The same is true in all the states of the old Northwest Territory, for obvious historical reasons. It's true in many/most other states.
charlie hebdo I doubt if many people on the East Coast seriously thought Indiana was largely populated by Native Americans in 1960. Let's see some evidence for that assertion.
I doubt if many people on the East Coast seriously thought Indiana was largely populated by Native Americans in 1960. Let's see some evidence for that assertion.
Why not? A lot of people from the west would be surprised to learn there's a six million acre forest/park in New York - many would probably opine that they didn't think Central Park was that big.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Erik_Mag In the mid 40's, my mom was attending medical school in eastern Pennsylvania and one of her profs thought that the Pony Express was still providing mail service in Ohio...
In the mid 40's, my mom was attending medical school in eastern Pennsylvania and one of her profs thought that the Pony Express was still providing mail service in Ohio...
Your mother was true pioneer. Not many women went to med school in the 40s or even the 50s or 60s or 70s.
BaltACD charlie hebdo I doubt if many people on the East Coast seriously thought Indiana was largely populated by Native Americans in 1960. Let's see some evidence for that assertion. Moving to Indiana in the late 50's - I was impressed by all the communities that were sporting names that had been created by Native Americans.
Moving to Indiana in the late 50's - I was impressed by all the communities that were sporting names that had been created by Native Americans.
(2) the population centers of the east could not go straight west, mountain valleys or not. There was this large natural barrier called the Great Lakes and Canada if you went north. All that commerce and travelling populace got funneled to Chicago. Out in the midwest, PRR and NYC were just another of about half a dozen capable railroad lines. Their strength was to the east.
(3) Back to the original post, look what USRA was trying to do during the first world war in moving people and material (look at the logic),
(4) also look what was going on just prior to the St Louis World's Fair. NYC finally realized their cobbled together route just plain sucked (Chicago to StL or Indianapolis to StL), compared to just about everybody else in Illinois. (Pana to E StL happened as a result...UPRR has most of it now ) ... The Big4 and Vandalia stories have been poorly covered up til now - hope that changes. The west end of the eastern railways has always been the red-headed stepchild of the histories of NYC,PRR and Erie. (No more books on the stuff east of the Alleghenies for a while please...until the documentation catches up.)
charlie hebdoThe same is true in all the states of the old Northwest Territory, for obvious historical reasons. It's true in many/most other state
Still, the ~unsubstantiated~ claim that I made was merely an illustration of Firerlock's observation "perceptions being everything"...it's not like it was thrown into an otherwise contentious debate. I'm still curious why doubting that was at all a priority?
You need look no further than a literal translation of the name of the state capital.
(FWIW I think those sophisticated east coasters were equally surprised to see we had indoor plumbing)
mudchicken (1) Charlie: Cincinnati is considered to be in the "midwest" (now part of flyover country), largely the false conception of generations of east coast thinking where many or most never travelled over 20 miles in a lifetime. (2) the population centers of the east could not go straight west, mountain valleys or not. There was this large natural barrier called the Great Lakes and Canada if you went north. All that commerce and travelling populace got funneled to Chicago. Out in the midwest, PRR and NYC were just another of about half a dozen capable railroad lines. Their strength was to the east. (3) Back to the original post, look what USRA was trying to do during the first world war in moving people and material (look at the logic), (4) also look what was going on just prior to the St Louis World's Fair. NYC finally realized their cobbled together route just plain sucked (Chicago to StL or Indianapolis to StL), compared to just about everybody else in Illinois. (Pana to E StL happened as a result...UPRR has most of it now ) ... The Big4 and Vandalia stories have been poorly covered up til now - hope that changes. The west end of the eastern railways has always been the red-headed stepchild of the histories of NYC,PRR and Erie. (No more books on the stuff east of the Alleghenies for a while please...until the documentation catches up.)
(1) Charlie: Cincinnati is considered to be in the "midwest" (now part of flyover country), largely the false conception of generations of east coast thinking where many or most never travelled over 20 miles in a lifetime.
