# Schedule and consist from 20th Century Limited June 1956



## richm49

With all the ongoing delay on the LSL both eastbound and westbound to and from CHI I thought it would be nice to visit a chapter from the glory years of rail travel on the LSL's predecessor, the original 20th Century Limited.In June 1956 this was truly a "limited" train. It originated from NY Grand Central Terminal and made only 4 stops to CHI! Departing GCT at 5:00 P.M. it stopped only at Harmon,NY( now Croton-Harmon),Albany,NY and then went straight through to Englewood Station in Chicago and ending at LaSalle St. Station in Chicago. Arrival time was at 7:45 A.M. in Lasalle St. making it a quick 15 hour,45 minute trip(allowing for 1 hour time change difference). The LSL today is scheduled well over 19 hours and usually runs many hours later on arrival in CHI.

How ironic that neither Grand Central Terminal nor LaSalle St. station no longer serve any inter-city rail travel. Both stations have been relegated to serve as commuter rail stations only.The 20 Century Limited in June 1956 was an all-Pullman car train with no coach seating and did not carry checked baggage either.Only sleeping accommodations on this train.As far as I have been able to determine this was the consist: Observation Lounge/Sleeping car with 5 double bedrooms;Club Lounge car; Sleeping cars(5) NY-CHI #1 4 Compartments/ 4 Double Bedrooms/ 2Drawing Rooms; NY-CHI #2 12 Double bedrooms; NY-CHI #3 10 Roomettes/ 6 Double bedrooms. This train also had through cars to LA. They were : NY-LA #1 4 Compartments/4 Double bedrooms/ 2 Drawing Rooms; NY-LA #2 10 Roomettes/ 6 Double bedrooms. In addition there was a full Dining Service car with all the amenities you would expect. When this train departed NY and arrived in CHI they literally rolled out the proverbial red carpet with 20th Century Limited emblazoned on it.

Coach pax had to ride on the Commodore Vanderbilt which was a combination coach and Pullman car train. However, by April 1958 the 20th Century Limited lost it's all-Pullman car status and began to carry coach pax as well as Pullmans. If only I had been born a decade or so earlier so I could have experienced that level of rail travel instead of the mess that Amtrak has become today!

BTW, the NY-LA through section of this train was also a true " limited" as well. Departing CHI at 7:00 P.M. it only made 7 stops to the West Coast arriving in LA 2 mornings later at 8:30 A.M., just a little over a day and a half trip. The intermediate stations were Kansas City,MO; La Junta,CO; Albuquerque,NM; Barstow,CA; San Bernardino,CA; Pasadena,CA and finally LA itself. Now, nearly 60 years later, both the NY-CHI and NY-LA trips take many more hours to complete.Where will LD rail travel be at another 60 years from now? Will it even exist as we know it today?


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## Eric S

Those CHI-LAX times look like the Super Chief. I believe it did make many more stops than that, more like today's Southwest Chief. It seems that maybe only some of the more important stops are indicated there.


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## MrFSS

*20th Century 1950's Table*

*Super Chief Table*


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## Ocala Mike

Old enough to remember being at GCT many times when it left. It was quite the thing as they rolled out a red carpet at, I believe, Track 34 every night. There was also an usher set up at a check-in table where tickets were checked outside the gate. Always a good chance to see a celebrity or two before the days of TMZ and paparazzi.


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## Bob Dylan

Great post from the days when "Crack Trains" rode the Rails and the 20th Century and the Broadway Ltd. Raced each other to CHI!!! And of course it makes one think of Cary Grant in "North by Northwest" when he snuck aboard the 20th Century @ GCT without a ticket!!

I never got to ride either one but did get to be in GCT and NYP in their heyday!!

Some things Were better in the Old Days!


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## chakk

While the 1958 20th century limited made no psgr stops between Harmon and Englewood, there were several stops enroute to change crews. The Harmon stop also involved changing the electric locomotive from Grand Central Terminal to diesel locomotives for the remainder of the journey west.

Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum


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## Bill Haithcoat

I


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## Bill Haithcoat

The Commodore Vanderbilt was also all pullman for years


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## jphjaxfl

My Dad was a freight/passenter agent for the New York Central from the 30s to the 6th so we took the 20th century in each direction once. It did carry an PRO from New York City to Chicago for overnight business mail. It was a magnificent train. Amtrak has nothing that could compare to it. The NY had at least 4 tracks all the way from New York City to Chicago. Freight and lesser passenger trains had to take a secondary track. The most senior employees handled the Century. Those type of trains will never come back.


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## Bill Haithcoat

jphjaxfl said:


> My Dad was a freight/passenter agent for the New York Central from the 30s to the 6th so we took the 20th century in each direction once. It did carry an PRO from New York City to Chicago for overnight business mail. It was a magnificent train. Amtrak has nothing that could compare to it. The NY had at least 4 tracks all the way from New York City to Chicago. Freight and lesser passenger trains had to take a secondary track. The most senior employees handled the Century. Those type of trains will never come back.


You might want to change the typo from PRO to RPO. Lots of folks today do not know that RPO means Railway Post Office


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## richm49

MrFSS said:


> *20th Century 1950's Table*
> 
> *Super Chief Table*


It looks like the more detailed timetable that you were able to obtain does list several other intermediate stops on the NY-LA run. Most of them are similar to today's 3/SWC train…..btw… also read that then 20th Century Limited,back in the days of steam locomotives, was able to continue without stopping for water by making use of water pans. Basically long metal troughs laid down between the rails on long stretches of straight track. They would lower a scoop of some kind and the high speed would allow the train to suck up water from the trough without stopping at a traditional water tower. I found that info to be quite ingenious for the times.


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## richm49

Bill Haithcoat said:


> The Commodore Vanderbilt was also all pullman for years


That train may have been in earlier years but according to streamlinerschedules.com, where I obtained this info, in summer of 1956 the Commodore Vanderbilt had become a coach and Pullman train.Not very long after this schedule was posted, the 20 Century Limited,now in it's twilight years, also became a coach and Pullman mixed train. I think that is fitting that the final trip for this great train in December 1967 it arrived in CHI 9+ hours late due to freight congestion! Now where have I heard that story before!!


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## richm49

I also believe that the old saying " rolling out the red carpet" originated from it's actual use for the 20th Century Limited. It had a great run for 65 glorious years.


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## richm49

I think it is also interesting to note that none of these great trains from the 50"s used today's Union Station in CHI. The 20th Century Limited terminated at LaSalle St. station and the Super Chief departed from Dearborn Station.It wasn't until Amtrak took over that Union Station became the CHI focal point. Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint can be seen detraining from the 20th Century Limited in Lasalle St. station in North by Northwest.


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## jis

Contrary to popular mythology the New York Central Water Level Route was never four tracks all the way from New York to Chicago.

Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum


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## railiner

The Broadway Limited was the equal of The Century. It ran to Chicago Union Station, and kept its All-Pullman status until the merger of the PRR and NYC into the Penn Central.

It also ran Eastbound in as little as 15 hours and 30 minutes for a period....


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## railiner

richm49 said:


> MrFSS said:
> 
> 
> 
> *20th Century 1950's Table*
> 
> *Super Chief Table*
> 
> 
> 
> It looks like the more detailed timetable that you were able to obtain does list several other intermediate stops on the NY-LA run. Most of them are similar to today's 3/SWC train…..btw… also read that then 20th Century Limited,back in the days of steam locomotives, was able to continue without stopping for water by making use of water pans. Basically long metal troughs laid down between the rails on long stretches of straight track. They would lower a scoop of some kind and the high speed would allow the train to suck up water from the trough without stopping at a traditional water tower. I found that info to be quite ingenious for the times.
Click to expand...

As the comparison of the two linked timetables shows....when a railroad showed stops on a connecting railroad, the connecting railroad's timetable was almost always a 'condensed' version of the full timetable....


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## neroden

jis said:


> Contrary to popular mythology the New York Central Water Level Route was never four tracks all the way from New York to Chicago.


Four tracks from Schenectady to Buffalo. Where it matters.  More importantly, the NYC had multiple parallel diversionary routes along almost its entire length. Trouble south of Lake Erie? Send the train through Canada.


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## Bill Haithcoat

railiner said:


> richm49 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> MrFSS said:
> 
> 
> 
> *20th Century 1950's Table*
> 
> *Super Chief Table*
> 
> 
> 
> It looks like the more detailed timetable that you were able to obtain does list several other intermediate stops on the NY-LA run. Most of them are similar to today's 3/SWC train…..btw… also read that then 20th Century Limited,back in the days of steam locomotives, was able to continue without stopping for water by making use of water pans. Basically long metal troughs laid down between the rails on long stretches of straight track. They would lower a scoop of some kind and the high speed would allow the train to suck up water from the trough without stopping at a traditional water tower. I found that info to be quite ingenious for the times.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> As the comparison of the two linked timetables shows....when a railroad showed stops on a connecting railroad, the connecting railroad's timetable was almost always a 'condensed' version of the full timetable....
Click to expand...

Yes if a train was operated by several railroads you usually had to get a complete timetable from each line to get the full schedule. And the equipment could be off and on down the line-- not all of it listed on each railroad,

And not each station had a timetable for each railroad in the U,S

There was no national timetable except the very bulky Official Guide.

I know you are speaking of connecting trains but this could be within the same train itself also,


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## richm49

Bill Haithcoat said:


> railiner said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> richm49 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> MrFSS said:
> 
> 
> 
> *20th Century 1950's Table*
> 
> *Super Chief Table*
> 
> 
> 
> It looks like the more detailed timetable that you were able to obtain does list several other intermediate stops on the NY-LA run. Most of them are similar to today's 3/SWC train…..btw… also read that then 20th Century Limited,back in the days of steam locomotives, was able to continue without stopping for water by making use of water pans. Basically long metal troughs laid down between the rails on long stretches of straight track. They would lower a scoop of some kind and the high speed would allow the train to suck up water from the trough without stopping at a traditional water tower. I found that info to be quite ingenious for the times.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> As the comparison of the two linked timetables shows....when a railroad showed stops on a connecting railroad, the connecting railroad's timetable was almost always a 'condensed' version of the full timetable....
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Yes if a train was operated by several railroads you usually had to get a complete timetable from each line to get the full schedule. And the equipment could be off and on down the line-- not all of it listed on each railroad,
> 
> And not each station had a timetable for each railroad in the U,S
> 
> There was no national timetable except the very bulky Official Guide.
> 
> I know you are speaking of connecting trains but this could be within the same train itself also,
Click to expand...

I guess in pre-Amtrak days everything was completely different from what we are used to today. As you stated, each railroad printed their own specific timetables for their routes. That would explain why all the intermediate stops on the Super Chief were not listed on the website where i got the info from. It didn't make sense that a train from CHI-LA would only make 6 stops across the entire country.


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## George Harris

Reality Check for 2014:

New York City to Chicago: From Mapquest: Driving time, 11 hours 47 minutes. Distance: 790 miles via I-80W

New York Central route: 960.7 miles

Pennsylvania route: 907.7 miles

Sorry, there is just no market today for these trains on either their speed or their amenities. In the 1950's, or even early 1960's there was no pracitcal way that their run time could be met by driving. No longer true.

What I often wondered is why neither railroad tried something like the Illinois Central's City of New Orleans, that is a fast daytime coach streamliner. If the ICRR could fill 12 to 20 coaches on thier far less populous route, these guys could have both filled a long coach train, particularly since there were several fairly sizable intermediate points along their routes. for the CNO, the only sizable intermediate city was Memphis. It had quite a bit more ridership north of Memphis. It was the norm to add/subtract a couple of coaches and an additional engine at Memphis, and do it all within a 10 minute stop.


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## Anderson

The issue with a straight "driving time" comparison is two-fold. First, it doesn't take into account the (admittedly variable and in no small part indirect) costs associated with driving. Second, it doesn't take into account the fact that 12 hours driving is 12 hours of completely useless time in most respects.

With that being said, I'd need to look at a timetable from the mid-60s to see if anything like what you suggest survived. Part of the problem is that during the 60s, the future Penn Central started suffering from a lot of deferred maintenance in a way that the western railroads (ATSF, UP, IC) didn't. Even SAL/ACL stayed in good shape, but there were loads of bad practices in the Northeastern roads.

The other thing which probably jammed things up with the Eastern roads is the air shuttles and short-hop flights. For example, Eastern had the hourly NEC shuttles (New York, Washington, and Boston) that were not only _unreserved_ (perish _that_ thought today!) but also _unlimited_ (i.e. if one sold out another would be pulled up to run). That survived into the 80s as far as I can tell. I strongly suspect there was more competition from the airlines for, say, New York-Buffalo than Chicago-Jackson, MS or New Orleans-Carbondale, IL.

This raises a salient point: If you look at the long-distance passenger railroads that hesitated on joining Amtrak (Rock Island's unusual situation aside), you have Southern, Seaboard, ATSF, and DRG&W (South Shore and Reading were both operating glorified commuter trains by this time, while ATSF's _San Diegan_, which they wanted to keep, was also a commuter-distance service). All three shared, oddly enough, lower population densities than the Northeast. While all of them wanted to dump a few "stinker" trains, there weren't too many roads that hadn't been in that position for decades (ATSF had been trying to dump the _Grand Canyon _and its largely useless stop-heavy schedule for about 15 years, for example). DRG&W was helped out by the tourist-heavy nature of the route, ATSF by the reputation of the _Super Chief_ which they wanted to uphold, and Seaboard by the nature of the Florida routes, but all of them had strings of medium-sized intermediate markets that likely didn't have the sorts of airline competition that popped up elsewhere. IC would be another example of this...basically, while the New Haven was getting thrashed by Eastern, they simply didn't have to deal with that level of fighting.


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## jis

In the pedantic department .... it is D&RGW, not DRG&W - Denver and Rio Grande Western.

Trains that stop at many somewhat viable towns on the way have fared better than regular speed trains trying to compete with airlines on longer routes simply because those making those small station stops provide many more station pairs and allow for a better connected network effect, provided of course they are part of a network. In scheduling of any transportation, there are tipping points in scheduled times which makes all the difference between making a service completely viable and more or less non-viable.

For example, a train that claims to be overnight service, better depart after 6pm and arrive before 7am or so. As you deviate away from that viability goes down dramatically. Similarly the rule of thumb for HS trains is that a journey time of 3 to 4 hours max is the sweet spot, though there are exceptions.

The problem with the Northeast - Chicago route is that in the 21st century, to make the route truly viable as a significant rail corridor speeds have to be dramatically increased along the lines of what China is doing, and we appear not to have the stomach for that. Notwithstanding that, a service consisting of 2 to 4 carefully scheduled trains that address local market needs around all significant population centers on the way could be quite viable, and my take is that under the current circumstances that should be the focus of development. And of course that requires more active participation by the states on the way given PRIIA 209.

Competing with a car that carries a family of four or six is always going to be a very significant challenge in terms of fares, and the fact that at the destination if there isn't excellent and well connected public transit one has to get a car anyway. So the hidden costs argument could go in favor or against a particular mode given the environment in which the discussion is taking place. The reason that people use things like the Auto Train is because local transportation in Florida sucks, and in the Northeast, even though present is actually inadequate once you get away from the close suburbs of the main population centers. And even then, I am sure there are many more than 200 cars that travel from the Northeast to Florida each day by road.


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## Metra Electric Guest

I have to disagree slightly (or maybe I'm agreeing with jis) I think there is a market for a reliable night train NYC-CHI (as well as to Washington and Boston, etc) with evening departures and reasonable morning arrivals. This would probably be a limited stop train, but not terribly fast. The unserved market is the shorter regional trains, daytime Chicago-Cleveland, etc.


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## chakk

richm49 said:


> With all the ongoing delay on the LSL both eastbound and westbound to and from CHI I thought it would be nice to visit a chapter from the glory years of rail travel on the LSL's predecessor, the original 20th Century Limited.In June 1956 this was truly a "limited" train. It originated from NY Grand Central Terminal and made only 4 stops to CHI! Departing GCT at 5:00 P.M. it stopped only at Harmon,NY( now Croton-Harmon),Albany,NY and then went straight through to Englewood Station in Chicago and ending at LaSalle St. Station in Chicago. Arrival time was at 7:45 A.M. in Lasalle St. making it a quick 15 hour,45 minute trip(allowing for 1 hour time change difference). The LSL today is scheduled well over 19 hours and usually runs many hours later on arrival in CHI.
> 
> How ironic that neither Grand Central Terminal nor LaSalle St. station no longer serve any inter-city rail travel. Both stations have been relegated to serve as commuter rail stations only.The 20 Century Limited in June 1956 was an all-Pullman car train with no coach seating and did not carry checked baggage either.Only sleeping accommodations on this train.As far as I have been able to determine this was the consist: Observation Lounge/Sleeping car with 5 double bedrooms;Club Lounge car; Sleeping cars(5) NY-CHI #1 4 Compartments/ 4 Double Bedrooms/ 2Drawing Rooms; NY-CHI #2 12 Double bedrooms; NY-CHI #3 10 Roomettes/ 6 Double bedrooms. This train also had through cars to LA. They were : NY-LA #1 4 Compartments/4 Double bedrooms/ 2 Drawing Rooms; NY-LA #2 10 Roomettes/ 6 Double bedrooms. In addition there was a full Dining Service car with all the amenities you would expect. When this train departed NY and arrived in CHI they literally rolled out the proverbial red carpet with 20th Century Limited emblazoned on it.
> 
> Coach pax had to ride on the Commodore Vanderbilt which was a combination coach and Pullman car train. However, by April 1958 the 20th Century Limited lost it's all-Pullman car status and began to carry coach pax as well as Pullmans. If only I had been born a decade or so earlier so I could have experienced that level of rail travel instead of the mess that Amtrak has become today!
> 
> BTW, the NY-LA through section of this train was also a true " limited" as well. Departing CHI at 7:00 P.M. it only made 7 stops to the West Coast arriving in LA 2 mornings later at 8:30 A.M., just a little over a day and a half trip. The intermediate stations were Kansas City,MO; La Junta,CO; Albuquerque,NM; Barstow,CA; San Bernardino,CA; Pasadena,CA and finally LA itself. Now, nearly 60 years later, both the NY-CHI and NY-LA trips take many more hours to complete.Where will LD rail travel be at another 60 years from now? Will it even exist as we know it today?


Actually,.that train had many more than 5 sleeping cars. Five TYPES of sleeping cars, yes. But the train itself had at least 4 of the 12 double bedroom sleepers and at least 2 of the 10 roomette-6 dbl bedroom sleepers. And, in peak periods, the train likely ran in multiple sections to keep the total length down to 12 cars or less.


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## Steve4031

I've always been curious about multiple sections at peek times. What did this look like at gct? If you have 3 sections leaving that day with what was the ticketing info like to show you weren't on the first section.


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## George Harris

Mypoint on driving time is that it is generally wht would be considered to be the norm for travel time between the named points. I am well aware that it is otherwise useless unless you like books on tape and have some that you read if your eyes did not have to be otherwise occupied.

Read strongly JIS's point about intermediate point service. A non or very limited stop San Diegan has been tried and proven unsuccessful more than once with the additonal trials under the heading of "those that will not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

It was said in the early 1900's and is still true: The NYC's routing was among the longest New York to Chicago, which give both a higer than normal cost between end pionts and the greatest overall success because of hitting a series of significant intermediate points. That is the other reason that a Twentieth Century Limited could not be a successfult twenty-first Century Limited. It was absolutely and end point to end oint train. Most of that demand now flies. While there will be a number of through passengers the seats and berths will mostly be filled by a succession of shorter overlapping passenger, many with overlapping trips meaning that the practical service would be by multiple through trains.


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