I'm reading a book about trains published in 1942. It mentions that the 20th Century Limited is sometimes so (over) full, that it has to run in as many as 7 sections (!) My understanding, is that a train in sections would run one right after another(?) How is something like that handled at the stations?
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
That many sections of the Century only happened once or twice. Extra sections of scheduled trains did occur at peak periods into the early Amtrak era.
At any rate, sections generally ran five to ten minutes apart, and in the case of an all-Pullman train like the 20th Century Limited, the passengers would know in advance on which section they had their reserved space. The station crews also knew in advance that extra sections were being run and would plan accordingly.
The New Haven Railroad's "Merchants Limited" ran Boston to New York in two sections.
The All Reserved "Advanced Merchants Limited" left Boston at 10 minutes to five each day and ran non-stop to the engine change point in New Haven (Steam or Diesel to Electric), and then on to Grand Central in New York City.
The "Merchants Limited", coach and pallor car, left Boston on the stroke of five PM, stopped in Providence, New London, New Haven and arrived in New York City at 9 PM. Four hours, not bad for 60 years ago.
Don U. TCA 73-5735
Check old books of rules for complete details. Basically the Code called for green flags and/or running lights on the locomotive designating a section of a train and that others would be following (all but the last section would be green). Usually the first section adhered to the timetable schedule while others were set at least five minutes behind each other. This was setup by train orders to all stations, block operators, opposing trains, and other trains as deemed necessary; the order would tell the number of following sections as well as identify each one by engine number in addition to the disignation as first, second, third, fourth, etc., train number (First number 5, engine 801, second number 5 engine 802, third number 5 engine 803, and so on). Each section was granted the same rights and superiority of the first or regular section unless otherwise directed by train order. It is really, for some of us oldtimers, fascinating to watch the parade play out in such situations. As an aside, but hoping not to confuse anyone, it might have been decided to run an advance section of a given passenger train which with train orders directing it to "run extra" at a designated time spacing ahead of a given schedule. It might be designated "advance number 5 engine 800" or as "passenger extra 800" depending on railroad and circumstances. Going through old rule books is a lot of fun and gives you an idea of how railroads were operated with mainline passenger trains, commuter and local trains, hot freight trains, local drills or roustabouts, and extra freight and passenger trains on single or multiple track railroads. Couple this book with an employee timetable and you'll learn a lot about how and why things used to be. The precise wording and timeing made for a precision operating railroad.
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I am curious about how the railroads put their hands on the equipment for extra sections of especially their flagship trains. Did they really have that much quality equipment on standby?
Same question applies to their help, the kind they could be expected to want on their best trains.
Sounds smart alecky but, that was their business...they had the equipment and the people because they moved people as well as freight. Alright...so they may have borrowed some from neighbors, stole a coach or two from the commuter pool; planned the sections days, weeks, months in advance so moved equipment in from other points or other divisions. They would take both crews and engines from other trains on thier line while also calling off the extra board. But yes, they did have the equipment and the personnel to do the jobs. Rairoading was (and still is) labor intensive and back then you always had all the help you needed. As for equipment you planned by long term service needs and not day to day.
henry6 Sounds smart alecky but, that was their business...they had the equipment and the people because they moved people as well as freight. Alright...so they may have borrowed some from neighbors, stole a coach or two from the commuter pool; planned the sections days, weeks, months in advance so moved equipment in from other points or other divisions. They would take both crews and engines from other trains on thier line while also calling off the extra board. But yes, they did have the equipment and the personnel to do the jobs. Rairoading was (and still is) labor intensive and back then you always had all the help you needed. As for equipment you planned by long term service needs and not day to day.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
The railroads had extra diners and the Pullman Company had a vast pool of sleepers all over the
country. The beauty of the Pullman pool was that they could shift cars for seasonal events such
as extra cars were assigned to the ACL, SAL during the winter for the Florida traffic. In the summer
the same cars would be assigned to roads that serviced the "north woods" where people went
to escape the heat. The cars would go to the New England roads for serviced to Maine, to
the N.Y.C. for the Adirondacks, the CNW to northern Wisconsin and Michigan, etc.
Ah, the Pullman Company. Thank you, NYC#25. Shoulda thought of that myself.
nyc#25 The railroads had extra diners and the Pullman Company had a vast pool of sleepers all over the country. The beauty of the Pullman pool was that they could shift cars for seasonal events such as extra cars were assigned to the ACL, SAL during the winter for the Florida traffic. In the summer the same cars would be assigned to roads that serviced the "north woods" where people went to escape the heat. The cars would go to the New England roads for serviced to Maine, to the N.Y.C. for the Adirondacks, the CNW to northern Wisconsin and Michigan, etc.