MC,
The NYC had a line that was an almost straight shot from its mainline at Porter, In to Joliet with connection to the Santa Fe and Rock Island (as well as Alton) mainlines. It’s now mostly abandoned. Was there something about the line that precluded it’s use for run-through trains? It seems it would have been a natural.
JPS1 Erik_Mag In the mid 40's, my mom was attending medical school in eastern Pennsylvania and one of her profs thought that the Pony Express was still providing mail service in Ohio... Your mother was true pioneer. Not many women went to med school in the 40s or even the 50s or 60s or 70s.
Back to transcontinental routes.
Johnny
The first rail line across Missouri was the Hannibal & St. Joseph. Construction of the lines out of St. Louis was held up by the Civil War.
Gramp mudchicken (1) Charlie: Cincinnati is considered to be in the "midwest" (now part of flyover country), largely the false conception of generations of east coast thinking where many or most never travelled over 20 miles in a lifetime. (2) the population centers of the east could not go straight west, mountain valleys or not. There was this large natural barrier called the Great Lakes and Canada if you went north. All that commerce and travelling populace got funneled to Chicago. Out in the midwest, PRR and NYC were just another of about half a dozen capable railroad lines. Their strength was to the east. (3) Back to the original post, look what USRA was trying to do during the first world war in moving people and material (look at the logic), (4) also look what was going on just prior to the St Louis World's Fair. NYC finally realized their cobbled together route just plain sucked (Chicago to StL or Indianapolis to StL), compared to just about everybody else in Illinois. (Pana to E StL happened as a result...UPRR has most of it now ) ... The Big4 and Vandalia stories have been poorly covered up til now - hope that changes. The west end of the eastern railways has always been the red-headed stepchild of the histories of NYC,PRR and Erie. (No more books on the stuff east of the Alleghenies for a while please...until the documentation catches up.) MC, The NYC had a line that was an almost straight shot from its mainline at Porter, In to Joliet with connection to the Santa Fe and Rock Island (as well as Alton) mainlines. It’s now mostly abandoned. Was there something about the line that precluded it’s use for run-through trains? It seems it would have been a natural.
I never understood why trains such as the 20th Century and Super Chief, didn't have a section of thru cars, one could board and travel NY-LA without changing trains in Chicago. Setting out and picking up the cars at junctions in Indiana and Illinois, and bypassing Chicago altogether.
I realize in the time period we're discussing, LA wasn't much of a factor, but from the 1930's forward there was a significant number of high profile passengers traveling the route, that might have made such an operation worthwhile.
BLS53I never understood why trains such as the 20th Century and Super Chief, didn't have a section of thru cars, one could board and travel NY-LA without changing trains in Chicago.
As late as 1957, if not later, according to the September 8, 1957 PRR System Timetable, The Broadway Limited had through sleeping car service from New York City to Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The sleepers were transferred to or from the Super Chief, City of San Francisco, City of Los Angeles or California Zephyr. Eastbound the car coming off the California Zephyr was transferred to The General.
For the period covered by the September 1957 timetable, the through cars were transferred daily to or from the Super Chief. The transfers to or from the other trains were on alternate dates.
The Broadway was scheduled to arrive at Union Station, Chicago at 9:00 am. CDT or 8:00 am. CST. The Super Chief was scheduled to depart from Dearborn Station at 7 pm. I don't know whether through passengers could stay on the cars in Chicago while they were being transferred or whether they had to get off of them.
Transfer coach service was offered to PRR passengers who desired to transfer from Union Station to another Chicago station. The transfer was free of charge for passengers traveling more than 85 miles beyond Chicago. For those traveling less than 85 miles, the charge was $1.20 or less depending on destination.
The PRR also had through sleeping cars from New York to San Antonio via the Penn Texas and Texas Special or Texas Eagle.
You see plenty of these through cars in contemporary photographs, including some cars lettered 'Pennsylvania' in DECIDEDLY non-Tuscan colors. Part of the 'fun' was schedules that rotated among the possible routes, sometimes if I recall correctly on a sort of three-day basis that didn't allow normal customers to predict which route they'd go by on a particular day -- this was said NOT to help its popularity.
