Purchasing tickets

bill in NJ

In the past, say 1940, would a ticket agent for one railroad have access to the schedule for another railroad. If you lived in Portland Maine, and wanted to travel to El Paso Texas would the agent in Maine be able to book you through or would you have to travel to Boston and book a ticket on the next railroad to New York etc, etc until you reached El Paso.

Bill, welcome to the Trains Forums. We trust that you will enjoy taking part in the discussions that are posted here. We hope that you will look at all of them and the various threads, especially the Flat Wheel Cafe and the Trackside Lounge.

Back in the days when many railroads operated passenger trains, there were two types of stations: coupon and non-coupon. A non-coupon station usually could sell tickets that were good for its road--and some of them did not have the tariff books to cover the entire road. In the mid-sixties, the IC station in Wesson, Miss., had the Memphis-New Orleans tariff book, and none other. Brookhaven, on the other hand, was a coupon station, and you could buy interline tickets there. It was possible to buy there, among other tickets, a round trip from Wesson to Baton Rouge (KCS or MP west of New Orleans).

When I lived in Reform, Ala., I bought many interline tickets in Tuscaloosa. I would go over to Tuscaloosa and give my itinerary to the ticket clerk there, and if it was not a simple itinerary, he would send it to the Southern passenger headquarters where it would be vetted and the lowest fare would be charged. One of my itineraries was: Sou to Birrmingham, L&N to St. Louis, MP to Kansas City, SFe to Dallas, T&P to New Orleans, KCS to Kansas City, RI to Minneapolis, MILW to Chicago, IC to Birmingham, and Sou to Tuscaloosa. The total trip was 4551 miles; Southern received the revenue for 110 miles. I did complain once, when I had specified C&O from Detroit to Washington--the itinerary came back with B&O Toledo to Washington, with a bus connection from Detroit to the B&O's main line. I remonstrated, and a few days later received the ticket that I wanted. I think the people in Atlanta realized that I did mean what I requested and they never again had such a misunderstanding. Once, I requested a routing that included Sou to Birmingham, L&N to Montgomery, ACL to Jacksonville to Richmond, and RF&P to Washington. A few days after I bought my ticket, I received a refund of part of the fare after it was refigured to use the competitive fare between Montgomery and Washington (a few miles shorter than the Montgomery-Richmond-Washington construction).

Even into the first year or so of Amtrak, the old railroad tariffs were used--in February of 1972, I started a trip that made use of the round trip fare between Chicago and San Francisco--and I did not go to San Francisco--which included a side trip to San Diego at no additional cost. The ticket? L&N B'ham to Louisville, PC to Chicago, SFe to Los Angeles, to San Diego, to Los Angeles, SP to Portland, BN to Seattle and then to St. Paul, MILW to Chicago, PC to Louisville, and L&N to B'ham.

The coupon stations also had the Pullman tariff book, so they could sell you your first class accommodations as well as your transportation. Each station that had the authority to sell Pullman accomadations had its own code (Tuscaloosa was KPH, as I remember), and the reservations would be entered in the system using the station code and a three digit number. When the railroads began operating the first class service, the same coding was used so that interline first class space could be tracked.

It was also possible to stop off at an intermediate station that was not named on the face of a coupon; you would tell the conductor, and he would endorse the back of the coupon, showing that you had stopped off at such-and-such station. Now, you have to specify every stopover point for an Amtrak ticket, and have a coupon for each train used. Going from Memphis to Washington, using Southern trains all the way, you would have to travel on at least three or four Southern trains--and one coupon was used for the entire trip. If you rode one train all the way (the Tennessean), you would have two coupons, one reading Sou Memphis to Washington and one reading N&W Bristol to Lynchburg.

I hope that my answer is not confusing.

Johnny

Johnny - , that is an outstanding answer !       I never knew - or even thought about - what that process was like in the days before Amtrak - now 38 years old.  I've never seen any article that even mentions the subject, let alone discuss it as well as you have done.  [OK, there might be something in Classic Trains, but I'm not aware of it.]  I think it would make the basis for a good article in either Trains or Classic Trains.