A national pool of passenger rail cars -- you mean like Amtrak?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
The Pullman pool was nothing like Amtrak. Amtrak barely has enough serviceable equipment to operate their daily schedules. They don't have enough equipment to operate a 'extra' section to get their trains back on time if one of them encounters severe line of road delays.....the only way they can get the service back On Time is to either continue to run the service and hopefully gain a amount of time each day until the service is back On Time, or cancel the service for a day so the equipment will be in the proper position for On Time origination.
Pullman had sufficient equipment at it's 'headquarter points' to originate entire trains on short lead times. Equipment was moved around Pullman system to account for know seasonal demands as well as demand for special occasions.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
You gotta read one of the several books giving a history of the Pullman Company and its operations...google or bing or check your local library. Basically Pullman had a contract to operate all sleeping car lines in the US. Pullman designed, built, stocked, and manned the cars with a Porter and often its own conductor on the longer trains. Cars were configured, painted, and assigned to railroads as per contract. Some roads also contracted with Pullman for Parlor Car service.
Coaches, however, were owned, operated, and manned by the individual railorads. They could have been built by Pullman or any of several other companies or by the railroads themselves.
Both Pullman and the railroads built for peak periods which allowed for an excess of cars. Some were able to be assigned seasonally from one end of the country to the other while others were rotated or cycled through the system while still others were just parked. It was not necessarily a simple nor one size fits all system, but it was orderly and it worked.
Still, the best way to learn the most is to get the books.
It was during the 1920's and into the transformation into the streamlined era of passenger trains that running sections of the premier passengers trains was not that unusual and not always due to an abundance of passengers, but for convience for the upper class citizens they catered to.
A common practice and one that the Pullman Company prepared for, not only for the Century but the PRR's Broadway as well, was to limit these trains to no more than nine cars. This was done so as to not over crowd the diner and lounge car. They wanted their passengers to appreciate these luxury hotels on wheels and to relax, enjoy, take their time when eating and not put up with annoying crowds. The railroads would, if needed, add up to three sleeping cars before they would run a second section, and so on if needed.
With these train's departing NYC or Chicago the pool of available equipment was no problem and the Pullman Company was sure to supply and accomodate their clients. Non-luxury trains were not given the same consideration.
There are books out about the history of the Century and Broadway that explain their operation and mention the need for running in sections.
henry6 Alright...so they may have borrowed some from neighbors, stole a coach or two from the commuter pool;
Alright...so they may have borrowed some from neighbors, stole a coach or two from the commuter pool;
I recall walking through a couple of old (pre WWI era?) C&NW coaches at the Nat'l RR Museum with a friend of mine. He recalled a conversation with a retired C&NW employee who worked during WWII, telling him of one travel period so busy that 400's to Northern Wisconsin/UP (he didn't recall which train) ran in 5 sections:
We wondered if these clerestory relics had been bumped to commuter service by that time-the thought of them, crowded with passengers, making 400 time to Milwaukee would have been something to experience!
Something to consider about this seven section Cebtury operation
I doubt all sections made all station stops. Possibly one ran non-stop La-Salle - Toledo - Buffalo - Albany - Harmon - GCT None stopped at Cleveland and perhaps some did bypass Collingwood.
Pullman standard equipment, all room or room and section, for the Century, Broadway, etc. was not much different than for any other limited. So drawing on the best equipment from the PUllman pool to provide seven Century sections might mean that some secondary PUllman services would get older cars held in reserve.
BaltACD The Pullman pool was nothing like Amtrak. Amtrak barely has enough serviceable equipment to operate their daily schedules. They don't have enough equipment to operate a 'extra' section to get their trains back on time if one of them encounters severe line of road delays.....the only way they can get the service back On Time is to either continue to run the service and hopefully gain a amount of time each day until the service is back On Time, or cancel the service for a day so the equipment will be in the proper position for On Time origination. Pullman had sufficient equipment at it's 'headquarter points' to originate entire trains on short lead times. Equipment was moved around Pullman system to account for know seasonal demands as well as demand for special occasions.
And whose "fault" is that? Congress, for not giving Amtrak a whole lot more money? Amtrak, for sending the Heritage Fleet off to Canada? That the rolling stock maintenance operation of Amtrak is staffed at four times the level of Norfolk Southern (yes, I know, apples and oranges comparisons, we spent a long thread on that).
