NKP guy-- Thanks for your well thought out reply.
I very recently read a report submitted as an assignment by an 11 year old. He travelled with his Dad from New York to Chicago and back and a side trip up to Milwaukee via different routes and railroads. This was in 1962.
I'm thinking 1962, into the first half of '63 the railroads were still operating in the traditional manner of passenger service and had not quite yet given up on things, especially in the East. Things had changed but they were holding on and service was kept to a high standard.
Seems to me that after '63 it was all a downhill unstoppable spiral as far as pride in passenger service went, again predominantly in the East but out West as well on a number of roads.
It was, as you say, not overnight exactly but a day to day erosion.
Overmod The real thing that shot the postwar passenger train in the foot was really the ICC order of 1947 that took away the prewar 'ability' to run as fast as modern power could be made to go with shiny lightweight consists.
The real thing that shot the postwar passenger train in the foot was really the ICC order of 1947 that took away the prewar 'ability' to run as fast as modern power could be made to go with shiny lightweight consists.
Is this also the reason why diesel engine manufacturers and RRs seldom emphasize the top speed of the postwar diesel-powered trains? I read EMD E7 could hit 110mph+, 106mph for FM Erie-Built. Not sure about EMD E8 and E9, probably rated at 79mph...
Overmod There are other things, one of which was the industrial style from the late '30s onward. Even when this incorporated very expensive materials and handmade art, as in the original Super Chief trains ... it looked cheap and relatively spartan. We won't go into what happened when the trim actually became cheap and spartan in the mid-Fifties.
There are other things, one of which was the industrial style from the late '30s onward. Even when this incorporated very expensive materials and handmade art, as in the original Super Chief trains ... it looked cheap and relatively spartan. We won't go into what happened when the trim actually became cheap and spartan in the mid-Fifties.
I couldn't agree more. The styling of classy and beautiful things from the 1920s, progressionally (and professionally) transformed into a brutal and ugly form for the sake of innovation and competition. It was hard to believe that PRR's P85b was designed by Raymond Loewy, and these school-bus looking luxury "streamlined" coaches replaced the original P70 betterments cars... This is the first example that came to my mind. Who would have thought that in the 2nd or 3rd generation of the Futurama, I can hardly find a good looking computer keyboard, a device that I have to use every single day... just like fountain pens.
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
Miningman, count me in with you about how we (western society?) had it all (especially transportation-wise) and then either lost it or threw it away.
But as I looked at those small pics you posted showing comfy train interiors (e.g. facing seats in compartments) including the couple dining in a dome car and the seats in the Hiawatha lounge car, all I could think was this: Even if we had it all back, wouldn't every seat today be filled by people looking at their phones? Or wearing headphones or ear buds? And recall, when I brought up the pleasantries of having a meal in a dining car with a perfect stranger or two, that replies were aggressive as to how millenials despise such intercourse.
And notice how the couple is dressed. Imagine those cars filled with people dressed as we do today. But truthfully, I don't want to have to wear a suit for 13 hours aboard the Lake Shore Limited, either.
Why did we lose it? I agree with much of your analysis. Yet in the end we're all to blame, usually in small ways.
About 12 years ago I had a discussion with a young teacher regarding school disipline and classroom management, and how "things got this way." I replied, It didn't get this way overnight. Like the frog in the boiling pot, we got used to what we were losing one day at a time.
A hymn we used to sing (lost it, too?) entitled "Once to every man and nation," contains this sublimity: "New ocassions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth." Or as Judy Blume put it so well: "That was then; this is now."
But if 1965 ever returns, I'm ready.
Klingon bartenders? Well if you're running a biker bar I guess that's one way to keep the patrons in line!
No, wait a minute, a cashless society? Maybe, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Remember what the late, great Mike Royko once said...
"A cashless society? It'll never happen. Why? Three little words...
Off the books."
Overmod-- Except for the Chessie part the rest of the story as you relate sounds conspiratorial. I have no doubts that politicians and friends in high places were well placed and served by highway contractors, the aviation industry, GM and big auto, oil and gas, and so forth.
Also swept up by starry eyed visions of some brave new modern metropolis, atomic age goofiness, and a vast coast to coast public being steadily fed all that Mad Men tidal wave of ' how good its going to be '.
Society was turned against passenger trains and some of the railroads actually welcomed this. Eventually they all did.
But!... just look at that pic of the NY Central trains lined up at LaSalle... thats when we all had something to build on and not tear down and we knew what we were doing. Society accepted that loss but it could have been encouraged and advanced instead.