Point is that there was seldom if ever enough 'clientele' to run even one full transcontinental train even if most of the space in the nominally run-through cars was dedicated to passengers running through; there just was never enough demand in the '50s regardless of the amenities featured. I seem to recall a couple of Eastern-road cars built for the California Zephyr, but they don't seem to have made much of an impact either in profits or in the history of that train.
In other words, the 'occasional' run-through Pullman sufficed for all the effective transcontinental demand, at far less cost than a dedicated or through-scheduled full consist, and even that ceased to be of enough value to continue running it for very many years.
We might also remember a moment of silence for the 1958 Broadway as mentioned in one of the Lucius Beebe articles: In that year the Century gave up its all-Pullman status, and Beebe famously jumped ship as the Broadway ramped up its customer service and 'experience' to what PRR considered Century levels. Worked with the numbers, too ... for a couple of years. Then the bottom continued falling out -- jets, you know, and cars on Interstates and the like. Hard to say if the couple of years of 'doing it right' sustained much else on PRR, either.
Yes, from the late forties into the fifties, there were several through New York and Washington Pullmans to/from the west coast. They did not always travel on the best-known trains east of Chicago, but the B&O, PRR, and NYC all participated in the coast ot coast service. There was even a New York-New Orleans-Los Angeles sleeper from the late sixties into the Amtrak era--which, for a time, originated in Boston. In the fall of 1971, I rode in this car from Houston to Tuscaloosa, Alabama The train ran late into New Orleans; I went to sleep somewhere well west of New Orleans, and woke in time to eat breakfast in the station (while I was eating breakfast, an IC conductor, whom I had last seen more that six years before, came up, and we had a good converstaion)..
There was an interesting New York-Nw Orleans-Los Angeles service several years earlier--westbound, you arrived in New Orleans at the L&N station, detrained, and saw what you were able to see in the Crescent City, went to the old Union Station, and boarded another car--and found your baggage and such had been transferred to the corresponding space in the train that would take you out of New Orleans. Eastbound, you, of course, arrived at the Union Station, saw what you could, and boarded the northbound train at the L&N station. The cars did not run through, but you did not have to worry about transferring your belongings while you were in the city.
Overmod You see plenty of these through cars in contemporary photographs, including some cars lettered 'Pennsylvania' in DECIDEDLY non-Tuscan colors. Part of the 'fun' was schedules that rotated among the possible routes, sometimes if I recall correctly on a sort of three-day basis that didn't allow normal customers to predict which route they'd go by on a particular day -- this was said NOT to help its popularity. Point is that there was seldom if ever enough 'clientele' to run even one full transcontinental train even if most of the space in the nominally run-through cars was dedicated to passengers running through; there just was never enough demand in the '50s regardless of the amenities featured. I seem to recall a couple of Eastern-road cars built for the California Zephyr, but they don't seem to have made much of an impact either in profits or in the history of that train. In other words, the 'occasional' run-through Pullman sufficed for all the effective transcontinental demand, at far less cost than a dedicated or through-scheduled full consist, and even that ceased to be of enough value to continue running it for very many years. We might also remember a moment of silence for the 1958 Broadway as mentioned in one of the Lucius Beebe articles: In that year the Century gave up its all-Pullman status, and Beebe famously jumped ship as the Broadway ramped up its customer service and 'experience' to what PRR considered Century levels. Worked with the numbers, too ... for a couple of years. Then the bottom continued falling out -- jets, you know, and cars on Interstates and the like. Hard to say if the couple of years of 'doing it right' sustained much else on PRR, either.
DeggestyAs I recall, both the Guide and the public timetables of all of the roads indicated what calendar days the cars originated on each road
Of course they did. My point was that any normal person having a ticket to go to, say, LA had no way to predict how they were going without referring to some agent or to the OG ... and I bet it was neither easy nor straightforward to extract that information purely from the 'sailing date'.