I guess I was being snarky for making the comparison between Pullman and Amtrak. But the whole idea behind Amtrak was to get the economies and flexibilities of a national system in the way Pullman did for the sleeping car side of things. And Amtrak is subsidized yet Pullman had to pull its own weight.
The thing is, whenever someone brings up the "you think railroading is easy and amenable to your simple armchair fixes -- railroading is HARD!" argument, it pretty much plays into the hands of Randall O'Toole -- yes, (passenger) railroading is resource intensive and hence expense, relative to competing modes.
This has turned into a fascinating thread, an example of forum-ing (for lack of a better word) at its best. I consider myself fairly well-read on passenger trains, and have been a rider since the 1950s, but have learned a lot on these 2 pages.
Thanks to all.
Another management idea that would preclude the existence of a reserve fleet as operated by The Pullman Company is "just-in-time" inventory and its related concepts. A firm's assets are reduced to the minimum needed for ongoing operations. Anything held in reserve for peak periods or contingencies is often viewed as a non-producing asset and is disposed of.
Definitely, Dave, multi sections of train did not necessarily run the whole route, stop at all scheduled stations, nor have the same equipment...all pullmans may have been on one section while all coaches another, etc. But Paul, the American business template of no excess, elimination of duplication and back ups has as much to do with the lack of Amtrak equipment as anything else. Amtrak just came along at that same time.
henry6 But Paul, the American business template of no excess, elimination of duplication and back ups has as much to do with the lack of Amtrak equipment as anything else. Amtrak just came along at that same time.
But Paul, the American business template of no excess, elimination of duplication and back ups has as much to do with the lack of Amtrak equipment as anything else. Amtrak just came along at that same time.
I don't see this viewpoint restricted to the business community.
I remember our advocacy group brought up a visitor for the Illinois advocacy group, and one of the complaints was that the Illinois trains had weekend peaks that were not served owing to shortages of equipment.
I offered the suggestion "Why not run Metra bi-levels, which are not used that much on weekends, to serve the weekend demand on the St Louis corridor?" My suggestion was met with a very snarky, "Yeah, we could have passengers ride in open gondola cars."
After my body-language reaction to this remark, it was offered to me that "The Midwestern corridor train services were first started with commuter bi-levels, but after some time, they were replaced with Horizon cars, where the improved comfort resulted in much higher ridership."
Some months later after the meeting with Mr. Open Gondola Cars, I was in a meeting with an official from WisDOT, where (prior to the current ARRA award), WisARP was advocating for "a second Chicago-Minneapolis" train to supplement the daily Empire Builder. The official suggested that "equipment was really tight", explaining that adding extra cars to the Hiawatha took a lot of "bird-dogging" from WisDOT to show to Amtrak where they had extra cars squirreled away, and to get the second Chicago-Minneapolis train, our advocacy group was encouraged to "engage in some creative thinking", which might include, pressing into service "ex-Metra bi-level cars." Holy open gondola cars, Batman!
In the local advocacy community, I once asked someone for their opinion about the Horizon cars in the Hiawatha service, and I got a kind of, "Well, they are OK, but they are really just modified 'commuter cars', and they are not holding up very well, the conductors sometimes have to place the blades of the emergency axes in the door jambs to hold the door shut to keep the snow from blowing in the cracks. What we really need are the Talgos!"
I call this the "Don't ask questions, just give us more money" wing of the advocacy community. Exhibit A is Don Oltmann advocating for doing Amfleet rebuilds at 1 million each before starting in on new coaches at 2, 3, many million a piece, and the grief he gets for that suggestion. It is not just advocacy, I have been on church council, and there is a "spend more money" faction there too, and in my neighborhood, where after a brief hailstorm, the neighborhood is blanketed with people calling to "inspect for hail damage", and people are getting insurance payouts to replace roofs right and left.
Yes, I have done the research on the type of damage hail does to a roof, but there is the "smell" of a mass insurance scam going on right now where I live. Just spend money. I suppose it is the only thing keeping the economy going at all, and if people were more parsimonious, the rest of us would lose our jobs too, just as in the Great Depression where thrift and "repair or do without" put us on an economic Death Spiral.
Speaking of hail damage scams, see how many of your neighbors had their insurance companies drop their policies immediately after the hail damage claim was paid.
It is a scam. You end up with a new roof and siding, and suddenly have no homeowner's insurance and have to shop around and pay top dollar because they now know that you are an easy mark. Oops.
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