In focusing on the coast-to-coast through-Pullman service over the last few days, I’ve neglected to mention the New York-Texas service that has generally been advertised on the third page of the timetables (though the page is numbered 1). New York Central’s Southwest Limited to St. Louis connected with Missouri Pacific and Frisco trains to various points in Texas.

Click image to download a 31.2-MB PDF of this 52-page timetable.

In Central’s April 1948 timetable, through cars on the Southwest Limited continued on Frisco’s Texas Special bound for Oklahoma City, Dallas, Fort Worth, and San Antonio. Two more cars went to Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston on Missouri Pacific’s Sunshine Special.

Pennsylvania went a step further, naming one of its trains the Sunshine Special, the same as Missouri Pacific’s train. This train sent six sleeping cars from New York to various southwest destinations including one going into Mexico. Pennsylvania’s connection to the Frisco was called the American while on PRR and it sent a car to San Antonio on the Texas Special and to Tulsa on the Meteor.

That’s 14 cars going between New York City and Texas on a daily basis, and apparently demand did not keep up with supply. By the end of 1948, New York Central had stopped sending through cars beyond St. Louis. Timetables such as this one continued to advertise “daily connecting service between New York, Oklahoma [and] Texas,” but it was connecting service only: passengers had to change trains in St. Louis. PRR was more persistent, sending cars to Texas through 1960.