BLS53I never understood why trains such as the 20th Century and Super Chief, didn't have a section of thru cars, one could board and travel NY-LA without changing trains in Chicago. Setting out and picking up the cars at junctions in Indiana and Illinois, and bypassing Chicago altogether. I realize in the time period we're discussing, LA wasn't much of a factor, but from the 1930's forward there was a significant number of high profile passengers traveling the route, that might have made such an operation worthwhile.
New York Central began participation in transcontinental sleeper service on March 31, 1946. The Central participated in NY-LA thru service via 3 routes west of Chicago...Santa Fe (via Albuquerque).....the Golden State Route (Rock Island-Sou Pac via Phoenix)....and the Overland Route (CNW-UP via Omaha and Salt Lake City). Cars also operated New York-Oakland (via the Overland route and via the California Zephyr Burlington/D&RG/Western Pacific, via Denver).
The last transcontinental thru service sleepers, interchanged between the Super Chief and the Century, as well as between UPs City of Los Angeles and the Commodore Vanderbilt, ran in April 1958.
Competitor PRR also began transcontinental sleeper service in March 1946 with NY-LA service via the Overland Route (CNW/UP) as well as via Santa Fe. Thru sleepers between NY/Washington DC and Oakland routed via the Overland route as above and then SP handling the final leg to Oakland.
Also a NY-LA sleeper via the Golden State route began June 2 1946, operating every other day.
New York-Los Angeles and New York- Oakland sleepers averaged an occupancy rate of 70%....but the Washington sleepers averaged only 3.7 passengers per trip and were gone in under 3 years.
The sleepers exchanged with the Golden State route ended July 10, 1951, and by October 27, 1957 the PRR was completely out of the transcontinental sleeper pool.
Source
Even by the 50s, a transcontinental trip would have been made by air, not spending ~60 hours cooped up on a train, by all but the few souls Overmod mentions above.
All interesting information.
As to my question, would the through sleeping car passengers arriving at Union Station, Chicago, be allowed to stay on the car during the layover and/or while it was being transferred?
JPS1 All interesting information. As to my question, would the through sleeping car passengers arriving at Union Station, Chicago, be allowed to stay on the car during the layover and/or while it was being transferred?
There were complaints about long layovers and transfers between Chicago terminals. One account that I read placed an elderly woman marooned alone in her room for several hours without either food nor heat.
charlie hebdo Even by the 50s, a transcontinental trip would have been made by air, not spending ~60 hours cooped up on a train, by all but the few souls Overmod mentions above.
200 (total) passengers per day, each way, according to my published source.
Convicted One charlie hebdo Even by the 50s, a transcontinental trip would have been made by air, not spending ~60 hours cooped up on a train, by all but the few souls Overmod mentions above. 200 (total) passengers per day, each way, according to my published source.
So, since it's published, what year? Source citation?
Regarding transcontinental sleepers on the B&O: The Capitol Limited exchanged with the Santa Fe Chief Washington-Los Angeles commencing in July 1946, which involved a "cumbersome" move between Chicago's Grand Central and Dearborn stations. A sleeper began operating thru to San Diego on March 15, 1951 with the service transferred to the Shenandoah on Jan 10, 1954, because it had better connections with the Superchief, which was by that time conveying the transcontinental sleepers interchanged.
Santa Fe curtailed the operation to Los Angeles on April 24, 1954, and the exchange of all transcontinental sleepers between the two ended on Jan 11, 1958 because of low patronage and high terminal expenses in Chicago.
ibid
charlie hebdoSo, since it's published, what year? Source citation?
Source listed at my earler post
According to a prior post on here by timz, the transcontinental through sleeping cars ran from 1946-1957. As I said above, a declining business by the 1950s.
http://cs.trains.com/ctr/f/3/t/205758.aspx
Here is my question: can anyone put me on to original sources (1880-1930) that evaluated the pros and cons of the two cities for transcontinental travel? Or historians accounts? Did eastern and western carriers enter joint agreements that boosted one or the other city (esp in Golden Age - ie 1880-1930). Did fares advantage one city over the other? Travel times?
