In 1956, the Wabash had three trains a day between St. Louis and Kansas City, one of which was Union Pacific’s connection to St. Louis. It also had three trains a day in the hotly competitive Chicago-St. Louis market and … Continue reading
Category Archives: Wabash
Wikipedia says that the first published version of the song Wabash Cannonball appeared in 1904, while before that a song with similar words was called the Great Rock Island Route, which is dated to 1882. However, the Wabash version of … Continue reading
The City of Kansas City commenced operating between St. Louis and its namesake city on November 26, 1947. This ACF-built train started out with seven cars: baggage, baggage/RPO, two coaches, a coach/cafe car, a diner, and a parlor observation car … Continue reading
Jointly issued by nine different railroads in 1948, this brochure unfolds into the equivalent of a 12-page 8″-by-9″ booklet. About a quarter of the brochure describes the “East’s luxurious modern trains,” while most of the rest features potential destinations. The … Continue reading
Between 1959 and 1964, the Wabash timetable shrank from a 16-page booklet to a four-panel brochure. The timetable still showed trains on the same routes as in 1959, but services on most of them were reduced. Surprisingly, the Centralia-Columbia passenger … Continue reading
In 1959, Wabash passenger trains apparently served four main routes: Chicago-St. Louis, St. Louis-Kansas City, St. Louis-Detroit, and St. Louis-Omaha. There was also one local route between Centralia and Columbia, Missouri. Click image to download an 11.3-MB PDF of this … Continue reading
These blotters are for various Wabash trains including Chicago-St. Louis, St. Louis-Kansas City, and one that went from Chicago to Detroit. Like yesterday’s, these are from the Dale Hastin collection. This blotter may actually be from the pre-war era as … Continue reading
The Wabash Railroad had lines to Toledo, Buffalo, Omaha, Des Moines, and upstate Michigan. But today’s blotters from Dale Hastin’s collection all advertise either its trains between Kansas City and St. Louis or between St. Louis and Chicago. Click any … Continue reading
After the Twin Cities Zephyr, the Colorado Eagle, the California Zephyr, the Columbian, and Royal Gorge, the next train to receive dome cars was the Wabash Blue Bird connecting Chicago and St. Louis. The railroad introduced the streamlined train in … Continue reading