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Classic Train Questions Part Deux (50 Years or Older)

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Posted by narig01 on Wednesday, July 10, 2013 2:08 AM
Dave on reflection you have answered the question. Not as completely as I had intended. What happened in the panhandle was numerous stations had been built without any segregated facilities. And without any signage to indicate where everyones place was. I was looking at an article and one of the letters that the Texas Railroad Commission received complained of 17 whites, 34 colored, and 7 mexicanas all mixed together in a waiting room with only 20 seats. Santa Fe's response was that their must have been some unusual circumstance as the station (Stanton, Tx?) normally did not have that many passengers. It was also noted in the article that even Amarillo did not have segregated facilities. Perhaps someone else can answer this but what about El Paso? Whilst El Paso did not have a large population of blacks before WWII they did have a large number of hispanics. I had not seen this station til the 70's.
Dave your question.

Thx IGN
PS. I think I got this to the right place this time.
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Posted by ZephyrOverland on Wednesday, July 10, 2013 9:21 AM

I believe the previous post is part of the other quiz thread.  The Florida train question is still open on this thread.

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Posted by rcdrye on Wednesday, July 10, 2013 12:51 PM

I can't find anything to support this idea but I'm going with Dixie Champion.

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Posted by ZephyrOverland on Wednesday, July 10, 2013 1:22 PM

rcdrye

I can't find anything to support this idea but I'm going with Dixie Champion.

Nope....Ill give this one more day before I reveal the answer.

Hint:  The second word in  Dixie ________ describes the type of train the consist was.

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Posted by KCSfan on Wednesday, July 10, 2013 2:13 PM

Dixie Streamliner

Mark

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Posted by ZephyrOverland on Wednesday, July 10, 2013 2:41 PM

KCSfan

Dixie Streamliner

Mark

Mark, you got it.  The Dixie Route was publicly calling its new train the Dixie Streamliner when announcements were being made in the press in October 1940 of the new coordinated all coach Chicago-Miami service beginning in December 1940.  By early December 1940 newspaper articles were now calling the train the Dixie Flagler.  When I first came across this I thought this was in error but several newspapers, including the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Pittsburgh Press reported the same name.  Were they serious about calling this train the Dixie Streamliner or was the name a placeholder until they settled on another name I don't know.  The following link refers to the Pittsburgh Press story about the new trains and mentioning the Dixie Streamliner

Mark, the next question is yours.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=9E0bAAAAIBAJ&sjid=XUwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6303%2C5088247

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Posted by KCSfan on Wednesday, July 10, 2013 4:01 PM

ZO, without your hint I never gotten the answer. I had google searched everything I could think of but was unable to find a single newspaper announcement of the three new trains. I suspect the Dixie Flagler name had not yet been selected in October 1940 when the trains were first announced. Unlike the City of Miami and Southwind which were clearly IC and PRR trains, I never associated the DF with any one of the six roads (C&EI, L&N, NC&StL, AB&C, ACL and FEC) over which it ran. This causes me to wonder if any one, or a combination of, these railroads participated in the selection of its name. On to a new question -

Consisting of the names of three states, the name of this railroad was almost as long as was the railroad itself. What railroad was this, what were its endpoints and what was the reason for its construction?

Mark  

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Posted by ZephyrOverland on Wednesday, July 10, 2013 4:32 PM

KCSfan

ZO, without your hint I never gotten the answer. I had google searched everything I could think of but was unable to find a single newspaper announcement of the three new trains. I suspect the Dixie Flagler name had not yet been selected in October 1940 when the trains were first announced. Unlike the City of Miami and Southwind which were clearly IC and PRR trains, I never associated the DF with any one of the six roads (C&EI, L&N, NC&StL, AB&C, ACL and FEC) over which it ran. This causes me to wonder if any one, or a combination of, these railroads participated in the selection of its name. On to a new question -

Historically, the Dixie Route trains were managed by the C&EI-L&N-NC&StL, but I believe the C&EI took over more of the responsibilities over time.  But the consist that the Dixie Flagler initially utilized was owned by the FEC.  I don't know the history on how the Flagler was named but I suspect it may have been a compromise.

Myron

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Posted by KCSfan on Thursday, July 11, 2013 8:22 AM

KCSfan

Consisting of the names of three states, the name of this railroad was almost as long as was the railroad itself. What railroad was this, what were its endpoints and what was the reason for its construction?

