Chesapeake & Ohio April 1954 Timetable

Posted on by June 18, 2023
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Although slightly smaller than the B&O, the C&O was more profitable, which is what allowed it to take financial control of the Baltimore railroad a few years after these timetables were issued. The C&O didn’t operate as many passenger trains, which may have contributed to its greater profitability. For example, although it had its own line to Chicago, it operated passenger trains from the east coast only as far as Cincinnati and Louisville.

Click image to download a 12.8-MB PDF of this timetable contributed by Ellery Goode.

Though they were both issued in the same month, this timetable is less than half the length of yesterday’s B&O timetable. It mainly lists three Washington-Cincinnati trains as well as Pere Marquette trains in Michigan. It also has a few day trains in Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia and the schedules of the Lake Michigan steamers, the Badger and the Spartan.

Baltimore & Ohio April 1954 Timetable

Posted on by June 18, 2023
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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. Continue reading →

Nickel Plate September 1954 Timetable

Posted on by June 18, 2023
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Since its main lines connected Buffalo with Chicago and St. Louis, the Nickel Plate would seem to be a natural partner to the Lackawanna or Lehigh Valley, which connected Buffalo with New York (or, to be precise, Hoboken/Jersey City). This timetable advertises two through Nickel Plate/Lackawanna trains, the Nickel Plate Limited (which the Lackawanna called the Phoebe Snow) and the Westerner (a name both railroads agreed upon), between Hoboken and Chicago. When the merger movement began, however, the Erie joined with the Lackawanna, and rather than join with the Lehigh Valley, the Nickel Plate was gobbled up by Norfolk and Western.

Click image to download a 8.3-MB PDF of this timetable contributed by Ellery Goode.

In addition to its Chicago-Buffalo trains, the Nickel Plate in 1954 offered a train between St. Louis and Cleveland. Connections with the Chicago-Buffalo trains were poor, however: the train arrived in Cleveland an hour after one Buffalo-bound train left and 13 hours before the other. Similarly, the train left Cleveland for St. Louis 10 hours after one train from Buffalo arrived and four hours before the other. With New York Central providing direct connections, no one would take the Nickel Plate between St. Louis and Buffalo. Continue reading →

Lehigh Valley April 1956 Timetable

Posted on by June 18, 2023
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With little more than half as many miles of track as the Erie, the Lehigh Valley nonetheless upstaged the mighty New York Central when it opened an impressive Greek revival train station in Buffalo in 1916. The Central’s own stations in Buffalo were relatively pathetic until it opened Central Terminal in 1929.

Click image to download a 6.2-MB PDF of this timetable contributed by Ellery Goode.

At the other end of the line, the Lehigh Valley reached the Jersey Central Terminal, which also hosted trains of the Baltimore & Ohio and Reading Railroad. In between, the LV’s line was, at 447 miles, just a dozen miles longer than the Central’s. But because the Lehigh’s route was more mountainous, New York Central trains could get from New York to Buffalo in 7-2/3 hours while Lehigh Valley trains required at least two hours more. Continue reading →

Erie Railroad October 1956 Timetable

Posted on by June 18, 2023
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As a westerner used to major corridors being historically served by two or, at most, three railroads, I find the New York-Chicago line-up of railroads to be somewhat bewildering. This corridor was dominated, of course, by the New York Central and Pennsylvania, but Baltimore & Ohio was also a contender. Then there was the Erie, which had its own route to Chicago.

Click image to download a 10.7-MB PDF of this timetable contributed by Ellery Goode.

On top of that, there were the Lehigh Valley (for which we’ll see a timetable tomorrow) and Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, which both went as far west as Buffalo. From there, Lehigh Valley trains continued to Chicago on the Grand Trunk while Lackawanna trains went on the Nickel Plate (which we’ll see the day after tomorrow). On the periphery were Chesapeake & Ohio and Norfolk Western, whose mid-1950s timetables will also appear here in a few days. Many of these railroads survived the intense competition in the 1950s by hauling coal. Continue reading →

New York Central October 1955 Timetable

Posted on by June 18, 2023
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The New York Central had eight trains a day between New York and Chicago, four between New York and St. Louis, and plenty of additional trains connecting Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, and Pittsburgh with each other and with New York and Chicago. Today, these are considered Rust Belt cities, but in the 1950s, they were the industrial heart of America and New York Central was the main connection between them.

