We all know that Chicago had, by 1870, become the chief rail hub of the Midwest -- indeed of the US. But by 1875, St. Louis could claim a real advantage, with nearly all rail passenger services concentrated at a single station. The city's new Union Station (1894) was the largest in the country. By contrast, Chicago had 5 mainline stations in the Gilded Age, making many intercity connections into a hassled transfer by hack, bus, or el across a busy city.
So on one level, St Louis carriers "should" have done well in the transcontinental passenger business. But a look at any Official Guide suggests that nearly all the business went through Chicago. Chicago certainly had far more passenger service overall.
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 know about Robert Young and his 1946 ad campaign "A hog can cross the country without changing trains, but you can't." But I am asking different questions of an earlier period. Surely this topic engaged editors, passenger agents, and railroad presidents for many decades
Jack 64 Brown-- I would copy and post this for discussion on the Classic Trains Forum. There are some keen people over there and more focused with this sort of topic.
I suggest that Chicago's advantage was the major business' located there. It was a natural destination for business travelers and they preferred the finer passenger accomodations. Thus the RR's created what the business travelers desired and those who traveled for personal reasons took the same trains unless they selected trains with less priority.
In my opinion you're really looking at the wrong question, in the wrong eras.
The 'true' demand for one-seat/room transcontinental service only develops with the advent of the streamliner age, when reliable speed, better amenities, and good ride/comfort come up to meaningful numbers. The corresponding route analysis involves faster, more comfortable, traffic-optimized details that often do not correspond to city-pair routings for earlier traffic.
A flawed, but perhaps useful analysis would be to look at some of the early TOFC and container-optimized routes in the '50s and '60s. Very often, what made for reasonable TrucTrain-like service wasn't at all compatible with other (probably less profitable) traffic, and it follows that "optimization" of plant and equipment for the improved business model might be in areas not at all prioritized or even likely decades or even years earlier.
In addition there were 'windows' of technical development that sometimes opened and closed without assisting the 'cause' of transcontinental convenience. One very pointed one I was looking at (again) yesterday was the 'improved' PRR Sam Rea line, both as considered in the '20s and then improved through 1943; this would have optimized 90mph+ service from Lewistown west through any logical junction point dividing St. Louis from Chicago gateway traffic ... and combining any services from either for a considerable part of the remaining distance east. Remember that this was a route with 22 tunnels, one of them over 5.5 miles, parts of which were happily taken into the 'west of Harrisburg' wartime electrification scheme. Unlike "optimizations" as late as the Atglen & Susquehanna (which stressed low compensated grade rather than elimination of curves for high speed) or the approach the Vanderbilts were using with the South Pennsylvania project, this combined speed, relative comfort in sleeper accommodations, and lack of existing bottlenecking or non-bridge traffic, which while compromising short-term profitability would have greatly enhanced both wartime service and postwar intermodal service ... the problem then being if this would have staved off the decline in postwar passenger service by much. (Personally I think not, but a case could certainly be made for 10 to 12-hour service from New York to either Chicago or St. Louis at need)
The other big thing to remember is the advent of Big Government Regulation after the era of the USRA. One thing in particular that turns out to be critical is ICC approval of new construction after 1920; the Rea Line could have been undertaken before then, but almost certainly not much after (you can imagine the screams of the competition!). This entirely separate from the ... insert euphemism or invective as you choose ... sort of dog-in-the-mangering that resulted in the Hampden Railroad fiasco.
I would submit another potential transcontinental route, although some very clever tinkering to the east and north would be required: running through Memphis and following a rebuilt/straightened 40th Parallel route at least as far as tie-in to the Golden State route. The fact that this did not happen and, in fact, the direct route is largely not only underused but physically torn up, is an indication that something needs to be considered: in my opinion, the large number of routes technically pointed up at Chicago that are relatively easily reached after crossing at St. Louis, a couple of which were perfectly high-speed routes (ATSF being one in particular, and a multiple-tracked SSW an interesting contender) that would be ideal partners for operations at full coordinated trainloads.
