The 20-hour Exposition Flyer gave the Central a public relations boost over the Pennsy, but George Daniels’ real publicity coup in 1893 was to persuade the New York Central to build a high-performance version of its standard passenger locomotive, in … Continue reading
The World’s Columbian Exposition promised to bring millions of people into Chicago in the summer of 1893, and the nation’s railroads were eager to capture as many of those travelers as possible. No railroad did a better job than the … Continue reading
The Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg Railroad was one of the alphabet soup of New England railroads, this one extending 300 miles from Massena Springs, New York to Niagara Falls, with branches to Ogdensburg, Rome, Syracuse, Rochester, and other cities along … Continue reading
By 1895, the New York Central was advertising itself as “America’s Greatest Railroad,” a claim that the Pennsylvania would have contested. When this timetable was issued in 1885, however, it was not yet making such grandiose claims. Click image to … Continue reading
In 1877, the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad gained control of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway. Though the two weren’t formally merged until 1914, the Lake Shore was New York Central’s main connection between Buffalo and … Continue reading
In September 1949, the masons held their national convention in San Francisco and Knights Templar groups from all over the country chartered trains to attend the meeting. One of these was in Detroit, and we’ve already seen some menus from … Continue reading
While this 1948 booklet is supposed to be about vacationing in New York state, nearly 40 percent of it (11 pages) is devoted to just one region: the Adirondaks. The Catskills, Finger Lakes, and Emerald Isles get 2 pages each … Continue reading
This 44-page book dating from 1892 has woodcuts of prominent buildings and scenery on almost every page to accompany the text describing the route of this Chicago-New York train. The logo of Rand McNally, which printed the booklet, also adorns … Continue reading
Now here’s a holiday menu; the Northern Pacific should have taken note. “Season’s Greetings” emblazoned on the cover with a beautiful winter scene of a Hudson Valley house that happens to have been the home of Washington Irving puts diners … Continue reading
The Pacemaker was New York Central’s premiere all-coach train serving the New York-Chicago corridor, competing directly with Pennsy’s Trail Blazer. Like the Trail Blazer, the Pacemaker was introduced in 1939 with heavyweight equipment modified in 1941 to look streamlined, then … Continue reading