Click image to download a 29.7-MB PDF of this timetable contributed by Ellery Goode.

While the 20th Century Limited cleaned the clock of the Broadway Limited, the Pennsylvania earned more income and was more profitable than the Central during most years of their lives. Both railroads had a little more than 10,000 miles of track, but in the early 1950s, the PRR was making revenues of more than a billion dollars a year, while the NYC was around $800 million, and PRR profits were around $35 million to $40 million per year compared with NYC profits of $15 million to $25 million per year. Continue reading →

Pennsylvania Railroad October 1955 Timetable

Posted on by June 18, 2023
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Railfan.net has more than 1,000 Pennsylvania Railroad timetables, but one not found there is the October 1955 edition. Fortunately, Ellery Goode has contributed scans of that timetable to Streamliner Memories.

Click image to download a 30.7-MB PDF of this timetable.

As with all Pennsylvania complete timetables from at least 1927 through 1967, the cover shown above is actually the back cover. The front cover of this edition urges people to take the Pennsy on their winter vacations “to lands of ski and snow,” meaning New England or other ski resorts; “sun and fun,” meaning Florida and the Gulf Coast; or to “cities large and gay,” which has a different meaning today than it would have had in 1955. Continue reading →

The Spirit of St. Louis

Posted on by June 18, 2023
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When this brochure was published in 1949, the Pennsylvania had five trains a day between New York and St. Louis. Three had both coaches and sleepers: the American (which had through cars to Tulsa on the Frisco), the Penn-Texas (which had through cars to Tulsa San Antonio on the M-K-T and Missouri Pacific), and the St. Louisan. The route’s premiere trains were the all-coach Jeffersonian and the all-Pullman Spirit of St. Louis.

Click image to download an 3.6-MB PDF of this brochure.

This brochure (as well as the Liberty Limited and General brochures presented in the last two days) is filled with black-and-white drawings of car interiors. Oddly, one of the drawings in today’s brochure shows two men getting ready for bed in the bunk beds of a compartment while another shows two women ready for bed in the bunk beds of a bedroom, but none show a man and a women sleeping in the same room. Perhaps the suggestion of a heterosexual relationship, even within marriage, was just too controversial while homosexual relationships weren’t even worth considering. Continue reading →

The Liberty Limited

Posted on by June 18, 2023
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In 1949, when this brochure was issued, the Pennsylvania had managed to close the time disadvantage it had from the B&O. From Washington to Chicago, the B&O’s route was 767 miles while the Pennsylvania’s was 837, but both the Capitol Limited and the Liberty Limited were able to make the trip in 20 hours.

Click image to download an 3.7-MB PDF of this brochure.

The Capitol Limited still had a slight advantage in prestige as it was an all-Pullman train, while the Liberty carried both Pullmans and coaches. B&O’s all-coach train, the Columbian, was combined with the Capitol Limited from New York to Washington, but the trains were separated in Washington and the Cap left and stayed about 10 minutes ahead of the Columbian all the way to Chicago. Continue reading →

The General

Posted on by June 27, 2023
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The Pennsylvania had a dozen trains a day between New York and Chicago in 1929, declining to as few as eight during the Depression. In 1937, it added a new train, the General. A railroad with that many trains on a single route must have had a hard time coming up with evocative names for all of them; some other New York-Chicago trains had names like Commercial Express and Red Knight in 1929 and Golden Arrow and Valley Special in 1937. I imagine the name General was a reflection of the increasing militarization of the world in the late 1930s.

Click image to download an 4.8-MB PDF of this brochure.

The General was conceived as a no extra fare train that was almost as fast as the Broadway. As such, it may have been a major reason why the Broadway‘s ridership was so poor. In any case, when it was inaugurated, the General took 17-1/2 hours compared with the Broadway‘s 16-1/2. Continue reading →