Like the New York Central and Pennsylvania, B&O advertised a daily through sleeper to Los Angeles on the Super Chief. Unlike the Central and Pennsy, the B&O’s car started in Washington, making it the “only through Pullman service between Washington and Los Angeles.”

Click image to download a 30.7-MB PDF of this timetable contributed by Ellery Goode.

Also unlike the Central and Pennsy, the B&O elected not to use its premiere train, the Capitol Limited, for this service. Instead, it used the Shenandoah, which in 1954 featured a Strata-Dome car. The advantage was that the Shenandoah left Washington 5-1/2 hours after the Cap, arriving in Chicago less than five hours before the Super Chief was scheduled to depart. This meant travelers could go coast to coast in less than 60 hours, whereas on the Capitol Limited it would have been 66 hours.

Like the Pennsy, but unlike the Central, the B&O also had through cars from Washington to Dallas-Fort Worth on the Missouri Pacific and to San Antonio on the Frisco-M-K-T. These cars were on the National Limited and involved a 4-1/2-hour layover in St. Louis. B&O also advertised a through car from Detroit to Tampa and St. Petersburg, which would have been via the L&N/ACL Flamingo.

Though its trains took a little longer than the NYC/PRR premiere trains, the B&O still had plenty to choose from. From Jersey City/Washington, it had four trains a day to Chicago (via Pittsburgh), three a day to St. Louis (via Cincinnati), plus trains to Detroit, Louisville, Wheeling, and other cities off the main lines. It also had seven trains a day between Jersey City and Washington and a stunning 24 trains a day between Baltimore and Washington, some covering the 37-mile distance in just 40 minutes.