A while back on the passenger thread a posting featured a new train and service in Japan that is exactly what the New York Central 20th Century could be today. It exists today, just not here. I suppose VIA's high end service is around but that's a crazy high cost.
We had it in our grasp but lost it. It did not need to be that way.
Flintlock76Maybe that old world will come back if enough people are interested enough, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Times change, not necessarily for the better.
Not until we get rid of these:
and start using these:
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
The real thing that shot the postwar passenger train in the foot was really the ICC order of 1947 that took away the prewar 'ability' to run as fast as modern power could be made to go with shiny lightweight consists. Associated with this was the Chessie experiment: trains designed almost without regard to cost or operating expense, featuring a wide range of sometimes-quirky luxuries to make the trip attractive. And then the bottom fell out of the market ... not so much for the idea of the trains, but for the colossal level of support and service that was required just to run them as commodities.
An airplane flies where it's going, and turns around with pax for the return. It can easily divert to serve other areas ... or not ... and can easily be sent on a different route altogether if needed; in fact, it can cover several routes easily depending only on demand for the cost of little more than a set of Jeppson plates.
Meanwhile, the train is tugging around somewhere north of six tons per passenger, not including things like fabulously unprofitable diners and multiple attendants per car. And you need more than one train to hold down even daily service to most significant markets ... even though your revenue per day is that of only one. All this surplus capacity had to be paid for up front, and kept maintained ... and stocked ... and cleaned.
And then banged over increasingly dubious track quality. When there was no option but sleeping as the train rushed through the night, the acceptability of the resulting 'sensations' was one thing; once there was the option of a non-moving bed, it's not surprising that only the high-end solutions kept being patronized ... and even those, not so much.
Right into this comes the Government enforcement effort after the antitrust decision, which takes Pullman as a quality-control company right out of overnight sleeper operation at a stroke and replaces it with some railroad-led expediency. A sad thing here is that the Government knew, very thoroughly, in advance how it expected the Pullman Company to behave, even so much as to hint more than once that the deleterious enforcement oversight would apply to Pullman if they, ahem, ahem, chose the passenger business over the carbuilding one...
Again, the place and thing to watch was the Broadway after 1958, when the Century put on coaches and dropped the overall standard and Beebe went to the PRR. If anything could have saved the real streamlined luxury passenger train, that would have been it. You can read for yourself how that panned out.
And then no operating subsidies for the Government-funded competition, and taking away the mail contracts ... and not at all least, long failure to repeal the 10% expedient 'war tax' that nobody else was paying...
Oh man Vince, you bring up some brilliant points. That great way to travel, and now all gone. Why, indeed why?
Well, I think I have an answer, and in fact it goes back to the days of trans-oceanic travel and applies to trains as well.
While there have always been those who've travelled for pleasure, travel for most people involved something they had to do, not something they wanted to do. Whether it was for business, emigration from one part of a country to another or from one country to another travel was a burden. Ocean liners used to be furnished like floating hotels (depending on your class of course) because people didn't want to reminded they were on a ship and trains were the same, and since there was competition between carriers involved it made good business sense to make the trip as pleasureable as possible. But the big selling point was speed, speed to get you from Point A to Point B as rapidly as possible. It's why sail gave way to steam, and on land stagecoaches and canal boats gave way to railroads. Speed was the selling point. It always has been.
And then, affordable air transportation came along. Considering the tremendously shortened travel times the traveling public didn't mind being sealed in an aluminum tube and shot through the sky. And even in the beginning considering the competition the airlines tried to make the process as enjoyable as possible.
Now? Well, we can say the airlines have a monopoly on long distance travel so they don't have to try as hard to get the business. Paranoia over terrorism has made the process even more of a hassle. (Do you think any terrorist is going to try and hijack an airliner anymore? Seriously? They'd be torn apart by enraged passengers, no-ones just going to sit in their seats anymore and just take it. The authorities would pick up what's left of Mr. Terrorist in a Glad bag!) Short-distance travel, you might as well drive. The airlines don't want that business (most of 'em anyway) and Amtrak can't figure out how to get it.
Maybe that old world will come back if enough people are interested enough, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Times change, not necessarily for the better.
And if teleportation (Beam me up Scotty!) ever becomes a reality, kiss the airlines goodby.
Ah well, as Dr. Suess once said, "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened!"
