New York Central January 1951 Timetable

Posted on by June 16, 2024
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Within weeks of the end of World War II, New York Central placed the largest order for passenger cars in U.S. railroad history: 420 cars on top of 300 already under construction for the railroad. The December 15 1945 order included 200 sleeping cars from Pullman, 112 coaches and feature cars from Budd, and 108 baggage cars from American Car & Foundry. Including the 300 already on order, the total cost was $56 million — roughly a billion dollars today.

Click image to download a 29.5-MB PDF of this 52-page timetable.

One of the results can be seen in the full-page ad on the front cover of this timetable (the back cover being shown above): a Budd-built, stainless steel observation car at the end of a train of sleeping cars. The ad doesn’t say which train was in this ad, but it could have been any of dozens of overnight trains operated by the Central.

New York Central September 1949 Timetable

Posted on by June 16, 2024
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In 1947, New York Central was running 14 trains a day each way between New York City and Chicago. By the time of this timetable, two years later, that number had dropped to eight.

Click image to download a 32.0-MB PDF of this 52-page timetable.

In fact, the number was really only seven. The Pacemaker and all-Pullman Advance Commodore Vanderbilt are listed as two separate trains, but as of the January 30, 1949 timetable, the two trains were combined and the schedules show the exact same times for both. Continue reading →

Lackawanna April 1954 Timetable

Posted on by June 16, 2024
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Yesterday, I mentioned that in 1950 the Lackawanna had four trains from New York City to Buffalo: the Phoebe Snow, Twilight, Westerner, and the Owl. Except for the Phoebe Snow, their eastbound counterparts used different names. These were the Pocono Express (apparently the eastbound Twilight), New Yorker (apparently the eastbound Westerner), and New York Mail (apparently the eastbound Owl).

Click image to download a 8.2-MB PDF of this 16-page timetable.

Train numbers weren’t necessarily paired. The Westerner/New Yorker were paired with 7 & 8. But the Twilight/Pocono Express were trains 5 & 2 and the Owl/New York Mail were 15 and 10. Even the Phoebe Snow‘s numbers were unpaired, being 3 & 6. Continue reading →

Lackawanna April 1950 Timetable

Posted on by June 16, 2024
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“Take the route of the Phoebe Snow for your vacation,” implores a full-page ad on the front cover of this timetable (the cover below being the back cover). The ad includes photos of Niagara Falls, Delaware Water Gap, Grand Canyon, Old Faithful, and Lake Louise. The Lackawanna only went to the first two of those destinations, but it is conceivable that someone could take the Phoebe Snow on their way to one of the other photographed locations.

Click image to download a 9.2-MB PDF of this 16-page timetable.

In addition to the Phoebe Snow (train 3), the Lackawanna sent three trains a day from New York City (via Hoboken ferry) to Buffalo: the Twilight (#5), the Westerner (#7), and the Owl (#15). All of these trains sent sleeping cars and some sent coaches to Chicago, mostly over the Nickel Plate but the Twilight connected with a New York Central train. From Chicago, of course, people could go anywhere in the West. Continue reading →

Erie October 1957 Timetable

Posted on by August 29, 2024
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This timetable isn’t a lot different from yesterday’s. Erie had three daily trains between Jersey City and Chicago plus six more that terminated at places like Port Jervis or Middletown, New York. Yesterday’s timetable showed summer schedules, which don’t show up on today’s, which may be the main difference between the two.

Click image to download a 9.8-MB PDF of this 16-page timetable.

For example, yesterday’s timetable showed a train that went as far as Port Jervis most of the year but all the way to Susquehanna, Pennsylvania during the summer. The Susquehanna train is not shown on this fall timetable. Continue reading →

Erie Railroad April 1954 Timetable

Posted on by June 16, 2024
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“Enjoy some of the most beautiful scenery in the Eastern United States — right from your Erie car window,” advises the front-page ad on this timetable (the image below being the back cover). “The Erie follows the valleys of the Allegheny, Canisteo, Susquehanna and Delaware rivers for over 300 miles — picturesque in any season.”

Click image to download a 11.6-MB PDF of this 16-page timetable.

It was also slower than competitor New York Central’s Hudson River route. While the Central could run trains from Chicago to Manhattan in under 16 hours, the Erie’s fastest train took 21 hours to get from Chicago to Jersey City, and then another 30 minutes for a ferry and bus or taxi ride to midtown Manhattan. Continue reading →

The Erie Limited in 1929

Posted on by June 16, 2024
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This booklet introduces “the splendid new Erie Limited,” which was inaugurated on June 2, 1929. This train “provides 25 hour service at the lowest fares available.” The train in fact took slightly less than 25 hours to go between New York and Chicago, including the ferry ride between downtown Manhattan and Erie’s train station in Jersey City.

Click image to download a 9.3-MB PDF of this 28-page booklet.

While New York Central’s and Pennsylvania’s fastest trains, the 20th Century and Broadway, took only 20 hours in 1929, they charged an extra fare of $9.60 — about $175 in today’s money. At least five other NYC and six other PRR New York-Chicago trains charged extra fares as well. Continue reading →

Delaware & Hudson February 1957 Timetable

Posted on by June 16, 2024
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Yesterday’s timetable was mostly ads and other fluff; the timetables and equipment listings fit on just three pages (plus a half a page for a condensed timetable that was totally unnecessary). D&H apparently recognized that for by 1957 its timetable had shrunk to 8 pages.

Click image to download a 3.1-MB PDF of this 8-page timetable.

The timetable still has a full-page front cover ad that was unchanged from 1954. The condensed schedules are gone, and the remaining schedules fill three pages with a lot of white space, particularly on the third page. The train that terminated at Whitehall is gone but the other trains in yesterday’s 1954 timetable remain. Continue reading →

Delaware & Hudson December 1954 Timetable

Posted on by June 16, 2024
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The cover shown below is the back cover, while the front cover advertises that Delaware and Hudson had “the fastest train” and “the shortest route” between New York and Montreal. In fact, it had two trains in 1953, the overnight Montreal Limited and the daylight Laurentian.

Click image to download a 6.7-MB PDF of this 12-page timetable.

The Montreal Limited was the fast one, taking a little over nine hours each way while the Laurentian took ten. Usually day trains are faster because overnight passengers are less anxious to arrive quickly, but the Laurentian made quite a few more stops (presumably because local travelers would rather depart or arrive during daytime hours than late at night) than the Limited. Continue reading →

New Haven April 1953 Timetable

Posted on by June 16, 2024
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Issued about a year-and-a-half after yesterday’s, today’s timetable is back up to 44 pages. Although the half-page ad on the front cover says that “42 new trains added” in 1953, this wasn’t why the page count grew.

Click image to download a 26.8-MB PDF of this 44-page timetable.

Instead, three of them four pages that had been cut from the April 1951 timetable in the September 1951 edition were restored in the 1953 timetable. The fourth page, a full-page ad on the inside back cover, wasn’t restored. Instead, the number of pages on train service between New York and Cape Cod was increased from one to two. This wasn’t because more trains were added on this route; instead, the newer timetable just spread them out more. If 42 trains were added, they must have been added to other timetables without adding to the space requirements for those tables.