Today's hint -

General Headquarters of this short line were located hundreds of miles away from the railroad itself in what for a time was the tallest building in the world. 

Mark

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Posted by KCSfan on Friday, July 12, 2013 6:41 AM

KCSfan

KCSfan

Consisting of the names of three states, the name of this railroad was almost as long as was the railroad itself. What railroad was this, what were its endpoints and what was the reason for its construction?

General Headquarters of this short line were located hundreds of miles away from the railroad itself in what for a time was the tallest building in the world.

Today's hint -

The road was built in 1905 by a large manufacturing company but was operated as a common carrier. Until shortly after WW-1 it ran two daily passenger trains in each direction whose 50 minute run times equated to an average speed of 13.9 mph.

Mark

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Posted by rcdrye on Friday, July 12, 2013 6:45 AM

You must be referring to the 11 or so mile New Jersey Indiana and Illinois, which was more or less the Singer Sewing Machine Company's in-house line, though it also served Studebaker and possibly Bendix in South Bend Indiana, running to a connection with the Wabash to avoid having to to deal with the mighty New York Central System.  A little bit survives today from where the NJI&I crossed the LS&MS to the customers' plants, served by NS as successor to both Wabash and NYC.

I'm assuming the headquarters were at the Singer Building in New York, an unheard-of 47 stories tall in 1908.

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Posted by KCSfan on Friday, July 12, 2013 7:45 AM

rcdrye

You must be referring to the 11 or so mile New Jersey Indiana and Illinois, which was more or less the Singer Sewing Machine Company's in-house line, though it also served Studebaker and possibly Bendix in South Bend Indiana, running to a connection with the Wabash to avoid having to to deal with the mighty New York Central System.  A little bit survives today from where the NJI&I crossed the LS&MS to the customers' plants, served by NS as successor to both Wabash and NYC.

I'm assuming the headquarters were at the Singer Building in New York, an unheard-of 47 stories tall in 1908.

You've nailed it Rob and the next question is yours. Incidentally in the early 1920's Singer built and operated another railroad, the Thurson and Nation Valley, in Quebec. Singer sold the NJI&I to the Wabash in 1926.

Mark

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Posted by rcdrye on Friday, July 12, 2013 5:40 PM

Singer also had a bunch of "phone booth on a truck" electric plant switchers in South Bend. 

THIS relatively short railroad which was the subsidiary of a subsidiary of a major eastern carrier also had the names of three states in its name, actually reaching two of them.  Its parent had the names of several important cities, and in turn the parent system had yet another state in its name.

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Posted by KCSfan on Saturday, July 13, 2013 10:33 AM

I believe this must have been the Tennessee Alabama & Georgia which became a subsidiary of the Cincinnati New Orleans & Texas Pacific which in turn was a subsidiary of the Southern Ry. The TAG ran from Chattanooga TN to Gadsden AL but didn't reach GA.

Mark

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Posted by Deggesty on Saturday, July 13, 2013 12:43 PM

TAG ran from Chattanooga, Tennessee, through Georgia on its way to Gadsden, Alabama. I was unaware that it became a subsidiary of the TNO&P; I had understood that the Southern took it directly into its family.

Johnny

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Posted by KCSfan on Saturday, July 13, 2013 1:18 PM

Deggesty

TAG ran from Chattanooga, Tennessee, through Georgia on its way to Gadsden, Alabama. I was unaware that it became a subsidiary of the TNO&P; I had understood that the Southern took it directly into its family.

Johnny I sure slipped up on that one. A good 40+ miles of the TAG's entire 91 mile line was in Georgia. I may also be wrong about it becoming a subsidiary of the CNO&TP. I'm anxious to see what Rob says.

Mark

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Posted by rcdrye on Sunday, July 14, 2013 7:13 AM

Since the TA&G hit all three states, and CNO&TP has only two cities (not four) it doesn't quite fit.  This one is geographically a little closer to the tiny road in the previous question.  In both the company's name and its parent's name three names begin with the same letter (but not the same letter for the company and its parent...), and finally the company lost its individual listing in the OG in the late 1930s or so, the parent in the late 1950s, the parent's parent in the late 1960s.

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Posted by KCSfan on Sunday, July 14, 2013 12:36 PM

Looking a few years earlier, I found the Indiana Illinois & Iowa RR which was a CCC&StL subsidiary which, in turn, was of course a subsidiary of the NYC. The II&I was know as the Kankakee Belt.