The other thing to note is how that information was published and used back in the day before the Internet and other modern communications methods, and how the various companies figured out ways to work through all those challenges.  It might make for an interesting study by someone who is a scholar of modern information technology systems, for instance, to 'compare-and-contrast', or similar. 

Thanks again.

- Paul North.

Thank you, Paul. I learned of the West Coast round trip fare, complete with San Diego side trip, from an article in Trains in the early fifties, as Dave Morgan wrote of a trip he took to the West Coast. Other information I picked up mainly through personal experience, though I read about the competitive fare agreement (I am not certain that it was necessary for the two or more roads in the competitive fare agreement to have through passenger service). As it was, in the last years of passenger service by the ACL and then the SCL, there was a through coach New York-Montgomery that was handled on the West Coast Champion north of Waycross and on the day train west of Waycross (the day train was scheduled to connect with the Humming Bird in Montgomery; it also had a connection inWaycross with the Seminole from/to Jacksonville--so if wanted to go from Jacksonville to a point on the L&N north of Montgomery (and did not want to ride the South Wind), you would go up to Waycross, then to Montgomery, and then north.

Now, with the help of Amtrak and VIA timetables, it is possible for a passenger to put a trip together, call the railroad to make reservations and pay for the tickets and, after the tickets arrive, travel in a civilized manner. VIA charges a fee for mailing the tickets; Amtrak does not. It is also possible to use the internet to put a simple trip together, make reservations, and perhaps pay for the tickets, and pick the tickets up at a station, giving the reservation number. We always like receiving the tickets by mail and keeping them in a safe place until we begin our trip.

Johnny

Johnny's experience with errors in interline ticketing in the pre-800 number pre-internet days is in line with mine from way back.

The Christmas before the start of Amtrak, my dad booked the family on a trip to the east coast. I went along with him to the Marion, IA MILW station as he reviewed the options with the station agent. It was good that we went in the middle of the afternoon, between train arrivals, because it took a while to construct the itinerary and compute the fare. Because the station didn't take credit cards, my dad and I came back next week with cash. It was the first time I saw a $100 bill.

From Marion to Chicago, the "City of Everything" over the MILW. A transfer from Union Station to Northwestern station for B&O's Capitol Limited to Washington. Then up to Philadelphia, the Broadway Limited from Paoli to Chicago and back to Marion on the "Cities."

The MILW station agent didn't recognize that the Metroliner required a premium fare, so we had to adjust our tickets at Washington, DC and pay the difference. The Broadway Limited ticket was written from Philadelphia, probably meaning North Philadelphia--the Broadway Limited didn't stop at 30th Street. So my uncle dropped us off at Bryn Mawr and insisted that the Penn Central would honor the ticket on the commuter train to Paoli. (He was a pediatrician and took care of the Saunders family kids. He also lost a chunk on PC stock, but took it in stride.) The commuter was a real treat, an ancient MU still painted in Pennsy colors. The conductor scratched his head over the ticket, but he went along, announcing "...and Chicago" when we approached Paoli.

Years later, I was a high school student going from Fort Wayne, IN, to a music camp in Greensboro, NC. I had to convince the Amtrak agent in Fort Wayne that, even though I would be taking the Southern's "Piedmont," which had no checked baggage, my trunk could go on the "Crescent," which did. Since I would be staying in Washington for a few days, my trunk would get there ahead of me. He went along, and the trunk was there when I arrived.

 Rolf

Rwulfsberg

Johnny's experience with errors in interline ticketing in the pre-800 number pre-internet days is in line with mine from way back.

The Christmas before the start of Amtrak, my dad booked the family on a trip to the east coast. I went along with him to the Marion, IA MILW station as he reviewed the options with the station agent. It was good that we went in the middle of the afternoon, between train arrivals, because it took a while to construct the itinerary and compute the fare. Because the station didn't take credit cards, my dad and I came back next week with cash. It was the first time I saw a $100 bill.

From Marion to Chicago, the "City of Everything" over the MILW. A transfer from Union Station to Northwestern station for B&O's Capitol Limited to Washington. Then up to Philadelphia, the Broadway Limited from Paoli to Chicago and back to Marion on the "Cities."

