Chicago Connecting Railroads - 1930's and 1940's
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RAILROAD INDEX to locate another Railroad
Some other interesting links to 30's and 40's railraod memories are:
Back in the 30's and 40's, many trains in and out of Chicago connected to non-Chicago railroads to complete their journies to and from distant cities. A good many of these trains were very prestigious, with fine pullman and coach accomodations, dining cars, and observation lounge cars on fast and competitive schedules. Pulled primarily with heavy weight cars and steam locomotives in the early 30's, a good portion had converted to newer lightweight streamlined car sets with diesel electric power by the end of the 40's. Most all steam was gone by the early 50's. Other conections were less pretentious, maybe just a sleeper or coach or two to get to the final destination.
Two fine example of railroads connecting to trains originating in Chicago, in the 30's and 40's, would be the Great Northern, with its own "Empire Builder" and the Northern Pacific, with it's "North Coast Limited". The Chicago host railroad the Burlington escorted these luxurious trains to Minneapolis where the GN and NP lines originated. The Spokane Portland and Seattle made sure that these two great Seattle bound trains could be split, in Washington State for a Portland, Oregon section.
Another good example of connecting railroads was the Union Pacific, that originated, in the mis-thirties, the "City" trains, a group of early articulated lightweight diesel-electric powered trains, sparking competition to Denver, Portland, OR, Los Angeles and San Francisco. These introductions along with the Burlington Zephyrs, really kicked off a competitive frenzy which affected, in particular, other Chicago railroads like the Santa Fe, Rock Island, and Illinois Central, who soon followed with lightweight streamliners, some articulated and others with separate diesel-electric head end power.
The Mobile and Ohio would have made the list of Chicago Connecting railroads had they continued the through Pullman car service between Chicago and Mobile, in conjunction with the IC, wich was available in 1931. This service ended by 1933, so we have relegated the M&O to the Southern Railroad list The Chicago St. Paul Minneapolis and Omaha (Omaha Route)
was actually a quiet road controlled by and listed in timetables of the C&NW, a Chicagho Road, and is listed here since it provided some of the C&NW connections to St. Paul, and Ashlaand. .
Chicago Connecting Railroad Special Sources
The private timetable collection of Richard R.Parks
Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia- (web)
The Official Guide of the Railways-Various dates
Your source for 1930's-1940's Public Timetable and Railroad History
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Web Page Written and Maintained by Richard
Parks
Copyright © Richard Parks, April 25, 2009