Part of the trouble in the East is that so much of the early development was pointed north to the Great Lakes, following the general canal development paradigms, and then targeted more at coal and iron industry transportation than high speed. Combine this with the bleak period after the American Civil War when there was far more profiteering out of railroads than trying to earn actual money with them, combined with a technically difficult crossing of the Alleghenies and some of the other 'minor' (until you try to build high-speed track through them!) ranges. A particularly wicked example of 'low grade' optimization here is the CNO&TP "Rathole" -- which aside from being no one's idea of a safe high-speed railroad was outright dangerous to use in some respects before the advent of high-horsepower diesels.
"PRR - Samuel Rea Line"
http://testplant.blogspot.com/2012/05/1920s-hsr-proposal-prr.html
It looks like a perfect route for my S1 to stretch her legs...
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
Perhaps the simplest answer for why Chicago and not St. Louis as a major node on a transcontinental service has two factors. One, mentioned above, was industrial concentration. Two was population. StL population 1880 = 350,518. 1900 = 525,238. 1920 = 772,897. The corresponding figures for Chicago were 1880 = 503,185. 1900 = 1,698,575. 1920 = 2,701,705.
Jones1945 "PRR - Samuel Rea Line" http://testplant.blogspot.com/2012/05/1920s-hsr-proposal-prr.html It looks like a perfect route for my S1 to stretch her legs...
Neat blog post! That tunnel from Spruce Creek to Bellewood... I had no idea that a plan existed, but suggested such a thing in a blog post I wrote a while back! It's a natural to get past some of the slowest trackage east of Altoona. Might not be too terribly expensive a thing these days with tunnel boring equipment.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
A passenger line missing Pittsburgh entirely would seems to be a nonstarter.
No idea how fares worked in 1880, but I'm guessing in 1920 the fare NY to LA was the same via Chicago or via St Louis (except maybe you could save a couple bucks by going Erie or DL&W-NKP to Chicago). I'm guessing via Chicago was usually? always? a bit faster; lots of old Official Guides online now, up to 1923, so we can check that.
Wasn't the best and fastest route from New York to Chicago the New York Central? It looks to be the most direct. 16 hours on the 20th Century. Weren't the others including the Pennsy a longer trip?
54light15 Wasn't the best and fastest route from New York to Chicago the New York Central? It looks to be the most direct. 16 hours on the 20th Century. Weren't the others including the Pennsy a longer trip?
Sixteen hours on the "Century" and the "Broadway" (PRR) at their best. Which one you took was solely on your personal preference, one was as good as the other, although the Century was always the more popular train, which drove the Pennsy absolutely nuts!
The "Erie Limited" was a good way to go if you weren't in a rush and was quite popular with its patrons. A smooth, scenic ride and the on-board amenities were very good, especially the diner, and definately cheaper than the "Century" or the "Broadway."
Mind you, the "Century" and the "Broadway" weren't the only trains the NYC and the PRR ran to Chicago and back, just the most famous.
Part of the answer is when was the Eads Bridge over the Mississippi at St. Louis completed. I do not know but suspect after 1870.
By 1870 the CNW-UP-SP offered through trains to San Francisco, then THE big city in California, with no chanage once the UP built their bridge between Omaha and Council Bluffs.
After 1883 the NP and connections offered service Chicago to Portland OR and Seattle WA. The GN came along in 1893, and after 1901 both ran through trains over the Q to Chicago. Also in the 1880's the UP put a line through to Portland OR.
The ATSF was late into Chicago, but once established became the premier route between Chicago and Tinsel Town with service to San Francisco.
The UP and the Los Angeles and Salt Lake offered Chicago - LA service, as did the Rock Island and SP.
The biggest single reason for almost all of this was where Abe Lincoln fixed the east end of the UP, Council Bluffs IA. That decision was a gift to Chicago, just as Kansas City would have been for St. Louis.
