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[nanaimo73]

Well, you're way out of my league now.[;)]
Your best bet is to try to get an Official Guide of the Railways from your library.
I was thinking interleague, so 45 routes is wrong. It would have been 21 NL routes and 28 AL routes.(Brooklyn+New York).
The Pennsylvania reached Manhattan in 1910 but the Hells Gate line did not open until 1917.
These would all be day games, wouldn't they ?

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

As a Cub fan of some seniority, I would think that I know a few things about day games. Night baseball didn't start until 1935 when the Cincinnati Reds installed lights in Crosley Field. pmrozenzweig looks like he's been reading a lot of Leonard Koppett's old columns about baseball in the prewar era but he is right, road schedules were planned to minimize travel times.

[nanaimo73]

Phil,
I'm going to list the routes I believe the teams would have used. I would guess the travel times would not be too much slower than Amtrak's. Mileage approximate.
All 16 teams would not use the same routes, I have only listed my best guesses.

1-Boston to New York (AL and NL)
New York, New Haven and Hartford 230 miles.

2-New York and Philadelphia(AL and NL)
Pennsylvania RR 90 miles

3-Boston and Philadelphia (AL and NL)
combine the first two routes with a cross town transfer in Manhattan

4-Philadelphia and Washington (AL)
Pennsylvania RR 133 miles

5-New York and Washington (AL)
Pennsylvania RR 224 miles

6-Boston and Washington (AL)
B-NY + NY-Wa + transfer

7-Philadelphia and Pittsburg(h) (NL)
Pennsylvania RR 348 miles

8-New York and Pittsburg(h) (NL)
Pennsylvania RR 438 miles

9-Boston and Pittsburg(h) (NL)
B-NY + NY-Pi + transfer

10-Pittsburg(h) and Cincinnati (NL)
Pennsylvania RR 310 miles
(B&O 15 miles longer, both through Columbus)

11-Philadelphia and Cincinnati (NL)
Pennsylvania RR 658 miles

12-New York and Cincinnati (NL)
Pennsylvania RR 748 miles

13-Boston and Cincinnati (NL)
B-NY + NY-Ci + transfer

14-Cincinnati and St. Louis (NL)
Baltimore and Ohio 338 miles

15-Pittsburg(h) and St. Louis (NL)
Pennsylvania RR 611 miles

16-Philadelphia and St. Louis (AL and NL)
Pennsylvania RR 959 miles

17-New York and St. Louis (AL and NL)
Pennsylvania RR 1,050 miles

18-Boston and St. Louis (AL and NL)
New York Central system 1,200 miles
Boston and Albany to Albany 200 miles
New York Central to Cleveland 476 miles
Cleveland Cincinnati Chicago and St. Louis to St. Louis 524 miles

19-Washington and St. Louis (AL)
Baltimore and Ohio 885 miles

20-St. Louis and Chicago (AL and NL)
Chicago and Alton 283 miles

21-Cincinnati and Chicago (NL)
New York Central 307 miles

22-Pittsburg(h) and Chicago (NL)
Pennsylvania RR 468 miles

23-Philadelphia and Chicago (AL and NL)
Pennsylvania RR 816 miles

24-New York and Chicago (AL and NL)
New York Central 959 miles

25-Boston and Chicago (AL and NL)
New York Central system 1,017 miles
Boston and Albany to Albany 200 miles
New York Central to Chicago 817 miles

26-Washington and Chicago (AL)
Baltimore and Ohio 770 miles

27-Boston and Cleveland (AL)
New York Central system 676 miles

28-New York and Cleveland (AL)
New York Central system 618 miles

29-Philadelphia and Cleveland (AL)
Pennsylvania RR 480 miles

30-Washington and Cleveland (AL)
Baltimore and Ohio 450 miles

31-St. Louis and Cleveland (AL)
New York Central system 525 miles
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis 525 miles

