Pre Amtrak: Handling of through sleepers in the Chicago hub

[Willbridge]

That was an Eagle. It was overall, the same height (11'2") as the Scenicruiser in the rear, but if you were seated on the upper level of the Scenicruiser, you actually were seated a little higher, as the seats were on elevated platforms, with a step down to the aisle. They also had upper deck windshields, that gave you a full view forward over the lower level, reminiscent of a Budd Vista-Dome, which inspired their design.

Scenicruisers as originally supplied had baggage compartments that leaked like a sieve. Our shipments of the Sunday Seattle Times M-Edition came into Portland wet at 3:30 a.m. and the C-Edition followed wet at 6:30 a.m. (The shipment was split to avoid an overload.) As a grade-school kid I was thrilled to see the first Scenicruisers. My father spent a lot of time in his home office typing angrily on his Remington Noiseless (the equivalent of a laptop in those days) until the claims from passengers for damaged luggage got GL's attention. Trailways Eagles were better, but they had no overnight SEA>PDX trips.

 

[railiner]

Scenicruisers as originally supplied had baggage compartments that leaked like a sieve. Our shipments of the Sunday Seattle Times M-Edition came into Portland wet at 3:30 a.m. and the C-Edition followed wet at 6:30 a.m. (The shipment was split to avoid an overload.) As a grade-school kid I was thrilled to see the first Scenicruisers. My father spent a lot of time in his home office typing angrily on his Remington Noiseless (the equivalent of a laptop in those days) until the claims from passengers for damaged luggage got GL's attention. Trailways Eagles were better, but they had no overnight SEA>PDX trips.

Not surprised to hear that, as the Scenicruiser's baggage doors were split, into top and bottom section's, meaning more joints potential to leak....

 

[Willbridge]

Probably an early Eagle, then; sounds like it. I did see one of those ACF/Brills one time; it had been abandoned in a campground by an owner who had given up on converting it to a motorhome. If I'd had $3000 (scrap value) I could have bought it...but then what would I do with it?

Continental Trailways had so many old ACF Brills that one night when the "Silver Eagle" daylight SF>PDX trip was delayed by a breakdown, I heard my dad suggest to the Portland baggage man that they should park one every 30 miles along the route and have the driver just hitch a ride with the tow truck to pick up the replacement bus. (Continental was over-extended into Portland and Seattle. Their nearest management job was in Sacramento. Flakiness ensued.)

 

[Willbridge]

The writer about the "Hog can cross Chicago without changing cars" was none other than Robert R Young the CEO of the Chesapeake & Ohio, and later New York Central.

One of the reasons that Robert Young was loved by reporters and loathed by other railroad presidents?

 

[Willbridge]

True enough in the years before WWII...but, for about ten years immediately following WWII, they did indeed transfer the actual cars, carry-on bags and (rarely, but possibly) passengers included. Some writer (I'm too lazy to look it up) had written a scathing article noting that a hog could make the trip from New York to California without changing cars, but he could not. Some time after that, the through transcontinental service started. However, when passenger service began to fall apart in the mid-to-late 1950s, the through cars were an early sacrifice.

Your idea was, in fact, used in New Orleans for a time, when there was a connection between the Crescent and the Sunset Limited...but no suitable trackage existed for transferring cars between the stations used by the Southern Pacific and the Louisville & Nashville (Edit To Add, in the years before the present New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal was completed in 1954). The way this worked (and it was advertised as such; no tricks) was that identical cars were assigned to each of the trains. When a westbound passenger arrived in New Orleans they would detrain at the L. & N. station on Canal Street and then go out into town to enjoy their layover. Meanwhile, their carry-on luggage and any other belongings were transferred by motor truck to Union Station and set into the corresponding rooms in that sleeping car. The passengers (assuming they didn't have too jolly a time!) would arrive at Union Station to find a room in the new sleeper identical to the one they had just left, with all of their luggage and belongings waiting for them.

A friend of my dad's rode one of the transcon sleepers and walked from one station to the other, because "he didn't want to ride over every railroad switch in Chicago!"

