Gott changed days there alright! And not for the best.
Mount Royal. That's a good tip. I'll look that up I was trying to figure that one out.
What about the big cement plant do you know where that is?
But yes what a period piece....
Thank you so much for posting this awesome video. Those 12-wheel rebuilt heavyweight betterment cars of B&O are very elegant; beautiful livery and streamlining, probably ride like a Pullman sleeper as well.
Jones1945Those 12-wheel rebuilt heavyweight betterment cars of B&O are very elegant; beautiful livery and streamlining, probably ride like a Pullman sleeper as well.
By 1947 B&O had a good evolved sense of what "their" competition in that hottest of developing late-Forties markets -- from somewhere to Cincinnati -- ought to involve.
Bet the food was among the best, too. Makes me hungry just thinking
OvermodBet the food was among the best, too. Makes me hungry just thinking
My Grandfather would have ensured that!
Overmod Jones1945 Those 12-wheel rebuilt heavyweight betterment cars of B&O are very elegant; beautiful livery and streamlining, probably ride like a Pullman sleeper as well. Remember that B&O got into 'real' lightweight streamlined trains very early. They did not ride satisfactorily and were sent (with the boxcab power) to the Alton. By 1947 B&O had a good evolved sense of what "their" competition in that hottest of developing late-Forties markets -- from somewhere to Cincinnati -- ought to involve. Bet the food was among the best, too. Makes me hungry just thinking
Jones1945 Those 12-wheel rebuilt heavyweight betterment cars of B&O are very elegant; beautiful livery and streamlining, probably ride like a Pullman sleeper as well.
Remember that B&O got into 'real' lightweight streamlined trains very early. They did not ride satisfactorily and were sent (with the boxcab power) to the Alton.
This is the best site fot the Cincinnatian I have found. The interior renderings are fabulous. What I find fascinating is that all the features of a big daytime top notch streamliner are there but in minature.
http://www.cincinnativiews.net/the_cincinnatian.htm
BaltACD Overmod Bet the food was among the best, too. Makes me hungry just thinking My Grandfather would have ensured that!
Overmod Bet the food was among the best, too. Makes me hungry just thinking
TheFlyingScotsmanSo he was a chef with the B&O?
Overmod TheFlyingScotsman So he was a chef with the B&O? He ran the whole damn department!
TheFlyingScotsman So he was a chef with the B&O?
He ran the whole damn department!
TheFlyingScotsmanhave read something about that along the lines that their president didn't think much of the ride quality of the early lighweights and so set about the betterment programme so that the best of both worlds were incorporated and not for the reason of miserliness as some imply.
Remember the early lightweight trains were built in some ignorance of the actual principles needed to smooth suspension and guiding at lower tare weight -- the very early 'motor train' designs with low-profile carbodies (as with the early UP Streamliners) being almost a trial-and-error tinkering -- this being repeated with the unsuccessful 'lightweight trains of the future' in the decade after the Rush To Cincinnati failed to pan out. For full-size cars like the ones B&O got, the 'reference designer' for true high-speed trucks was Nystrom of Milwaukee Hiawatha fame, and one of his conclusions was that a truck optimized for 85mph and above would be necessarily hard riding at lower speeds... this being complicated by the low tare weight.
This would only really be overcome postwar (e.g. with outside swing-hanger trucks with soft secondary and good damping, and later with air suspension in the bolster arrangement) but unless you were running rocket service at sustained high speed a 'one-size-fits-all' mechanical-suspension truck with typical mid-Thirties crappy damping was NOT going to be a good answer.
Heavier car bodies and careful attention to spring rates in a typical six-wheel truck will give you a smoother ride, and while there's much more tare to pull, it's within the capability of the engine... which brings up, perhaps, why there weren't more Lady Baltimores (or 84"-drivered Hudsons... etc.) BUT constant-torque 6000+hp eight-drivered engines for high speed work...
By 1947, a modern six-wheel truck was very different, as was car construction that needed them (some diners, Superdomes, articulated cars, etc.) To my knowledge the B&O rebuilds didn't use any of that stuff. And part of the reason involved money or its relative absence.
http://www.cincinnativiews.net/images-3/Cincinnatian%20Menus.jpg
TheFlyingScotsman Overmod TheFlyingScotsman So he was a chef with the B&O? He ran the whole damn department! So is he the J B Martin on this menu? http://www.cincinnativiews.net/images-3/Cincinnatian%20Menus.jpg
So is he the J B Martin on this menu?
My Grandfather was the predecessor to J B Martin. Superintendent of the B&O Dining and Commisary Department from 1937 to his retirement in September 1957.
The second menu pictured has his name.
OvermodFor full-size cars like the ones B&O got, the 'reference designer' for true high-speed trucks was Nystrom of Milwaukee Hiawatha fame, and one of his conclusions was that a truck optimized for 85mph and above would be necessarily hard riding at lower speeds... this being complicated by the low tare weight.
IIRC, the 1935 lightweight Royal Blue was built by Pullman, wasn't it? What happened to the trainsets after the heavyweight betterment cars were assigned to Royal Blue and replaced the lightweight one (or two)? Did B&O assign the lightweight streamlined cars to secondary trains? Thanks a lot.
I am also searching for a close-up pic of the truck of the 1935 lightweight Royal Blue but can't find any...
It seems there is a pair of springs for each axle box as primary suspension, leaf springs for secondary suspension.
