City of what???

[R. T. POTEET]

Here's one for you Onion Specific geniuses . . . . . . . . . . and you Standard Railroad of the World geniuses also; please feel free to answer if you are just a genius!

In November, 1951 which eastbound City of . . . . . out of Ogden carried the through sleeper(s) that went out of Chicago on the Pennsy? and the Pennsy what?

I don't remember whether we were behind a steamer or a diesel into Harrisburg but regardless would we most likely have been behind a GG when we left there for the run to New York City?

[tomikawaTT]

Can't help you on train names, but I will testify that there were armour-yellow pullmans at the Sunnyside Yards (New York City) during the early '50s.

Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

[ndbprr]

Up connections were tied to the "Admiral" on the PRR.  Probably a function of arrival in Chicago and time to get the car in a consist. 

[ndbprr]

here is the asnwer from a PRR fan who has researched this previously:

the Admiral and General were used
westbound, while the Pennsylvanian and the Pennsylvania Ltd. were used eastbound
for those cars coming off of the UP from LA. The service is alleged to have run
from 1950 through 1957.

[Sperandeo]

Hello R.T.,

On the Union Pacific out of Ogden in 1951 you probably weren't on a "City" Streamliner at all. The "Los Angeles Limited" was then carrying the transcontinental sleeping cars on the UP and C&NW (the NorthWestern operated the UP's trains east of Omaha at that time). The PRR train connecting at Chicago was most likely the "Pennsylvanian" or the "Pennsylvania Limited," as I believe someone else mentioned. For more details, the best historical description of the post-WWII transcontinental sleeping car operations is in Joe Welsh's book, "The Pennsy Streamliners – The Blue Ribbon Fleet," published by Kalmbach in 1999.

Best wishes,

Andy

[R. T. POTEET]

Hello R.T.,

On the Union Pacific out of Ogden in 1951 you probably weren't on a "City" Streamliner at all. The "Los Angeles Limited" was then carrying the transcontinental sleeping cars on the UP and C&NW (the NorthWestern operated the UP's trains east of Omaha at that time). The PRR train connecting at Chicago was most likely the "Pennsylvanian" or the "Pennsylvania Limited," as I believe someone else mentioned. For more details, the best historical description of the post-WWII transcontinental sleeping car operations is in Joe Welsh's book, "The Pennsy Streamliners – The Blue Ribbon Fleet," published by Kalmbach in 1999.

Best wishes,

Andy

I thank each and every person for his help in this; I should, perhaps, have explained where I was coming from in asking this question.

My pappy was in the Air Force and in the Summer of '51 he was assigned to Europe; we could not join him immediately so we went to wait with my Grandparents in Roberts, Idaho.

When we were finally to be allowed to join him we left Roberts on - I believe it was called the Butte Flyer - in the wee hours of a Monday morning to go to Ogden where we would change trains. If memory serves me we arrived in Ogden about daybreak; we were not there long because I seem to remember having breakfast on our eastbound train. Uncle Sambo would only pay for coach so my mother elected to pay the difference and we went by sleeper out of Ogden.

We were behind a steam engine when we crossed the Mississippi the following morning and there was a steam engine on the point when we pulled into whatever station we arrived at in Chicago. It was sometime around noon; I don't think we had dinner on the train before disembarking. Mom hired a cab and paid the driver to give us a three or four hour tour of the 'big' city. When we went to the station to catch our train to New York I was conscious that it was a different station from where we had arrived; I was, therefore, a little bit flabbergasted when we arrived at our car and found the same porter in attendence.

We left Chicago on the Pennsy, of that I am absolutely sure, and we arrived in New York at mid-afternoon the following day. We must have departed Chicago at about the supper hour because I seem to recall that the first thing we did when we got aboard was we went to the dining car.

I have attempted across the years to try to figure out just exactly what trains we were on after we left Ogden but nothing has ever seemed to fall into place partly because I have always made an assumption that we were on one of the 'City' streamliners that they juggled around there in Ogden. It never dawned on me that we may have boarded a through train coming up from L.A.

Again, I thank everyone for their help.