 

[railiner]

St. Louis was a much better place for thru sleepers, having just the one major station...don't recall if any transcontinental sleepers went that way, but lots of East Coast to Texas (and even Mexico) did....

 

[Willbridge]

Looking at Official Guides of the 1940s and 1950s, one can find several through sleepers from coast to coast, many of which were going through Chicago. Now, Chicago had multiple termini for the various railroads... For example, in 1947 the New York Central handed over sleepers (all from New York City) to 4 different railroads in Chicago, only one of which left from the same terminus as the arriving train (La Salle Street):

Train no./name NYC	Arrival at La Salle Street Sta.	Handed off to train no./name	Terminus	Destination	Departure time from terminus
NYC 19 (Lake Shore Limited)	11:50 am	CNW 27 (San Francisco Overland)	C&NW Terminal	San Francisco	3:00 pm
NYC 67 (Commodore Vanderbilt)	7:40 am (every other day)	CBQ 39 (Exposition Flyer)	Union Sta.	San Francisco	12:45 pm
NYC 25 (20th Century Ltd.)	8:00 am	ATSF 19 (Chief)	Dearborn Sta.	Los Angeles	12:01 pm
NYC 63 (Water Level)	9:20 am	CNW 1 (Los Angeles Ltd.)	C&NW Terminal	Los Angeles	12:01 pm
NYC 59 (Chicagoan)	3:20 pm (every other day)	CRIP 3 (Golden State)	La Salle St Sta.	Los Angeles	9:30 pm

I have several questions arising from this:

1 - How were the sleepers transferred from one terminus to the other? (Like for the transfer to the C&NW, did they use the through track through Union Station, if that even existed back then, or did they run on (otherwise) freight-only trackage around the city?)
2 - Who operated these transfer trips? Was there a sleeper crew on board and from which company? Which train symbols were used for the transfer trip?
3 - What was the modus operandi on such trips? Did the train arrive at the terminus, and then the through sleepers got pulled out, or was the train unloaded, then moved to the yard and only then the sleepers got cut off? Or anything totally different?
4 - Was the sleeper to the Rock Island, which didn't change termini in Chicago, parked in the station, so the passengers could get off and on during the 6 hour layover, or was it parked on some yard track?

Any help on this is much appreciated!

The sample table illustrates some of the problems.

1. Customers who wanted to be on the "best" train sometimes got "second best" for scheduling reasons.​

2. Connections between stations, instead of confining the routes to same-station possibilities.​

3. Less than daily in some cases. Not a problem when the same route has a daily train, but in effect this created new routes.​

Not shown were the problems created by servicing unfamiliar equipment (as in the early days of Amtrak: "what the .... is steam ejector air-conditioning?").

What I never understood is why more through sleepers weren't routed through St. Louis, Memphis, etc.

 

[railiner]

The sample table illustrates some of the problems.

1. Customers who wanted to be on the "best" train sometimes got "second best" for scheduling reasons.​

2. Connections between stations, instead of confining the routes to same-station possibilities.​

3. Less than daily in some cases. Not a problem when the same route has a daily train, but in effect this created new routes.​

Not shown were the problems created by servicing unfamiliar equipment (as in the early days of Amtrak: "what the .... is steam ejector air-conditioning?").

What I never understood is why more through sleepers weren't routed through St. Louis, Memphis, etc.

You answered your own question....customers who wanted to be on the "best" train...

 

[Willbridge]

1. The through track through Union Station was always part of the station design. In addition, though, there was an extensive network of trackage connecting the major terminals in Chicago. Remember, these tracks handled not only passengers at that time but also freight, mail, express, and even livestock for part of the period. I can't possibly go into all of the various interconnections and I don't know the local vernacular for these tracks, but for the three connections you mention: La Salle St. Station to North Western Station would most likely back out of La Salle, and then cross the river on the St. Charles Air Line (present track used by the City of New Orleans and other trains headed to/from the former Illinois Central main line). From there it would travel around the Chicago Loop on tracks owned by the C. & N. W. to Kedzie, where it would join the CNW main line west to Omaha and be switched into North Western Station. Headed to Union Station, the through car from the Commodore Vanderbilt would start out on the same route over the St. Charles Air Line but would then be switched off it back into Union Station, exactly as the City of New Orleans is today. La Salle Street to Dearborn Station was even easier; a transfer track from Santa Fe's Archer Street Yard connected directly with the throat leading into La Salle Street Station. (Reference here is A Railroad Atlas of the United States in 1946, Volume 4: Illinois, Wisconsin, & Upper Michigan, maps 117, 117C, 117E, 117L, and 117M.)
2. ....

