Just one month after re-equipping the Trail Blazer, the Pennsylvania Railroad introduced new equipment to the Jeffersonian, which connected New York with St. Louis, in February 1947.
Click to download a 1.0-MB JPG of this advertisement from the March 15, 1949 Look magazine.
The Jeffersonian featured an unusual “recreation car” that was more than just a lounge. As shown in the advertisement below, it had a game room, a children’s playroom, and a small movie theater.
Click to view a 1.4-MB JPG of this advertisement from the May 25, 1948 Look magazine.
The Library of Congress has digitized photos of this car on its web site. Unfortunately, they aren’t very big, but here is a photo of the game room.
The children’s playroom had a large window overlooking the game room.
The lounge was unusual in having an aisle down the side rather than the middle.
Here is the Jeffersonian’s observation car. Like the Broadway’s, it had a blunt end that was less than ideal for viewing scenery.
Some of the other photos on the Library of Congress’ web site were apparently used as the basis for the graphics in the Pennsylvania’s ads. This photo of a 44-seat coach was used to make the lower left illustration in the above ad. I can’t help but feel that the graphic added a few inches to the width of the aisle. The artist has also removed several rows of seats to prevent the car from looking too much like a long tube. The original photo, incidentally, faced the opposite direction; I flipped it to make it match the graphic.
This photo was used for the lower right illustration in the above ad.
Finally, this photo, or one like it, was used as the basis for the lower left photo in the first advertisement shown above.