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Posted by rcdrye on Sunday, July 14, 2013 5:38 PM

Mark has the correct answer.  Bits and pieces of the II&I survive under NS ownership.  The east end of the line is in South Bend, along with the equally-NS NJI&I.

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Posted by KCSfan on Monday, July 15, 2013 2:17 AM

By 1940 narrow gauge passenger trains had become a rarity but one interline NG train still made a round trip six days each week. What was the route of this train and over what railroads did it run?

While not necessary to answer this question, add the name which locals called this train if you know it.

Mark

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Posted by daveklepper on Monday, July 15, 2013 2:42 AM

I would imagine it was a train between Salida and Climax, operating via the D&RGW and the C&S.  The junction would have been Leadville?      The other possibility is Salida and Telluride via D&RGW and RGS via Ridgeway.  But I think the former, since by 1940 all scheduled RGS passenger service was probably by Goose, and Geese did not interline.  As long as the South Park main into Denver existed, this interline service did not exist and was not needed, but when the CS's line to Climax was isolated I believe this thru interline service was begun.

Of course you could say that all RGS passenger service of any type into Durango was interline, because the RGS used D&RGW tracks and station in Durango.

I also thought abou the Silverton train continuing on the one of the Meirs lines north of Silverton that still existed in 1940, but you posted a passenger train, and in 1940 the Durango - Silverton service was by mixed train.

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Posted by KCSfan on Monday, July 15, 2013 3:45 AM

daveklepper

I would imagine it was a train between Salida and Climax, operating via the D&RGW and the C&S.  The junction would have been Leadville?      The other possibility is Salida and Telluride via D&RGW and RGS via Ridgeway.  But I think the former, since by 1940 all scheduled RGS passenger service was probably by Goose, and Geese did not interline.  As long as the South Park main into Denver existed, this interline service did not exist and was not needed, but when the CS's line to Climax was isolated I believe this thru interline service was begun.

Not Salida-Climax. The train I am looking for did not run on the C&S and as you correctly point out RGS Geese did not run interline.

Mark

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Posted by daveklepper on Monday, July 15, 2013 11:53 AM

Then I must conclude that the RGS had one remaining conventional passenger train that ran through on the D&RGW.     Salilda to some point on the RGS,, Teluride?  Ooray?  

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Posted by KCSfan on Monday, July 15, 2013 12:45 PM

Sorry Dave but the RGS had no role in this trains operation.

Mark

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Posted by daveklepper on Tuesday, July 16, 2013 10:32 AM

With all my study of Colorado Railroads and visits and actual rides, I did not know there was a railroad called Denver and Intermountain.   If this is the other railroad, other than the D&RGW, I'd like to know where it ran and where it connected with the D&RGW narrow gauge.   I asume one of the two railroads is indeed the D&RGW.   Well, there was also a Book Cliff Railroad, but in the 30's and later it connected (I think) only with D&RGW standard gauge if it lasted that long.

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Posted by rcdrye on Tuesday, July 16, 2013 10:57 AM

D&IM was an interurban affiliated with Denver Tramways.  It had both standard and 42" guage lines.  If it did run interline, it was with DT.  As far as I know there was some common standard guage operation with C&S, but no narrow guage.

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Posted by narig01 on Tuesday, July 16, 2013 12:01 PM
Didn't Denver and Intermountain run narrow gauge steam passenger steam? I think I reading somewhere that they did not use their own rails on some of it. And I do not remember the connection.
Thx IGN
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Posted by KCSfan on Tuesday, July 16, 2013 3:12 PM

As far as I know the Denver and Intermountain was all electric and did not run any steam trains.

The interline NG train I am looking for did not run in Colorado.

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Posted by FlyingCrow on Tuesday, July 16, 2013 7:37 PM

I'm guessing the ET&WNC and the Linville River

Yeah, I'm back.   

AB Dean Jacksonville,FL
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Posted by KCSfan on Tuesday, July 16, 2013 9:15 PM

I wondered what happened to you Buck. You've been missed and it's good to have you back.

You've got the right train. It was locally known as the Boone Mail and ran on the ET&WNC between Johnson City TN and Cranberry NC and then on the Linville River RR from Cranberry to Boone. The interline operation didn't last long into the 1940's. The Linville River stopped running following flooding and washouts sometime in 1940 and was never repaired. The train continued to run for several more years but only between Johnson City and Cranberry. Looking forward to your next question.

Mark

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