I hope this helps!

The St. Charles Air Line has an interesting heritage. The CB&Q was allied with the Michigan Central's backers financially, so they needed an access without hold-ups at numerous level crossings to get into Central Station. They competed against the evil alliance of the New York Central and Rock Island. (This was a bit before my time, but as noted often in this website the U.S. still depends on infrastructure that was provided for us by men who had motives that are completely alien to us today.)

 

[jiml]

You guys need to write a book. I would buy it... seriously!

 

[Bob Dylan]

[QUODakota 400, post: 840090, member: 8062"]
I remember there were 4 seats just in front of the steps leading to the upper level on the Greyhound buses that I rode when I was in college.

Wasn't that a "Senic Cruiser" with the Bi-Levels??
[/QUOTE]

 

[Bob Dylan]

St. Louis was a much better place for thru sleepers, having just the one major station...don't recall if any transcontinental sleepers went that way, but lots of East Coast to Texas (and even Mexico) did....

Union Station was where I first got to expierence riding a thru Sleeper during a Layover on LD trips, never did it in Chicago.

Still fondly remember backing up the Hill into the Train Shed and walking into the bustling Crowd that reminds me of what goes on now in Grand Central,Union Stations in Chicago,Toronto, Washington and LAX during Rush Hour!

 

[Willbridge]

You guys need to write a book. I would buy it... seriously!

My colleagues noticed that instead of writing a book, I was going for a record number of acknowledgements in OTHER people's books. A few of them noticed that my website is about the size of a book, but it's never finished.

 

[jiml]

I thought of starting a new thread "AU'ers You Would Most Like To Spend A Day With". I'm a railroad history buff and several of the contributors to this thread would be high on my list. I know a lot of stuff (particularly regarding VIA Rail) and have studied Amtrak for years, but the knowledge here is humbling.

 

[Bob Dylan]

I thought of starting a new thread "AU'ers You Would Most Like To Spend A Day With". I'm a railroad history buff and several of the contributors to this thread would be high on my list. I know a lot of stuff (particularly regarding VIA Rail) and have studied Amtrak for years, but the knowledge here is humbling.

I'm impressed by your knowledge about Amtrak and love to discuss VIA and Pre-VIA with Canadians!!

 

[Thogo]

What I never understood is why more through sleepers weren't routed through St. Louis, Memphis, etc.

There were a good number of through sleepers via St. Louis, from NYC and PRR over to SLSF and MP mainly en route to Texas and Oklahoma. NYC/MP/FNM operated a through sleeper from New York City to Mexico City via the St. Louis hub (in 1947, at least). But in St. Louis most trains (or all?) used the same Union Station, so transferring was easy, compared to Chicago. I'm not sure if there were any through cars at Memphis from "eastern" to "western" companies, but certainly the route from the Northeast to Texas via St. Louis was faster anyway.

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

I love how this is now a bus thread!

 

[railiner]

There were a good number of through sleepers via St. Louis, from NYC and PRR over to SLSF and MP mainly en route to Texas and Oklahoma. NYC/MP/FNM operated a through sleeper from New York City to Mexico City via the St. Louis hub (in 1947, at least). But in St. Louis most trains (or all?) used the same Union Station, so transferring was easy, compared to Chicago. I'm not sure if there were any through cars at Memphis from "eastern" to "western" companies, but certainly the route from the Northeast to Texas via St. Louis was faster anyway.