The MILW station agent didn't recognize that the Metroliner required a premium fare, so we had to adjust our tickets at Washington, DC and pay the difference. The Broadway Limited ticket was written from Philadelphia, probably meaning North Philadelphia--the Broadway Limited didn't stop at 30th Street. So my uncle dropped us off at Bryn Mawr and insisted that the Penn Central would honor the ticket on the commuter train to Paoli. (He was a pediatrician and took care of the Saunders family kids. He also lost a chunk on PC stock, but took it in stride.) The commuter was a real treat, an ancient MU still painted in Pennsy colors. The conductor scratched his head over the ticket, but he went along, announcing "...and Chicago" when we approached Paoli.

Years later, I was a high school student going from Fort Wayne, IN, to a music camp in Greensboro, NC. I had to convince the Amtrak agent in Fort Wayne that, even though I would be taking the Southern's "Piedmont," which had no checked baggage, my trunk could go on the "Crescent," which did. Since I would be staying in Washington for a few days, my trunk would get there ahead of me. He went along, and the trunk was there when I arrived.

 Rolf

As to checking baggage when your ticket shows that you are riding a train without baggage service, if you ride the Cardinal all the way between Washington and Chicago, you may check baggage, and it will travel on the Capitol Limited. Folks at intermediate points are just out of luck.

I have also short-checked baggage, as two years ago we rode from Salem, Ore., to Los Angeles, spent the night, and went up to San Jose the next day. We did not want to bother with our large suitcase in LA, so I checked it just to San Jose (I did have to sign something; I do not remember just what).  Also on the same trip, we rode to New York City from Jacksonville, checking our large suitcase to New York, where it stayed for three nights until we had visited my wife's cousin in northwest Connecticut (Metro-North Harlem line up to Wassaic and back). And--we checked the suitcase from Halifax, N. S., to Toronto, even though we went through (actually THROUGH on the car from Montreal) to Windsor, spent the night and then went back to Toronto. There are limits as to how long you may leave checked baggage without paying storage charges.

Johnn

I notice no one mentioned the Official Guide of Railroads...a monthly publication which presented every railroad and steamship schedule in North America.  But the information was often updated only quarterly. Still, each passenger station theoretically had a copy so that the Agent could guide himself.  Too often the copies were handed down from headquarters, then to large city agencies with a lot of interline traffic, then down to smaller stations, and so on.  So maybe a local agent would have a Guide that was 6 months old; but he got a new six month old Guide every month.  After the last agent on the list got it, he would throw it away.  Thank goodness that some threw them away to railfans of all ages so that so many do exist today.  Travel agents also subscribed to the publication.  But after all was said and done, the Agent had to confir by phone, with his General Passenger Agent's office to assure that all the connections could be made as advertisied.  It sometimes took an Agent several days to piece together a long journey of many roads and connections!

henry6

I notice no one mentioned the Official Guide of Railroads...a monthly publication which presented every railroad and steamship schedule in North America.  But the information was often updated only quarterly.

Henry is quite right, you could not trust even the most recent Guide implicitly. Back in March-April of 1967, I had a nice itinerary planned, which involved taking the ACL's overnight train from St. Petersburg to Jacksonville (I had not specified any train in my itinerary except when a reservation was necessary). When I arrived at the ACL station in St. Pete, I discovered that the train had just been cut off. SInce I was leaving Jacksonville the next afternoon for New Orleans, I had to take a bus back to Tampa and take ACL #76 to Jacksonville. I did make use of the St. Pete-Jax coupon on another trip that fall. For some reason when I bought the first ticket, no date was stamped on the back, so the SCL conductor honored the coupon without question, even though I used it more than six months after the purchase date.

Johnny

Thanks everyone for the answers.   Johnny your answer was a real help, this question has puzzeled me for a long time, then I remembered I could get an answer here.

bill in NJ

Thanks everyone for the answers.   Johnny your answer was a real help, this question has puzzeled me for a long time, then I remembered I could get an answer here.

Johnny