Mac
It took Eads a little longer--the bridge was finished in 1874. As Mac said, the Overland Route was well established by the time that a possible second through route could have been established. And, as has been said, Chicago, even with its many stations, had more going for it than St. Louis did. I do not doubt that there Chicago was the terminus for far more traffic for more traffic than St. Louis was.
In time, there were several different through routes (some with only one car) between Chicago and the west coast--and few of them lasted into the forties.
Johnny
Flintlock76 54light15 Wasn't the best and fastest route from New York to Chicago the New York Central? It looks to be the most direct. 16 hours on the 20th Century. Weren't the others including the Pennsy a longer trip? Sixteen hours on the "Century" and the "Broadway" (PRR) at their best. Which one you took was solely on your personal preference, one was as good as the other, although the Century was always the more popular train, which drove the Pennsy absolutely nuts! The "Erie Limited" was a good way to go if you weren't in a rush and was quite popular with its patrons. A smooth, scenic ride and the on-board amenities were very good, especially the diner, and definately cheaper than the "Century" or the "Broadway." Mind you, the "Century" and the "Broadway" weren't the only trains the NYC and the PRR ran to Chicago and back, just the most famous.
My grandfather spoke of taking the Broadway because it wasn’t an extra fare train where the Century was.
I was under the impression the Broadway was an extra fare train. I never rode it but the timetables I read mentioned it. How much more I don't know. The General which I did ride Altoona to/from Chicago had a small extra charge for its coach passengers in the very early '60's. Using the Silver Meteor to travel from FL to Baltimore [where I changed trains to go to Harrisburg] entailed a $1 extra charge for the PRR portion if you rode it north of DC.
Flintlock76 Sixteen hours on the "Century" and the "Broadway" (PRR) at their best. Which one you took was solely on your personal preference, one was as good as the other, although the Century was always the more popular train, which drove the Pennsy absolutely nuts! The "Erie Limited" was a good way to go if you weren't in a rush and was quite popular with its patrons. A smooth, scenic ride and the on-board amenities were very good, especially the diner, and definitely cheaper than the "Century" or the "Broadway." Mind you, the "Century" and the "Broadway" weren't the only trains the NYC and the PRR ran to Chicago and back, just the most famous.
The "Erie Limited" was a good way to go if you weren't in a rush and was quite popular with its patrons. A smooth, scenic ride and the on-board amenities were very good, especially the diner, and definitely cheaper than the "Century" or the "Broadway."
16 hours for steam-powered trains (before entering New York City), 14 hours schedule promised by EMC! I wonder how many hours could be saved by running on the Samuel Rea Line, maybe 4 hours or more? It would be very attractive to the traveler if the schedule was further reduced from 16 hours to 8 - 10 hours from NYC to Chi-town, but note that even the Southern Pacific "Daylight" couldn't escape from the post-WWII decline. : (
I guess the target customer of the Erie Limited (24-hour schedule) was the tourist, wasn't it? I found some pic of Eire's steam trains, please enjoy:
http://www.railphoto-art.org/collections/furler/erie-railroad/#!
alphas My grandfather spoke of taking the Broadway because it wasn’t an extra fare train where the Century was. I was under the impression the Broadway was an extra fare train. I never rode it but the timetables I read mentioned it. How much more I don't know. The General which I did ride Altoona to/from Chicago had a small extra charge for its coach passengers in the very early '60's. Using the Silver Meteor to travel from FL to Baltimore [where I changed trains to go to Harrisburg] entailed a $1 extra charge for the PRR portion if you rode it north of DC.
If I remember correctly, the extra fare of the Broadway Limited canceled in 1943, the ridership increased immediately since then.
Jones1945 I guess the target customer of the Erie Limited (24-hour schedule) was the tourist, wasn't it? I found some pic of Eire's steam trains, please enjoy: http://www.railphoto-art.org/collections/furler/erie-railroad/#!
Remember too that there were plenty of people traveling between New York and Chicago (and points between) who didn't need super-speed and would appreciate a lower fare instead. For these people there were the 24- and I believe 28-hour fares, 'standardized' to give the somewhat-lesser railroads a competitive time to match without destructive time competition.
alphas The General which I did ride Altoona to/from Chicago had a small extra charge for its coach passengers in the very early '60's.