PS: Slight correction, stagecoaches are still around, but instead of saying "Wells Fargo" on the side now they say "Greyhound" or "Megabus." But jeez, who wants to travel by bus? Not me!
A follow up to this:
4) Ok, read 'em and weep boys. 5 New York Central complete resplendent train sets all lined up in LaSalle St. Station. How exciting to board and look forward to a great trip, good sleep, fantastic food. The Red Caps, the Porters, the no nonsense Conductor, that railroad scent that is unmistakable, the solid black steel steps and handrails... well you get the idea. All gone. All the trains, even LaSalle, even private enterprise passenger service in competiton.
Ya, ya, ya, I read 'Who Shot the Passenger Train', heard all the BS.
So get out there driving on a jam packed white knuckled highway surrounded with monster rigs galore and idiot drivers in their SUV's. Better still fight you're way to the airport, park and walk forever, pay big bucks, make sure you're 2 hours early, get frisked, poked, humiliated and scanned and sit in the runway for a long time, jammed in with nobody who wants to be friendly to you... oh and don't bring much luggage, and prepare yourself for certain misery... repeat on the other end.
Oh yeah, it's just brilliant we shunned our trains.
Can you do this on a plane or in your car? Sitting face to face with family or a few buddies, or even interesting strangers and having a great dialogue with all. It's more condusive, more inviting, more behaved, more civilized on a train...it just is due to its very nature, setting and 'atmospheric's'.
Afterward you can go for a delightful meal all the while enjoying your surroundings and view. Try doing that in a plane!
Then you can walk around and find yourself relaxing here.
I would say this is the hallmark of a civilized society and not a brainwashed bunch of worker bee drones and ridiculous spin of Madison Ave marketing gurus lying for their masters.
We had it, had it all, wrecked it, wrecked it all. What's left is hanging on but even the railfans on these Forums are against what remains. They say it's 50's thinking, nostalgia, nonsense.
I say it's a mark of civilized society that knows the true value of wellness, calmness, a decent pace of life, excitement and the individual.
NDG-- As a betting man I would have bet large that Montreal would keep its Streetcars (and Interurbans) and Toronto would have ripped up every single streetcar line. I would have lost large, still is a headshaker.
Liked your story about the Buffalo visit and the FM trio H10-44's working away ( over on String Lining).
So here is its big brother the H20-44. This one is in Avis, Pennsylvania but I think some of these were assigned to the branch that went up to Ottawa, Ontario and likely the last loco assigned to that service. It's a handsome beast, mighty long horn! Looks like a boss!
2) More NYC .. another view of X5313 that we discussed a while back. It ended up on the TH&B but here it is alongside rows of forlorn equipment.
3) Now this is a busy busy busy factory! Wonder what it sounded like with all the huffing, chuffing and whistles. Gotta luv it!
5) More great stations.
Boston North Station
If you don't like that you can always go to Boston South!
Louisvile and Nashville Union Station, Offices and Yards.
At least this is still standing but it's a Hotel.
This is for the Mod-Man and myself, just a little North Jersey "remember when?"
You folks don't have to look if you don't want to, but I bet a lot of you will!
I remembered right about those wooden escalators in Packards!
http://www.hackensacknow.org/index.php?topic=2573.0
Thank You.
P.S.
I do NOT know when MOTORLESS Trailers last used?? Sorry.
Depression changed Traffic Flows.
Mr. Drye.
Thank You for posting this information!!!
Montreal had VERY STEEP GRADES on some routes.
On Rte 65 Cote de Neiges, often the Circuit Breaker above the Motorman would ' Open ' scaring everyone and causing the car to roll back at stop light at Cedar.
Older cars prohibited that had Trolley Voltage on Controller on Front Platform, and most Work Equipments.
Montreal had MU cars used in single-ended six motor sets, four on the lead car, two on the MU "trailer". Westinghouse P-K-35-GG controllers, basically K35 controllers mounted under the car - operated by air pistons controlled by low voltage air valves. This type of control was briefly used on ex-Connecticut Company open cars at Seashore Trolley museum in the 1960s. The "trailer" cars had master controls so they could be moved independently. The MU sets were used on lines with up to 13% grades.
NDG. You remember them as MUs. I remember the many two-car Montreal trains as motor and trailer, not MU. Am I wrong?