[Sperandeo]

Hello R.T.,

In 1951, Union Pacific's "Los Angeles Limited" departed from Ogden at 7:10 am and arrived in Chicago at 2 pm the next day. You would have crossed the Mississippi at Clinton, Iowa, on the Chicago & North Western, and the steam engines you saw were undoubtedly C&NW locomotives. You would have arrived in Chicago at the North Western Depot, now called the Ogilvie Transportation Center, and departed from Union Station. The 10-roomette, 6-double-bedroom sleeper from Los Angeles was transferred to the PRR's "Pennsylvania Limited," which left Chicago at 6 pm and arrived in New York City at 11:25 am the next day. Your experience was apparently very typical, as it seems few passengers ever stayed on those transcontinental Pullmans while they were being transferred in Chicago.

Thanks for sharing your memories,

Andy

[ndbprr]

I'm not even sure they allowed passengers to remain on board for the transfers.  The transfer from ASTF was easier as Dearborn station was a couple of blocks east.  IC connections were out of a station east off of Michigan Ave. and were the longest. the PRR operated the Parmalee bus company in Chicago for a time to handle all the transfers.  None of them were much over 1/2 mile but carrying that luggage designed to be nuclear weapon proof was always a challenge.  My understanding is there were always porters ready to do it for a fee like there used to be at airports.

[R. T. POTEET]

Andy;

Your responses have hit the nail right on the head; I remember that we were only in Ogden for a short time and the first thing we did when we were eastbound was we went to breakfast in the Dining Car. Your 7:10am departure from Ogden sounds about right. I thought that our arrival was a little bit earlier than 2pm but I do know that we were not in Chicago an awfully long time. And the arrival time of 11:25am in New York City also sounds about right. So your information has cleared up this 56 year old mystery; I will pass this info on to my mother who has always wondered about that trip; she was traveling with three boys aged 11, 8, and 2 and we were all handfuls.

ndbprr;

I think you also hit a nail; I seem to recall that mom said that we had to get off of the train in Chicago - not that we could get off of the train.

I have an aside to this narration:

I remembered that one of the stops on the UP/C&NW was in Marshalltown, Iowa; In 1961, nine and a half years after I made this train trip, I had just returned from my first overseas assignment with the Air Force and had stopped off to visit my paternal grandparents in Iowa; I prevailed upon my dad to take me to Marshalltown to catch a westbound passenger train to return me to Idaho. I was not a railfan in those days so I was not aware that the UP passenger trains now went into and out of Chicago on the Milwaukee Road. The station agent in Marshalltown informed me that I would have to wait nine hours to catch a train into Omaha and the wait were I to drive over to Boone on the CMSP&P would be even longer. I caught a bus.

That would have been the only time I would ever have traveled westbound on the UP.

I thank both of you for your enlightening information.

[Dave-the-Train]

Can't answer any of the questions but I love this thread

[7j43k]

R.T.

Do you remember what ship you crossed the Atlantic on?

Ed

[dti406]

ndbprr;

I think you also hit a nail; I seem to recall that mom said that we had to get off of the train in Chicago - not that we could get off of the train.

 

When Robert Young was trying to take over the NYC in the Mid Fifties, he had a real problem with changing trains in Chicago. He said a pig could go from coast to coast in the same car but not a human being.

 

Rick 

[R. T. POTEET]

R.T.

Do you remember what ship you crossed the Atlantic on?

Ed

Sure do, it was the SS Washington. She had, if I remember the story correctly, only a short time earlier been returned by United States Lines to the U.S. Maritime Commission and was, in December, 1951 doing "diaper run" duty as a charter to the Military Sea Transport Service running from New York to Bremerhaven, Germany. She made seven trips in this capacity; we were on trip number two. We docked in Bremerhaven on December 7, 1951 ten years to the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor! She hauled rotating troops on the return trip to New York and her transit time - New York to New York - was nineteen or twenty days.

