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 download a 9.9-MB PDF of this timetable, which is from the David Rumsey map collection.
What the New York Central did have in 1885 was a truly limited train, with the truly unimaginative name of The Limited. This brochure brags that the first-class-only train was “the fastest train on the American continent,” covering the distance between New York and Chicago in just 25 hours for an average speed of 39 mph. (An ad in this brochure says the train took 24 hours, but since the train left New York at 9:50 am and arrived in Chicago at 9:50 am, it would have to be 25 hours considering the change in time zones.) This compared with other New York Central trains that required 28 to 37 hours. The Limited saved time by making just eight stops between its terminal cities, compared with as many as 32 for other trains.
The Limited was New York Central’s response to the slightly more imaginatively named Pennsylvania Limited, which one source says the Pennsylvania Railroad began operating in 1881 on a 26-hour, 40-minute schedule. (Other sources say the train of that name began operating in 1887, so I suspect the 1881 train was unnamed or just named something like The Limited.) Eventually, these two trains would evolve into the 20th Century Limited and Broadway Limited, which for nearly 50 years matched one another’s schedules and equipment.
The Limited could have taken even less time than 25 hours, but the New York Central didn’t operate it as a “solid” train, meaning the same equipment, with no added or detached cars, from New York to Chicago. Instead, a dining car was added in Albany and removed in Buffalo, another diner was added in Elkhart to serve breakfast to Chicago, and sleeping cars were added or subtracted in Buffalo and Cleveland.
Although there is no indication on the cover, this is another timetable that only shows westbound trains (or, in the case of trains to Montreal, northbound trains) running out of New York and Boston. It is apparently left to the reader’s imagination how the trains or their passengers ever got back to eastern cities.
Other than The Limited, most of the trains have simple names such as Chicago Express, Pacific Express, and Night Express. Unlike some timetables we’ve seen that use terms like “night express” for every overnight train on their schedule, in this case Night Express is applied only to a train that left New York City at 11:15 pm and other names also seem to be uniquely applied to particular trains. The only inconsistency is that a Chicago-bound train leaving New York at 6:00 pm is sometimes referred to as the Fast Western Express but is once just the Fast Express, but that may have been an oversight.
Yesterday’s timetable urged people to take the Canadian route between Buffalo and Detroit on their way from eastern cities to Chicago. But the Grand Trunk route required almost 20 hours from Buffalo to Chicago, while The Limited needed just 14 and 5 minutes and the Fast Western Express used 15 hours and 20 minutes.