Before the massive "bustitution." Dorchester Avenue was a transit-free blvd., only private cars. On St. Catherins Street, one block south, the main commercial street, at each intersection four-to-six streetcars and streetcar trains would be lined up waiting for the green. At the green, each "Guard de Moteur" (Sp) would wind up his controller, trusting that the one ahead would be doing the same thing without any mechanical and electrical problems, and so every 1-1/2 minute around 1800 people were moved across the intersection, with 76,000 people handled in one lane. Streetcars doing a subway-line's jpb. To handle the same number of people with buses, half the routes had to be shifted to Dorchester Blvd.
NDG-- That's a remarkable find. How many steam locomotives scrapped California to Newfoundland-- 100,000? In a short time frame too, post war to early 60's. Along with the scrapping came other scrapping, that of the builders themselves, the knowledge, the skills, the infrastructure, the tools, and most certainly the romance, admiration and wonderment.
When steam was scrapped the public left the railroads too, first in their minds and then with their wallets. That friendly and warm association was scrapped as well.
We hang on to a few threads of it all through preservation but I wonder if following generations will have that kind of commitment as it was not part of their daily lives.
2) Updated photo of those NYC 4-6-0's with their commuter line ups in 1951. Broader, wider photo, note old passenger cars in the background probably used for MOW.
Interesting, that "Rypn" page on 7312. Looks like it was working in 2007, which is probably when I read that Moedinger quote. Or earlier. What can I say, it stuck!
FYI.,
Thanks for relating the stort on 7312. It's been in service since 1908, imagine that, 112 years.
I'm sure it worked around the clock during the war years '39-45. The colour picture in March 1960 shows it just hours after being removed from service. Stack not capped, everything intact. Glad it avoided the blast furnaces.
Flintlock76Now talk about hanging on! 7312 is definitely alive and kickin' at Strasburg! If I remember correctly Linn Moedinger said 7312 was their "Old Reliable," their go-to engine when everything else was down. Linn said "It moans, it groans, it makes odd noises, but it never gives up!"
For context on this, see here:
http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=44138
Wooden escalators. Man, it's been decades, but I think I remember wooden escalators at the old Packard's department store in Hackensack NJ. Emphasis on the "I think," Packards is gone now and I believe the last time I was in there I was 10 years old. I'm 66 now and some things are a bit hazy from when I was 10.
There's a memory. I was good friends with Frank Packard at Knickerbocker, and his wife gave me the definitive shrimp-and-artichoke-heart recipe (don't make 6lb for dinner; you'll try to eat it all...) Strange that I don't remember escalators in that store ... was too young and not looking around carefully enough. That was still the era of hand-operated crossing gates staffed from cabins not very far away, and when I was there I'd park in Packard's parking lot but not go in. Now I wish, again, that I could drive up there and do that.
There were wooden motorstairs (as they were called there) in what remained of Penn Station when I was young -- I think some of them went down to the 7th Avenue subway. They had the memorable klunk that has been mentioned. However, they did not hold a candle to the wooden 'escalators' at South Street Station in Boston circa 1974, which as I recall slanted downward like a bunch of pallets, with a well-worn finish to the wood that provided dubious traction: one held on to the rails very carefully, almost for dear life, as you racketed upward, watching the peculiarly stiff perhaps terror-based posture of the people clinging on above you. I wondered at the time if this was some sort of technical breakage in the escalator mechanism -- it was one of those things like the continuous European elevator systems that couldn't possibly be legal in any sane society, but apparently got built anyway.
Of course, Macy's (in Herald Square) memorably kept their many wooden escalators when they renovated half a decade ago, and you can ride them there... or find them on YouTube. Here is https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/26/nyregion/macys-historic-wooden-escalators-survive-renovation.html]the New York Times report on it. And here is an amusing recent account with Kalmbach-appropriate content reference included.
Perhaps Peter Clark can tell us about the ones in Sydney.
Some more great photos from Miningman!
Photo one, those 4-6-0's at Yorktown Heights? I'm glad David beat me to the punch commenting on those, he knows 'em better than I do. A fine sight. How long did they have to live? As far as I know NYC steam was gone in the Greater New York Area by 1954, although it did hang on a bit longer in the Midwest.
Now talk about hanging on! 7312 is definately alive and kickin' at Strasburg! If I remember correctly Linn Moedinger said 7312 was their "Old Reliable," their go-to engine when everything else was down. Linn said "It moans, it groans, it makes odd noises, but it never gives up!"
Ah, Photo 7. "Progress or downhill?" The missing turntable and roundhouse. Probably both. Many railroads found out pretty quickly, in most cases anyway, roundhouses just didn't work for diesels and had to upgrade their maintanance facilities quickly.