Our trip was relatively peaceful but on the following trip she took an extra day to go from New York to Bremerhaven because she got caught in the same storm in the English Channel that sank the C1 SS Flying Enterprise for those of you old enough to remember that event from December '51 - January '52. About two years ago History International had a one hour documentary about the MSTS 'diaper runs" of 1951-52; sure brought back some memories.

When my mother and two brothers went back to Europe in the summer of 1958 they went across on the USNS/USAT Brigadier General Wm. O. Darby - you know, Darby's Rangers William O. Darby; my mother said she much preferred the SS Washington however she has never quite been sure if it was the differing comforts of the ships or the fact that one trip was made in the late-spring and the other in the late-fall.

[7j43k]

R. T.

It wasn't an idle question that I asked. I also crossed the Atlantic on the George Washington.  I'm pretty sure it was on the "nasty" trip after yours.  It fits the dates that I was able to turn up.  The seas were certainly stormy.  I lost two of my baby teeth when the ship rocked and I was thrown against the metal frame of my bunk. The compartments were a bit like steerage, as I recall, with maybe 15 mothers and children per "room"; and, as I said, everone had bunks.  We had a genuine porthole to look out.  I remember that I wandered up forward and watched the waves break over the bow--note that it was a pretty big ship, so that was pretty significant.  Being a small boy of 6, I thought it was all just great.

Coming back 3 1/2 years later, we were on the Goethals [sp?].  Much better accomodations.

Very nice to hear your story, Ed

[R. T. POTEET]

We may have drifted a little off topic but I still think that it is ironical; absolutely ironical!

My dad was stationed at Rhein-Main Flughafen with the 433rd Troop Carrier Wing; when school commenced after Christmas vacation that year - 1951 - there were three or four new students joining my 5th/6th Grade class there at Gateway Gardens; one of these, a kid named Morton, went on about seven or eight years later to play AAA baseball and it was from him that I found out about the day's delay due to the storm in the English Channel. According to this History International feature I mentioned, you may not realize it but you actually turned around and steamed back westward for a half a day or so to put those Force 8 or Force 9 winds over the ship's bow.

I have never forgotten the train trip down from Bremerhaven to Frankfurt-am-Main; you stepped off the boat, walked to the center of the pier, and boarded a train. My pappy was a W-2 in those days; there were, I understand, three or four 1st class coaches for dependents of "the brass" - that's O-5 or above for you uninitiated - but the rest of us had to go in 2nd class coaches but we were at the rear of the train - and I was somewhere near the very rear - and as we went south across the North German Plain I sure got some good views of those steam locomotives on the point, white smoke lifting into that cold December sky. I'm not sure exactly where it was at - Hannover maybe - where we swapped locomotives.

As I said, how ironical that I should, after all these years, find somebody up here on the forum who went to Europe in 1951-52 on the SS Washington. I was in the same Military Training Squadron at Sheppard AFB, Texas in 1961 with a guy named Schaeffer who had gone over to Europe on trip number seven and I knew him from Junior High School in Frankfurt.

When we rotated stateside in 1954 we came across the Atlantic on a ship called DC7B - boring incarnate!!!

By the way, you joined the forum on my 64th Birthday.

[7j43k]

Must be some of that 6-degrees stuff we hear about.

My dad was assigned to SHAPE headquarters and so we spent a few not entirely awful years in Paris environs.  We did the boat train too.  I recall it as a straight run to Paris--maybe there was more than one train leaving--probably was.  If the ship was full of dependents, that's an awful lot of passenger cars all at once.

  All I remember is looking out a berth window at the passing lights at night.

 

Nice ta meetcha, Ed

[ndbprr]

Doing other research at the New York Shipbuilding web site if you scroll down you can download a low or hi res picture of the SS Washington being built at the Camden new jersey yard.

www.fairview.ws/beginnings/shipyard.html

[Anonymous]

I dont have anything to contribute, but gave this thread 5 stars!

Wonderful stuff.

[R. T. POTEET]

I dont have anything to contribute, but gave this thread 5 stars!

Wonderful stuff.

Glad you enjoyed it. I raised a question about cross country train travel in the 1950s and found someone with an almost identical experience. Only on the forum I guess!