The Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound–the Pacific Coast extension of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul (which in those days was known as the St. Paul Road; the nickname changed to Milwaukee Road only after the company went bankrupt and … Continue reading
Tag Archives: Booklet
The 1945 Report on Streamline Trains focused exclusively on Seaboard Air Line’s Silver Meteor. The report observed that this operation grew from a single seven-car train that went from Richmond to Miami every three days in early 1939 to three … Continue reading
This 1941 update is only 44 pages long, and doesn’t repeat information about the trains listed in the 1938 and 1939 reports. It does briefly list the equipment of new trains: Zephyr-Rocket, Santa Fe Tulsan, Rock Island’s Choctaw Rocket, Rock … Continue reading
I previously presented the 1938 Report on Streamline, Light-Weight, High-Speed Passenger Trains by Coverdale and Colpitts. This is the 1939 update of that report. The updates includes detailed financial information about most of the streamlined trains that began operating in … Continue reading
Pullman was the dominant passenger car manufacturer in the first half of the twentieth century, and it had a near-monopoly on sleeping car operations. This booklet describing the Pullman exhibit at the 1939 New York World’s Fair reveals how such … Continue reading
This booklet provides a semi-technical explanation of how Diesel motors work and how they differ from gasoline engines. For example, it explains the difference between a two-cycle engine and a four-cycle engine using the metaphor of a passenger train: in … Continue reading
Emboldened by the success of the Upper Missouri Expedition, Ralph Budd and the Great Northern sponsored an even grander expedition in 1926. In addition to the historians, politicians, and other important people invited to the 1925 expedition, this expedition included … Continue reading
I recently scanned a library copy of of the 1950 update to the 1938 Report on Streamline Trains. The report is something of a disappointment, mainly because most railroads had stopped keeping track of (or at least releasing) data for … Continue reading
A consulting firm named Coverdale and Colpitts (now part of URS) once did a variety of economic analyses for the rail industry. In 1935, the firm published a report on the Burlington Zephyrs, followed by reports in 1938, 1939, 1941, … Continue reading