According to the September 8, 1957 PRR Timetable, coach passengers on Nos. 48 and 49, The General - The Trail Blazer were assessed a reserved seat charge of $1 for distances over 360 miles and 50 cents locally on the PRR for distances up to 360 miles. The charge was applicable for each occupied seat including those occupied by children. The coach reservation charge also applied to The South Wind.
I don’t remember how long the charge was in effect.
Thanks for those Erie shots Mr. Jones! There's one in the group that's very unusual and interesting, that is the Fairbanks-Morse demonstrator on the S-curve at Waldwick NJ, known to most Erie fans as "World-Famous Collins Curve," after rail photographer Bob Collins. Tongues planted firmly in cheek, mind you.
The Erie never bought any F-M diesels at any rate.
The Erie also found the Pacific type adequate for their passenger trains, never going to a "Hudson" or "Northern" type, at least until the diesels came along.
Jack 64 BrownSo on one level, St Louis carriers "should" have done well in the transcontinental passenger business. But a look at any Official Guide suggests that nearly all the business went through Chicago. Chicago certainly had far more passenger service overall. 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?
I believe that it important to avoid the temptation to judge historical epochs based upon modern day perspectives. Back in the time period you mention, I think that Chicago was seen as an exotic destination in it's own right...something to be included in a travel itinerary, rather than a choke point to be avoided.
Also don't forget that in 1890 the Mexican American war was still a memory to some, while Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Oklahoma were not yet states. This 'unsettled southwest' was seen as potentionally a hostile land best avoided to many easterners traveling to the Pacific Coast. For such travelers, a more northerly route may have appeared to be a safer alternative.
Convicted One makes a pretty good point. Even though the US Government declared the frontier closed in 1890 the Southwest, especially Arizona and New Mexico, were still far from out of the "Wild West" era, and wouldn't be until the early years of the 20th Century.
On the other hand, some Old West historians have said the "Wild West" apellation is a bit of an exagerration. It's been said you were in a lot more danger of dying from a rattlesnake bite than you were by gunshot! It wasn't that wild.
Still, perceptions being everything...
Vance's book "The North American Railroad" is an excellent look at geography and railroads.
There are (were) reasons specific railroad lines were built and were successful. Many of the reasons were based on geography and economics of the era...such as rivers, Great Lakes, mountains and passes, natural resources (coal, ore, etc) and agriculture.
I usually do not enjoy railroad history books (1800s) but this one was fascinating and very informative.
Gateway cities such as Chicago, St. Louis, Louisville, Cincinnati, etc are addressed.
Ed
Flintlock76Still, perceptions being everything
Back in the early 1960s it wasn't uncommon for lifelong easterners who were visiting indiana for the first time to suspect there must be a large Native American population....often wanting to go see their culture. I guess they just expected that reality must closely parallel what they had accepted in the books they had read.
I think there is a vanity aspect as well. We are all perhaps just a little too willing to annoint ourselves as 'more civilized....educated...sophisticated..etc' than those around us. On the internet it's often convenient to dismiss those we disagree with as "trolls" (same aspect IMO)
So it's not hard for such a mentality to assume the worst out of the unknown.
If I were traveling from NYC to LA back then, and had my valuables and loved ones in my care and company, I doubt I would want to risk either, unnecessarily if safer alternatives were available.
Duplicate
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.
Sorry Charlie, you'll either have to accept my anecdotal accounts, or not. I don't think they believed that Native Americans constituted the predominant population, but I recall the requests of visitors to see the "first nations"
Why is doubting that at all important to you?
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...
OTOH, Pancho Villa did cross the border into the US, stopped a train and massacred many of the passengers just prior to WW1. Having said that, one big reason for not taking the SP or AT&SF would have been dealing with the high temps of a desert crossing. In addition, LA did not become the major city in California until after the 1906 earthquake.
charlie hebdoI 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.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
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