White covered these in the American Passenger Car (noting that the aluminum train went straight to the Alton for the Abraham Lincoln, and the Cor-Ten train was the one that Lord and Lady Baltimore were built to pull). I don't recall him saying or picturing anything about trucks, and I suspect they reflected pre-Nystrom ideas about high speed (I.e. they were likely just as crappy as the early UP and Pullman 'experiments' in high-speed truck design as described... partly 'between the lines'... in Kratville's book on the Streamliners (which you should have at your elbow as this discussion progresses).
By far the best source is going to be the B&O historical society. There was a reasonably good Yahoo Group on B&O but of course Melissa ruined that; I think they've moved to groups.io but you'll have to join them there by yourself.
I expect in that era to find some analogue of those 'admiral hat' wing axleboxes and relatively long transverse leaf springs for secondary, perhaps made multiple and of varying width to get a better perceived spring rate and snubbing effect for 'soft secondary' across the range of live load in the now-lightweight car construction. But the trucks in your picture look disturbingly like plain old Commonwealth drop-equalizer trucks from the pre-WWI design era...
Look for primitive damping and 'default' compliance, although this was in the era of lots and lots of strategic rubber block stops.
I predict the riding trouble was a combination of short-period hardness conducted up into the drum of the stressed construction and a certain amount of wallow and hunting. Most of the bad stuff eould have been at least 'worked around' with OSH and three-axis struts an so on by the late '40s... but on heavier "streamlined car" construction at full size and height. As noted it would be a while... some might say 'decades'... before actual good riding on bad jointed rail could be passively provided in lightweight construction.
(Incidentally, tell me if you're familiar with the theory of snubbing as opposed to friction or hydraulic damping. This was an essential part of early GG1 suspension design which turned out to be either 'misguided' or inessential... I never really got a definitive answer which one was more significant...)
Jones1945 Overmod For full-size cars like the ones B&O got, the 'reference designer' for true high-speed trucks was Nystrom of Milwaukee Hiawatha fame, and one of his conclusions was that a truck optimized for 85mph and above would be necessarily hard riding at lower speeds... this being complicated by the low tare weight. IIRC, the 1935 lightweight Royal Blue was built by Pullman, wasn't it? What happened to the trainsets after the heavyweight betterment cars were assigned to Royal Blue and replaced the lightweight one (or two)? Did B&O assign the lightweight streamlined cars to secondary trains? Thanks a lot. I am also searching for a close-up pic of the truck of the 1935 lightweight Royal Blue but can't find any... It seems there is a pair of springs for each axle box as primary suspension, leaf springs for secondary suspension.
Overmod For full-size cars like the ones B&O got, the 'reference designer' for true high-speed trucks was Nystrom of Milwaukee Hiawatha fame, and one of his conclusions was that a truck optimized for 85mph and above would be necessarily hard riding at lower speeds... this being complicated by the low tare weight.
B&O had purchased two lightweight sets. One was put in service on the B&O controlled Alton as the Abraham Lincoln between Chicago and St. Louis. When the second set that had been operating on the B&O as the Royal Blue was determined to be unsatisfactory for that service it was also moved to the Alton and went into service as a companion train to the Abraham Lincoln and was name the Ann Rutledge (a Lincoln girlfriend from Illinois). The box cab diesel engine 50 went to the Alton and later got a 'face lift' to its appearance. EA #52 also went to the Alton. All that equipment was conveyed to the GM&O when the B&O got rid of the Alton.
They look a lot like trucks from semi-lightweight commuter coaches of the same period. Nystrom's contemporary Hiawatha trucks had cylindrical rather than tapered treads for high speed service - incidentally also preferred by the North Shore line. Two coils at each end of the equalizer, leaf springs between the spring plank and the bolster. Many later designs had inner and outer coils "nested" to dampen the bouncing. Later photos of the cars on the GM&O suggest that the trucks were replaced at some point by postwar models.
rcdryeMany later designs had inner and outer coils "nested" to dampen the bouncing.
One of Nystrom's observations was to really firm up the spring restoring force for some of the high-speed planes of motion. As he was assuming completely passive suspension he came to the hard conclusion (pun not intended, but pretty funny in context) that trucks riding well above 85mph would always be harsh below 40 or so mph. It is highly interesting to look at what is required to build a truck and bolster system that rides well at high and low speed however loaded... still more interesting to make it cost-effective and safe to run in the absence of attentive maintenance.
The real joy in the '30s was the tacit assumption that the track would be little improved over what Juniatha called 'nailed' construction, replete with 39' sticks, luck-of-the-draw tie integrity, etc. We can all recognize when this was lethal to success (e.g. with any of the Michelines in the USA, or the "Eagle of the Rails", but we can also identify it in the Alco Hi-Ad design, 30 years on, when everyone really ought to have known better.
Have really enjoyed reading all of these posts. I recall Cincinnati very well; a magnificent building which I was fortunate to see before the murals got moved and the structure was "modified."
Made more than a few trips to and from Cincinnati on the L&N's "Pan American." It provided a nice connection to the N&W's "Pocahonas" whiixh carried a 10/6 sleeper which, correct my memory here, please, if I am wrong, whiich one could get pace for coach fare plus $10.00 which included a dining car meal as well. The "Pocahontas" carried a dome car which provided an interesting perspective of activities in the coalfields of southern WV whoch were a lot busier then they they are now. Change at Roanoke ato ride what was left of the Southern's "Birmingham Special" from there to DC. I also recall trips from New York on the "Spirit of St. Louis/Cincinnati Limited" in the days of PC. This provided a connection to the Pan to get back to Nashville.
work safe.
Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!
Get the Classic Trains twice-monthly newsletter