I am interested in information about cost of rail travel and railway systems that would have been used in 1947 to travel from Wheeling, WV to New York City. Any such information would be so very appreciated. Thank you.
In April 1947 (to be specific) if you wished to travel from Wheeling to New York City you could have taken a local Pennsylvania Railroad train from Wheeling to Pittsburgh and there connected to a through train to New York. If you left Wheeling at 9:45 a.m. Mon-Sat you would have arrived Pittsburgh at 12:10 p.m. and there connected to
The Duquesne, arriving New York (Penn Station) that same day at 10:35 p.m. You could also have departed Wheeling at 7:40 p.m. (daily), arriving Pittsburgh at 9:35 p.m. and transferring to the
Iron City Express departing Pittsburgh at 10:00 p.m. and arriving New York City at 7:05 a.m. the next morning. If you had the budget to travel first class there was a parlor car available between Pittsburgh and New York on the day train and a through sleeper with 8 sections and 4 double bedrooms from Wheeling to New York (the entire car would be transferred from train to train, so you wouldn't have to connect) on the night train.
Alternately, you could have taken one of several Baltimore & Ohio trains from Wheeling and made connections in Pittsburgh or Grafton, WV. There was a through sleeper on this line as well; it left Wheeling at 9:40 p.m., arrived Grafton at 1:00 a.m., and was transferred there to the
National Limited departing Grafton at 1:12 a.m., passing through Washington at 8:00 a.m. and arriving across the river from New York (there were ferries and shuttle buses to Manhattan) at the Jersey Central's Jersey City Terminal at 12:28 p.m. There is a
timetable for this service available on my web site...it is from 1941 and there is a few minutes' difference in the times, but the station stops are still (mostly) the same.
Unfortunately I do not have detailed fare information for this time period, but if you estimate 2.3 cents per mile in coach (Pennsylvania routing 505 miles; B&O routing 577 miles) or 3.5 cents a mile plus a Pullman charge of $12 per night in a sleeper berth or $4.50 for a day in the parlor car for first class travel you will not be grossly in error. To those rates be sure to add the 15% Federal Tax which was levied on all rail tickets at this time.
