Where the New York Central offered five combinations of coast-to-coast sleeping cars, the Pennsylvania had just four. First and most prestigious was the Broadway Limited–Super Chief, an extra-fare duo that left New York at 6 pm and arrived in Los Angeles at 8:30 am on the third day. Slightly less prestigious was the Pennsylvania Limited (or General eastbound) and City of Los Angeles, which departed New York at 6:45 and arrived in L.A. at 9 am three days later.
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To San Francisco, the Pennsylvania–like the Central–offered every-other-day service on the Overland Limited and California Zephyr, both of which also connected with the Pennsylvania Limited westbound, though the Zephyr connected with the Admiral eastbound.
While it was true that people could travel coast-to-coast without changing cars, the railroads never took the next step by scheduling the trains to have minimal layovers in Chicago in order to get people across the country as fast as possible. The layovers for the westbound Los Angeles trains above are all around ten hours, while the San Francisco trains are around five hours. However, cutting several hours from the schedule would not have saved any business time in most cases, so there was little pressure to do so.