It ran the short way, across Ontario back then. The border crossings just took minutes, and only international passengers were inspected. Thru passengers were not bothered. Unfortunately, I don’t believe they would do that today.
Ontario didn't check you for booze?
They might have gone light at the border until 2001. The Atlantic did something similar into the early 1990s IIRC. But after all of the US/CAN nonsense post-9/11...
The Central's Empire State Express from NYC split into a Cleveland section and a Detroit section, with coaches and parlor cars on both legs.
Never did understand that one. Given the end to end time could have been similar to that of the City of New Orleans (then 16 1/2 hours), which train could at times into the early 1960's get up to 20 cars, I would think both railroads would have put on a fast day train. The population of major intermediate points on these routes was significantly greater than those on the CNO route. Since New York was the "city that never sleeps" a near or post midnight arrival (due to time zones) should still have been acceptable. Think something like 7:30a to 11:00p westbound and 7:00 to 12:30a eastbound.
There were departures close to midnight, the NYC's "Chicagoan", and the PRR's "Pennsylvania Limited", but then only Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, or Detroit trains until around noon, or shortly thereafter. There were morning trains that went part way, and one could take those and connect onward to Chicago, but the arrival was matched or even overtaken by the first thru mid day trains, so there was no point to leave in the morning, except maybe to spend time traveling rather than wait around for the thru train..
I rode the Atlantic in 1981 in a sleeper and one was not even aware of the border crossing. As I recall the train was sealed except for one car for local travel where I expect the usual border formalities were observed
Very interesting! In the October 1944 Guide there was a Train 43 from NYP that departed Albany at 5:30 a.m. and arrived in Chicago at 12:30 a.m. Named the South Shore Express, it did not have a sleeper west of Buffalo. It included a through coach from Cleveland to Detroit via switching in Toledo.
I believe this train, The Westerner, was one of the many operational changes pushed through by Robert R. Young after he won control of the New York Central in a proxy fight and set out to make it more user-friendly. The creation of this train in 1956 basically severed the long-running South Shore Express, which for many years left Boston at 10 or 10:30 p.m. for Chicago, picking up through cars from New York and continuing west from Albany about 5:30 a.m., arriving in Chicago after midnight. The South Shore schedule was built around mail and express, so in keeping with Young's passenger-friendly attitude, the idea of the Westerner was to create a faster day run from Albany west with more palatable end-point times. For through travelers from Boston and New York, there were still set-out sleepers to Albany that connected to the 7:30 a.m. departure. Apparently it wasn't a great success (or the Central was too resistant to change); within a year the Westerner was gone and the South Shore was back as a New York-Chicago train, leaving GCT at 12:30 a.m. and Albany about 5:30. By about 1960 the run west of Albany was dropped.
In addition to the Vermonter, in the Northeast there's the Maple Leaf (which used to be an overnight train in Penn Central days). Also the Carolinian and the Palmetto, which have been mentioned previously.
In addition the Pennsylvanian. And arguably the Cardinal is a daytime train at its east end as is the Lake Shore Limited.
I was just stating a fact. yes the Crescent is a daytime train for all practical purposes between New York and Greensboro (Charlotte northbound), and Atlanta to New Orleans. All overnight trains of necessity have daylight portions that are used as a daytime train for local travel. The argument always has been what segments should be in daylight. There are way more people that use the LD trains as Regional trains than there are end to end travelers on those.