As far as getting to Wrigley Field, the #22 Clark line and #152 Addison line (ex-Chicago Motor Coach) will take you there. However, the L is the best way to get there, with a stop on the Red Line right at Addison, only a block from the main entrance.
P S.
Not all customers would be going to the top floors, so Escalators would be narrower as you went up, to save cost.
Some Escalators had Electric Eye Beams at their bottoms.
When not in use, the motors would drop down to a low-idle speed, and soon as a patron broke the light beam, they would speed up.
Wow! Great post NDG. I remember those wooden escalators in Hamilton, they made their own peculiar sound, I can still hear it, but it's difficult to describe. A powerful but rickety sound at odds with each other. Creaking and groaning but with purpose and calm certainty. They roared, not quiet. Those Eaton's models were superb. Nothing like that today, the care and the expense, man we had it good. It was a celebration not a gimmick.
Luved the article in Canada Rail about the CPR Electric Lines. We spent our summers and other holidays in Simcoe and Port Dover. What a rich environment we had. I just knew as a kid it was all to good, all too perfect, to last. You just know that somehow. For a short while, for me, we had Pere Marquette steam, Wabash steam, CNR steam, CPR steam, NYCentral steam and the Electric Lines. You could book a sleeper from the beautiful old Grand Trunk (CNR) station in Simcoe to anywhere in North America, and return, it was simple and normal to do.
All of that, every single rail, tie and spike is gone. 6 Railroads removed from the face of the earth.
I think, I know, they would give their eye teeth to have the Electric Lines back now but it would be impossible. They simply should have recognized with great certainty and clarity what they had and what they would lose.
So instead Morgan's is gone, Eaton's has vanished, Studebaker is gone, The Lake Erie and Northern is gone, the Grand River Rwy is gone as are all the CPR Electric lines, even the CASO is gone and CN and CP have left the area and now track way way North of it all, those branches hacked off. None of that makes a stick of sense to me, not at all. Something more to it all than meets the eye.
4-6-0s at Yorktown Heights: Ten-wheelers handled all Putnam Division trains, the peddler freight as well as passsenger trains. Most commuter trains ran only between Yorktown Heights and Sedgewick Avenue Terminal's connection to the 9th and 6th Avenue elevated trains, with a stop at High Bridge for transfer to Hudson Division MUs to and from GCT. Two trains each weekday each way ran to and from Brewster and the wye connection with the Harlem Div. there.
More fascinating items:
1) New York Central 4-6-0's with assigned commuter trains. Yorktown Heights NY Sept 9, 1951. Nice to see ten wheelers on the mighty Central this late in the game but I imagine their time will be coming up real soon.
2) Sticking with smaller steam, you just got to love an 0-6-0. Toiling away in obscurity for decades putting it all together. This one is interesting.
CN Stratford shop engine 7312 (an 0-6-0 built by Baldwin in 1908 for the Grand Trunk Railway) is pictured just removed from service in March 1960. 7312 would soon be sold to the Strasburg Railroad in Pennsylvania for tourist service, where it acquired the number 31. It is still in service today, restored to its previous CN number 7312
3) You know for a while The Pennsy actually looked pretty good, even their gons!
4) The seldom talked about Monongahelia. Along with N&W these are small rural town scenes that are now vanished.
5) Here's one for NDG. Henry Morgans ( not the famous pirate) department store on St. Catherine St. in Montreal 1890. It was Canada's first department store. Simply called Morgans , Henry eventually opened stores across the country. They were also kind of higher class, really a cut above. I remember the Morgans in Hamilton and their fabulous windows and at Christmas the decorations were breath taking. By the way the building is still standing. They were eventually purchased by Hudson's Bay.
6) Going to a Cubs game? Take the streetcar of course. Don't think you can do this any longer, maybe buses?
7) Breaking Bad made Albuquerque NM famous again but before that was Bugs Bunny making a wrong turn and before that was the Santa Fe and their sprawling magnificent backshop.
Progress or downhill ? .. the Roundhouse is gone!
8) At one time the New York Central was a household name. It was just a teenager when this pic was taken, it had a glorious future. It is hard to fathom it is no more, and so much of it's infrastructure is gone.
Don't know if these are ex-EL long-chassis units, one of which certainly wound up in Roanoke for the longest time
The nearer unit definitely is an SDP45. On a standard SD45, the radiator casing extended right to the end of the hood. A narrower hood extension beyond the radiator is just visible on the nearer Conrail unit.
Peter
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