32-Chicago and Cleveland (AL)
New York Central 341 miles

33-Boston and Detroit (AL)
New York Central system 740 miles
Boston and Albany to Albany 200 miles
New York Central to Buffalo 290 miles
Michigan Central to Detroit through Ontario 250 miles

34-New York and Detroit (AL)
New York Central system 680 miles
New York Central to Buffalo 430 miles
Michigan Central to Detroit 250 miles

35-Philadelphia and Detroit (AL)
Pennsylvania RR 650 miles

36-Washington and Detroit (AL)
Baltimore and Ohio 633 miles

37-St. Louis and Detroit (AL)
Wabash 490 miles

38-Chicago and Detroit (AL)
New York Central system 272 miles

39-Cleveland and Detroit (AL)
New York Central 164 miles


That is the limit of how much I can help you.

[Anonymous]

I don't think the Pennsylvania was serving Detroit as early as 1912 ... I think the service started around 1920. So service from Philadelphia to Detroit might have been via B&O or maybe Reading-Lehigh Valley-Michigan Central (I know there was through Pullman service on this route in the 1920s).

I suspect that if a team had to travel from Boston to Philadelphia or Washington without stopping in New York for games, it might have used overnight service that either involved ferrying cars across the harbor or detouring around New York via Poughkeepsie, rather than transferring trains. On the other hand, Boston teams might always have been scheduled to play in New York on the way to Philadelphia and Washington. This would be similar to the practice of west coast swings for teams from the east since 1957.

Philadelphia to Washington travelers also had the option of using the B&O.

Boston to Pittsburgh travelers also had the option of an NYC route that would not have involved changing trains and stations in New York. B&A to Albany; NYC to Ashtabula; Pittsburgh & Lake Erie to Pittsburgh.

St. Lous to Cincinnati also had the option of Big Four with cars switched between trains in Indianapolis.

Chicago to St. Louis travelers also had the option of Chicago and Eastern Illinois, Wabash, or Illinois Central.

New York to Chicago travel might also have been via the Pennsylvania (908 miles).

Baltimore and Ohio also served Pittsburgh to Chicago.

I think it's a mistake to assume that a team would necessarily have traveled the shortest route. I don't think times varied much from one route to another depending on length. Speed was not that much of a competitive point then. Nor, in many cases, would teams necessarily have been inclined to use the fastest service. I know that in the 1920s many trains had extra fares based on the time. All trains going from New York to Chicago, for instance, charged an extra fare of $1.20 per hour for each hour under 28 hours, no matter how lacking in luxury the train might have been. The maximum extra fare was $9.60 with the exception of a flat $10 for the 20th Century Limited. Extra fares were often charged between other cities too. The Detroiter (Detroit to New York, all-Pullman, MC-NYC) and the Twilight Limited (Detroit to Chicago, all-Pullman, MC) both had extra fares in the 1920s. Team owners were notorious for their cheapness and their poor treatment of their players. Therefore, they might have been inclined to go with slower service to cut their costs. Unfortunately, I don't know what the general extra fare structure was in 1912.

[nanaimo73]

Phil,
I thought this question might have been better asked on the Classic Trains forum so I put a link over there to get more people to see your thread. Keep checking back here and I'm sure more knowledgeable guys like ForestRump will help you.

[Anonymous]

Thanks very much to all. I've been on vacation for a bit, and am only now seeing what you've written. My sincere thanks, this is most helpful.

Phil

[Anonymous]

I hadn't noticed this in any prior replies, but in the days of rail travel, the location of major league teams was limited to cities which could be reached overnignt by train. While I don't go back quite to 1912, more recent baseball travel was done in open section Pullman cars. It's quite likely that some of the shorter trips (Wash-Balt-Philly-NY in particular) were taken in coaches or maybe even parlor cars.

In its latter days the Pullman Company often mentioned in its advertisements that ridership by major league baseball demonstrated the safety, convenience and comfort of Pullman travel.

Mark