I am looking for source, not opinions. Focused on the years between 1880 and 1930. Preferably original sources – such as:
-- the Editorial Comments section that typically opened the Official Guide
-- publications from the National Association of General Passenger and Ticket Agents
-- articles from The Railroad Gazette or other good trade periodicals
-- the passenger traffic departments of a given carrier.
-- the Chambers of Commerce in either city
To me the inception of transcontinental sleeper agreements appear to be post-war optimism. Which, in conjunction with decline in passenger revenues overall,... never really payed-off.
Ultimately NYC and PRR became anxious to reduce passenger services in most any way they could get away with, and these transcons were an easy duck to shoot.
I don't think the connections to West were all that great at St Louis even in the heyday - I always thought it was more oriented to the Southwestern markets.
Here is an interesting little tidbit that kinda falls into the type of service the OP was talking about.
Although not a sleeper pass thru, but on June 2 1946 the Wabash and the UP began a "guaranteed connection" agreement between the Cannonball and UPs' "City of St Louis" at Wabash's Delmar station going to Los Angeles and (I guess via a SP connection) Oakland.
[quote user="Convicted One"]
Did the Cannonball run Chicago-St. Louis? I don't have any Wabash information for that period here. After the N&W took over the Wabash operation, the Wabash Cannonball ran Detroit-St. Louis.
Deggesty Convicted OneHere is an interesting little tidbit that kinda falls into the type of service the OP was talking about. Although not a sleeper pass thru, but on June 2 1946 the Wabash and the UP began a "guaranteed connection" agreement between the Cannonball and UPs' "City of St Louis" at Wabash's Delmar station going to Los Angeles and (I guess via a SP connection) Oakland. Did the Cannonball run Chicago-St. Louis? I don't have any Wabash information for that period here. After the N&W took over the Wabash operation, the Wabash Cannonball ran Detroit-St. Louis.
Convicted OneHere is an interesting little tidbit that kinda falls into the type of service the OP was talking about. Although not a sleeper pass thru, but on June 2 1946 the Wabash and the UP began a "guaranteed connection" agreement between the Cannonball and UPs' "City of St Louis" at Wabash's Delmar station going to Los Angeles and (I guess via a SP connection) Oakland.
To my knowledge, The Wabash Cannonball was always at Detroit-St.Louis train. The Bluebird and other trains were the Wabash's Chicago-St.Louis trains.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
According to my source, the Wabash first launched a train named the "Cannonball" in early 1887, and it served Chicago/ Kansas City via the Wabash, the T P &W, and the Mopac. Although the source does not give a termination date, it explicitly says that the service was "brief".
Then on Feb 26, 1950 the Wabash renamed the St Louis Special/Detroit Special to be the Wabash Cannonball, assigned numbers 1, and 4. . In the 1950s the Cannonball was made up of Chair Cars, a Diner-Lounge, and an Observation car...most of this equipment was rebuilt and refurbished. This was a day train.
While new streamlined sleepers and 4 Alco PAs were assigned in 1949 to the overnight "St Louis Limited"/Detroit Limited" trains.
The Cannonball utilized Electromotive diesels
The N&W sought to terminate the Cannonball on May 10 1967, but was unsuccessful.
The Chicago-St Louis "Banner Blue" was by this time combining with the Cannonball at Decatur Ill for it's final leg to St Louis, while the St Louis-Chicago "Bluebird" likewise was combined with the Cannonball between St Louis and Decatur, before splitting out on it's own to continue northward.
Patronage on the Cannonball fell from 89,800 passengers in 1962, to 68,100 by 1966 (an average of 96 passengers per trip eastbound, and 91 passengers per trip westbound)
N&W claimed to have lost $218,000 operating the Cannonball in 1966. They further reported that the Cannonball collected revenue of $696,000 in 1968, on an operating cost of $1.2 million
Despite repeated attempts throughout the late 1960s by N&W to terminate the Cannonball, the ICC rejected all of them,. Ultimately when the Detroit/St Louis route was not incorporated into the Amtrak system, the Cannonball made it's final run on April 30, 1971
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