PRR's "Penn Texas", carried a number of thru sleeper's to several southwestern roads at St. Louis, as you mentioned, and even into the late sixties...I recall seeing the 'exotic' thru NdeM Mexico City Pullman in New York's Penn Station in around 1967. One entire train that crossed the 'gateway' of Memphis, was Frisco's Kansas City-Florida Special, but that wasn't quite the same, since it stayed on one road crossing the 'gateway'. The train was handed off to the Southern Railway, at Birmingham, and terminated at Jacksonville. But it did have thru sleeper's to Miami, I'm assuming via the FEC...

 

[Rasputin]

there is a discussion on Classic Trains site of how these transcontinental sleeping cars were handled (but maybe people knew this information already)

http://cs.trains.com/ctr/f/3/t/205758.aspx

 

[Bob Dylan]

PRR's "Penn Texas", carried a number of thru sleeper's to several southwestern roads at St. Louis, as you mentioned, and even into the late sixties...I recall seeing the 'exotic' thru NdeM Mexico City Pullman in New York's Penn Station in around 1967. One entire train that crossed the 'gateway' of Memphis, was Frisco's Kansas City-Florida Special, but that wasn't quite the same, since it stayed on one road crossing the 'gateway'. The train was handed off to the Southern Railway, at Birmingham, and terminated at Jacksonville. But it did have thru sleeper's to Miami, I'm assuming via the FEC...

I rode on the NDM Thru Pullman Sleeper to Mexico City on the Aztec Eagle, but caught it in San Antonio.

It was pulled by a Switcher across the River from Laredo to the Nuevo Laredo Station,where it was cut into the the Aztec Eagle consist, which was mostly ex-MP equipment.

 

[Palmland]

And don’t forget the B&O N.Y.- Southwest sleepers from Washington. One each to MP’s Texas Eagle and Frisco’s Texas Special. As a kid I remember walking through the shiny bright red Frisco car (I believe 14rmte-4dbr) and being very impressed.

 

[railiner]

there is a discussion on Classic Trains site of how these transcontinental sleeping cars were handled (but maybe people knew this information already)

http://cs.trains.com/ctr/f/3/t/205758.aspx

Lot's of good stuff in that...thanks for the link!

 

[Dakota 400]

That was a Scenicruiser....built by General Motor's exclusively for Greyhound. It in fact had 10 seats and the restroom on the lower level, and 33 seats on the upper level.

I don't remember that many seats nor a restroom on the lower level. But that was 5+ decades ago.

Wasn't that a "Vista Cruiser" with the Bi-Level???

Whatever the name of the model of the bus, it was a much nicer motor coach (as Greyhound would say) than the Lake Shore System bus that I transferred to in Columbus in order to get to my home.

Trailways "Eagle" buses were nice. But, Amtrak coach is much more pleasant for me than another "bus journey".

 

[ehbowen]

1. If the car was to remain in the station it would be switched out of the incoming consist at some point, but unless actually being switched it would be parked on some track where passengers had access to it from the station at all times. There were tracks in all major stations (usually more than one) with shore steam and shore power connections to keep the cars comfortable during the layover.

I should also point out that some very low-ranking employee had the unenviable job of hanging "honey buckets" under the outlets of the "hoppers" which dumped waste on the tracks so that passengers could use the toilet without fouling the station while parked...and the even worse job of taking them down and emptying them when the car was ready to be moved again!

 

[ehbowen]

That was an Eagle. It was overall, the same height (11'2") as the Scenicruiser in the rear, but if you were seated on the upper level of the Scenicruiser, you actually were seated a little higher, as the seats were on elevated platforms, with a step down to the aisle. They also had upper deck windshields, that gave you a full view forward over the lower level, reminiscent of a Budd Vista-Dome, which inspired their design.

The early Eagles had eyebrow windows above the driver, aping the Scenicruiser...although you couldn't see much through them except a sliver of sky.


Greyhound Lines has (or at least had) a preserved Scenicruiser. I got to see it in person at a bus and transit convention in Houston a number of years back. I was working the graveyard shift, and it wasn't locked....

This isn't my video, but: