# Riding the first transcontinental railroad (early 1870s)



## MARC Rider (Jun 25, 2021)

Here's a great article from 1977 that was published in American Heritage.

The Transcontinental Railroad | AMERICAN HERITAGE

A few takeaway points:


You not only had to change in Chicago, you also had to change in Omaha, and also in Ogden.
Sleeper fare was $100 [$2,055 in todays money] ($25 for first class fare, $4 a day to ride the Pullman Palace cars.); second class (padded seats) was $75 [$1,540 in todays money] , "emigrant fare" (board seats) was $40 [822 in today's money] The article wasn't clear, but I think these were just fares from Omaha.
The trip took 4-7 days, average speed was about 20 mph. (which was twice as fast as the fastest stagecoach.)
Although Pullman introduced a diner in 1870 for the sleeper passengers, Union Pacific ran it on only 1 train a week. Well into the 1880s most passengers were fed at meal stops.
This involved everyone piling off the train and rushing to gulp down food that (with some exception) was pretty bad. This all had to be done within 30 minutes, or you'd risk being stranded somewhere in the middle of the Wild West.

from the article:



> Judging from comments of travelers, the food varied from wretched to middling fair. The first dining stop out of Omaha was Grand Island. “Ill cooked and poorly served,” was one passenger’s blunt comment. “We found the quality on the whole bad,” said William Robertson of Scotland, “and all three meals, breakfast, dinner and supper, were almost identical, viz., tea, buffalo steaks, antelope chops, sweet potatoes, and boiled Indian corn, with hoe cakes and syrup ad nauseam .” New Yorker Susan Coolidge also complained about the sameness of diet. “It was necessary to look at one’s watch to tell whether it was breakfast, dinner or supper that we were eating, these meals presenting invariably the same salient features of beefsteak, fried eggs, fried potato.” She was generous enough to compliment the chef at Sidney, Nebraska, for serving “cubes of fried mush which diversified a breakfast of unusual excellence.” Harvey Rice of Cleveland, Ohio, described the Sidney breakfast station as a crude structure of boards and canvas. “Here the passengers were replenished with an excellent breakfast—a chicken stew, as they supposed, but which, as they were afterward informed, consisted of prairie-dogs—a new variety of chickens, without feathers. This information created an unpleasant sensation in sundry delicate stomachs.”



I'm waiting for Amtrak to start serving prairie dog flex meals.

You had to pay for the food. Meals cost $1 [$20.55 in todays money], though in California, the Central Pacific charged 75 cents if you paid in silver.
After a day or two with no showers and lots of dust and smoke, everybody got pretty grimy. One can only imagine how these travelers of the Victorian era, especially the ones in first class, felt about that. If you're planning to build a time machine to go back and take a ride, it would probably be a good idea to stock up on Vicks Vap-O-Rub. 
Trains could be severely delayed by weather and accidents.

Not sure I'd want to hop into a time machine and try it, although the description of the sleeping cars suggested that they were pretty comfortable. It might have been nice to get to see the West before it got all messed up by "civilization."


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## Anderson (Jun 29, 2021)

I'm not sure I would have enjoyed being delayed by a migrating buffalo herd any more than I enjoy it when it's a grade crossing incident...

...but it would certainly be novel!


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## Bembidion (Sep 5, 2021)

MARC Rider said:


> Here's a great article from 1977 that was published in American Heritage.
> 
> The Transcontinental Railroad | AMERICAN HERITAGE
> 
> ...



Fred Harvey changed all that for passengers on Santa Fe. He offered a first rate dining experience and had food orders telegraphed ahead so that dining time was used efficiently.


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## Ziv (Sep 5, 2021)

$1 a meal in the 1870's?! Forget about mining for gold, I want to open a dining room along the Union Pacific RR! 
Downside is that it sounds like the UP only ran one train a week for years. So there is that.
A lot of that route is I-80 now, or close to it. It is still a harsh but beautiful trip.


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## ehbowen (Sep 5, 2021)

Ziv said:


> $1 a meal in the 1870's?! Forget about mining for gold, I want to open a dining room along the Union Pacific RR!
> Downside is that it sounds like the UP only ran one train a week for years. So there is that.
> A lot of that route is I-80 now, or close to it. It is still a harsh but beautiful trip.




There was a daily passenger express, but the "Hotel Express" featuring fancier equipment only ran once or twice a week as a second section to the normal passenger express.


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## west point (Sep 5, 2021)

Ships are not always safe in port. Look what happened to the French fleet when Churchill ordered it destroyed !


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## Ziv (Sep 6, 2021)

That makes a lot more sense! Thanks for the clarification. More trains means more people paying me a $1 a meal. Cowboys got around $25 a month (plus food and bunk) right after the war and $30 a month in the 1870's, so a dollar was a days wages for many.



ehbowen said:


> There was a daily passenger express, but the "Hotel Express" featuring fancier equipment only ran once or twice a week as a second section to the normal passenger express.


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## ehbowen (Sep 15, 2021)

Ziv said:


> That makes a lot more sense! Thanks for the clarification. More trains means more people paying me a $1 a meal. Cowboys got around $25 a month (plus food and bunk) right after the war and $30 a month in the 1870's, so a dollar was a days wages for many.


When I get the time machine working at long last I'll be happy to help you corner the market on food service along the You Pay...but _only_ if you pledge to model your business after Fred Harvey!


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## Nobody (Feb 10, 2022)

MARC Rider said:


> Here's a great article from 1977 that was published in American Heritage.
> 
> The Transcontinental Railroad | AMERICAN HERITAGE
> 
> Mind you, Kansas City Southern's concession to operate the Panama Canal Railway Company bills souvenirs from its pasenger service as "the first transcontinental railway -- since 1855". <g>


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## Metra Electric Rider (Feb 20, 2022)

MARC Rider said:


> After a day or two with no showers and lots of dust and smoke, everybody got pretty grimy. One can only imagine how these travelers of the Victorian era, especially the ones in first class, felt about that. If you're planning to build a time machine to go back and take a ride, it would probably be a good idea to stock up on Vicks Vap-O-Rub.



Bathing was a luxury then - people would have simply hand washed and applied scent. I think they would have been used to the smells - probably the scent of horses in cities overpowered anything else... (I'm not getting in that time machine to find out though)


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## jis (Feb 20, 2022)

Metra Electric Rider said:


> Bathing was a luxury then - people would have simply hand washed and applied scent. I think they would have been used to the smells - probably the scent of horses in cities overpowered anything else... (I'm not getting in that time machine to find out though)


Yeah. Since they did not bathe regularly at home either, it was probably a non-issue. Better of people did the "jug and bwol" deal splashing water using a wet towel to wipe themselves down, something that is easily done in a regular train toilet.


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## Bonser (Feb 20, 2022)

MARC Rider said:


> Here's a great article from 1977 that was published in American Heritage.
> 
> The Transcontinental Railroad | AMERICAN HERITAGE
> 
> ...


But we can only compare that to what preceded it - the stage - and not what came after. In that light, the transcontinental in 1870 seems pretty comfortable.


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## AmtrakBlue (Feb 20, 2022)

jis said:


> Yeah. Since they did not bathe regularly at home either, it was probably a non-issue. Better of people did the "jug and bwol" deal splashing water using a wet towel to wipe themselves down, something that is easily done in a regular train toilet.


I’d rather use the sink.


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## Trollopian (Feb 20, 2022)

ehbowen said:


> When I get the time machine working at long last I'll be happy to help you corner the market on food service along the You Pay...but _only_ if you pledge to model your business after Fred Harvey!



And I'll head to the caboose, loosen my corset strings, and burst into song. From The Harvey Girls 1946:


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## MARC Rider (Feb 20, 2022)

Metra Electric Rider said:


> Bathing was a luxury then - people would have simply hand washed and applied scent. I think they would have been used to the smells - probably the scent of horses in cities overpowered anything else... (I'm not getting in that time machine to find out though)


Well, yes and no. Apparently, by 1860, people starting bathing more regularly, but until the germ theory of disease started gaining popular traction, they weren't so concerned with "personal hygiene."
When Americans Started Bathing - JSTOR Daily


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## joelkfla (Feb 20, 2022)

jis said:


> Yeah. Since they did not bathe regularly at home either, it was probably a non-issue. Better of people did the "jug and bwol" deal splashing water using a wet towel to wipe themselves down, something that is easily done in a regular train toilet.


I've always thought that's why high collars and bloomers were in style -- to contain the stink.


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## west point (Feb 20, 2022)

The cowboy way had its merits. A dunk in the river and washing your clothes out on the nearest rock. Although it was practiced all the way back to early colonial times.


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## AmtrakMaineiac (Feb 21, 2022)

Metra Electric Rider said:


> Bathing was a luxury then - people would have simply hand washed and applied scent. I think they would have been used to the smells - probably the scent of horses in cities overpowered anything else... (I'm not getting in that time machine to find out though)


Even within my own lifetime, growing up in Britain, weekly baths were more common than daily. Especially with many houses not getting central heating until the 1960s or later, needing more hot water than could be provided by a kettle meant making a coal fire in the kitchen fireplace which heated up a tank of water over the fireplace, took all day but was ready once the man of the house returned home from work. Usually this was on Fridays to get cleaned up for the weekend.


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## Metra Electric Rider (Mar 1, 2022)

AmtrakMaineiac said:


> Even within my own lifetime, growing up in Britain, weekly baths were more common than daily. Especially with many houses not getting central heating until the 1960s or later, needing more hot water than could be provided by a kettle meant making a coal fire in the kitchen fireplace which heated up a tank of water over the fireplace, took all day but was ready once the man of the house returned home from work. Usually this was on Fridays to get cleaned up for the weekend.


My mother grew up without running water and electricity in the USA at times* (granted, this was the 1930's) so we weren't that far ahead. 

*Depending on where they lived, in smaller towns there were fewer services obviously, but the TVA electrified towns starting in the mid-30's which was vividly remembered.


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## Bob Dylan (Mar 1, 2022)

Metra Electric Rider said:


> My mother grew up without running water and electricity in the USA at times* (granted, this was the 1930's) so we weren't that far ahead.
> 
> *Depending on where they lived, in smaller towns there were fewer services obviously, but the TVA electrified towns starting in the mid-30's which was vividly remembered.


My dad's family up in the Hills of Western South Carolina did not get electricity until the 1940s when Duke Power ran lines through the Hills where they lived.

Also their water was from a Well( hand delivered via a Bucket with a Pulley with a Rope), the Bathroom was down a path next to the Cow Barn, and the Roads to town were not paved until after WW II.( that Red Mud was something when it Rained).

Now, thanks to the growth of the I-85 Corridor and the Greenville/Spartanburg Area, and the Building of Dams to create Lakes on the Keowee River, those same Hills are prospering as Retirees and Wealthy City dwellers by Homes and "Get-Away" Places there.


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## MARC Rider (Mar 2, 2022)

Bob Dylan said:


> Also their water was from a Well( hand delivered via a Bucket with a Pulley with a Rope), the Bathroom was down a path next to the Cow Barn, and the Roads to town were not paved until after WW II.( that Red Mud was something when it Rained).


I hope both the cow barn and the "bathroom" were downhill from the well.


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## Mailliw (Mar 2, 2022)

It's funny, if you take inflation into account the sleeping car fares are more expensive, but still relatively close to current bedroom fares.



jis said:


> Yeah. Since they did not bathe regularly at home either, it was probably a non-issue. Better of people did the "jug and bwol" deal splashing water using a wet towel to wipe themselves down, something that is easily done in a regular train toilet.


This is why it was traditional to offer newly arrived guests the chance to "freshen up". Even wealthy travelers took some sort of hardship for granted.


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## Ziv (Mar 2, 2022)

I traveled in the UK for 3 weeks in 1991. My GF and I stayed mostly at B&B's that cost less than £20 per night so we were at older homes for the most part. And most of these B&B's had a simple electric device over the top of the tub that heated the water coming out of a shower head slightly before it hit you. I would guess that there was heated water for showers in less than a quarter of the houses we stayed in. Central heating was relatively rare in the older homes too. Most of them had an electric grate that was built to look like a gas stove or a coal stove. Some of them had the 50P slot that you put money into to turn them on. 
I have little doubt that more expensive B&B's had central heat and hot water plumbing, but the cheap ones still did not in 1991. 
I was in the UK back in 2017 and it was amazing to me how much progress the average B&B owner had made in just 26 years.
Of course, I was spending more money per night in 2017...
My favorite B&B on our trip was a really nice in Swansea, just £18 if memory serves. Room was beautiful, bathroom was down the hall but hot water galore. There was a prison right next door and barbed wire immediately outside our window, but the neighbors were quiet...



AmtrakMaineiac said:


> Even within my own lifetime, growing up in Britain, weekly baths were more common than daily. Especially with many houses not getting central heating until the 1960s or later, needing more hot water than could be provided by a kettle meant making a coal fire in the kitchen fireplace which heated up a tank of water over the fireplace, took all day but was ready once the man of the house returned home from work. Usually this was on Fridays to get cleaned up for the weekend.


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## Willbridge (Mar 2, 2022)

Ziv said:


> I traveled in the UK for 3 weeks in 1991. My GF and I stayed mostly at B&B's that cost less than £20 per night so we were at older homes for the most part. And most of these B&B's had a simple electric device over the top of the tub that heated the water coming out of a shower head slightly before it hit you. I would guess that there was heated water for showers in less than a quarter of the houses we stayed in. Central heating was relatively rare in the older homes too. Most of them had an electric grate that was built to look like a gas stove or a coal stove. Some of them had the 50P slot that you put money into to turn them on.
> I have little doubt that more expensive B&B's had central heat and hot water plumbing, but the cheap ones still did not in 1991.
> I was in the UK back in 2017 and it was amazing to me how much progress the average B&B owner had made in just 26 years.
> Of course, I was spending more money per night in 2017...
> My favorite B&B on our trip was a really nice in Swansea, just £18 if memory serves. Room was beautiful, bathroom was down the hall but hot water galore. There was a prison right next door and barbed wire immediately outside our window, but the neighbors were quiet...


In the 60's and 70's one reason not to rent apartments to married GIs in Germany was their tendency to take showers, using up all the hot water.


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