This annual report is huge, with 52 9″x12″ pages illustrated by numerous photos and charts. This was a major break from the traditional annual reports of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that tended to be 6″x9″ with no photos … Continue reading
Hamlet, North Carolina is a busy railroad town today, but it was a busy passenger-train town in the 1950s. Known as “the hub of the Seaboard,” Hamlet is where southbound Seaboard trains to Atlanta and Birmingham split from those to … Continue reading
This 1953 brochure briefly describes the amenities found on Pennsylvania’s “frequent, convenient, dependable trains.” The brochure specifically lists seven New York-Chicago trains, four New York/Washington-St. Louis trains, and one each between Washington & Chicago, New York/Washington & Detroit, New York … Continue reading
The success of the Silver Meteor and Champion inspired several railroads to join with the Altantic Coast Line and Florida East Coast in providing coach streamliner service between Chicago and Miami in December, 1940. Such service was complicated by the … Continue reading
Although Seaboard Airline was the first to offer a New York-Florida streamliner, Atlantic Coast Line (ACL) was the larger and healthier of the two competitors–Seaboard had gone bankrupt in 1907 and again in 1930. ACL was initially skeptical about streamliners, … Continue reading
The Orange Blossom Special was an all-Pullman, winter-only train between New York and Florida that the Seaboard Air Line began running in 1925. By 1941, the average speed of the New York-Miami trains was a respectable 57 mph. Like New … Continue reading
The SkyTop observation cars for the Olympian Hiawatha have been fittingly described as among “the most distinctive cars ever built.” I say “among” because, at first glance, the six Olympian cars resemble four observation cars built for the Twin Cities … Continue reading
