Here are some color photos of New York Central Railroad's "Great Steel Fleet" which traveled between the Midwest and Northeast via Ohio. Here are some photos of these trains, primarily from the 1940s and 50s, inside and out.....

 

To the west, New York Central trains ended at St. Louis and, here, at Chicago's LaSalle Street Station. The old station was demolished and replaced with a Metra commuter rail station in the base of a new skyscraper. This is the old station and part of the fleet of trains, dozens of which sped across Ohio each day...

 

 

 

To the east, New York Central built and owned Grand Central Terminal in New York City...

 

 

 

In between were "lesser" stations, like Cleveland's large Union Terminal and its Union Terminal Tower, later known simply as Terminal Tower...

 

 

 

Serving them were lovely trains, featuring amenities like these Diner/Lounges...

 

 

 

 

Or this Tavern Lounge...

 

 

 

Or this Parlor car...

 

 

 

This is the Empire State Express, which operated daily between Cleveland and New York City. The train service started on Dec. 7, 1941. Something else happened that day which overshadowed the festivities and dampened the mood...

 

 

 

The diner on the Empire State Express....

 

 

 

Classic lightning stripe paint scheme on the New York Central's new diesel locomotives....

 

 

 

At the other end of New York Central's great trains were often observation cars, with lounge service and a view of the tracks receding at 85 mph....

 

 

 

Coach cars on the New York Central....

 

 

 

OK, they're models, but damn they're purdy. These are bedrooms on the New York Central's overnight trains...

 

 

 

More PR. Some New York Central advertising...

 

 

 

The New York Central's premier train, and one of the finest in the world during its 65-year run that ended in 1967 -- the 20th Century Limited. It ran overnight in each direction daily between Chicago and New York City in less than 16 hours, or an average of 62 mph (several hours faster than trains that make the run today)....

 

 

So many people rode the 20th Century Limited, New York Central often ran more than one section of it, minutes behind the first train. Here are two of the sections at Chicago's LaSalle Street Station after their overnight dash from New York City. What a great era of civilized transportation....

 

 

The amazing thing about all of this is the fact that this was just one railroad. Imagine what things would be like if we had this level of service today! Hope you enjoyed the show!

Very cool, don't see pictures like these too often.

awesome pics!

Jeez, what have we done? Rather, what has been done to us?

I think the Indiana Transportation Museum at Noblesville still owns one of the former 20th Century observation cars. The last time I saw it, it was pretty shabby on the inside but mechanically sound enough for short-line excursions.

 

One of Mom's friends, a nurse in New York City whom Mom met when doing public-health nursing there in the mid-1930s, used to come to Indiana for her vacations during and after WWII, up through the early sixties. She'd rotate visits with our family and two others to spend the hottest few weeks of summer away from her apartment in Brooklyn. She was always welcomed by Mom, especially after we moved to the farm; she made her own bed, did her own laundry, grocery shopped and fixed two of the three daily meals (5 a.m. breakfast was a bit early for her), introducing us to big-city cuisine, especially Italian, and giving Mom a much-needed break.

 

Only once did she come into Fort Wayne on the Pennsylvania Railroad, because of difficulty booking space on New York Central. On other visits, she traveled on the Pacemaker to Waterloo, about 30 miles away, where one of her host families picked her up. She had a strong preference; she said the New York Central's trains were cleaner, the ride was more comfortable, and the employees were more courteous and friendly.

 

It would be interesting to compare the last photo with a contemporary one from the same vantage point.

I took a photo in 1984 at a similar vantage point, as the skyscraper was being built where LaSalle Street Station was. The tracks and platforms were also being redone. It's not a contemporary photo, but it still might be an interesting comparison.

A video of the 20th Century Limited running through Toledo in the 50's... a litle choppy, but one very good shot it flying by...

 

 

And some 1950's views at Cincinnati Union Terminal:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7nx-A6rxyk&feature=related

Great thread. Thanks everybody.

New York Central promotional video showing all the behind-the-scenes work that made the 20th Century Limited such a special train.  My dad hired out on the New York Central in the 1950s.  He told me that for a while, he worked a job out of Cleveland Union Terminal that included shuttling EDIT:  mail cars up to Collinwood where they were added onto the 20th Century Limited while it was re-fueling there.  The train itself didn't serve Union Terminal.

 

Part 1:

 

 

Part 2:

 

Nice shots of the Century arriving at Toledo.

 

He told me that for a while, he worked a job out of Cleveland Union Terminal that included shuttling passenger cars up to Collinwood where they were added onto the 20th Century Limited while it was re-fueling there. The train itself didn't serve Union Terminal, but that's how Clevelanders could ride "The Century."

 

 

I'm pretty sure only mail cars were forwarded to Collinwood to the Century since the main post office was above Cleveland Union Terminal's track level until 1982 (although the last train, the commuter to Youngstown, was in 1977). Maybe in the later years of the 20th Century Limited they forwarded passenger cars but even then none of NYC timetables I have from the 1960s show any Cleveland-New York cars handled by the Century. There were plenty of other fast trains for Clevelanders to take overnight to New York in more attractive time slots as the Century, including:

 

Interstate Express, dp CLE @ 6:25P, ar NYC @ 7:00A

Fifth Avenue Special, dp CLE @ 7:20P, ar NYC @ 7:10A

Cleveland Limited/Southwestern Limited, dp CLE @ 9:10P, ar NYC @ 8:05A

The Pacemaker, dp CLE @ 10:00P, ar NYC @ 8:45A

The Knickerbocker, dp CLE @ 12:10A, ar NYC @ 12:25P

 

Four other deluxe eastbound passenger trains passed through Cleveland within about two hours of each other (from 9-11 p.m.) but skipped Union Terminal, stopping only at Collinwood for mail and refueling:

 

Ohio State Limited, Cincinnati to New York City

New England States, Chicago to Boston

Commodore Vanderbilt, Chicago to New York City

20th Century Limited, Chicago to New York City

 

So, yes, as recently as the mid-1950s Cleveland had NINE scheduled eastbound New York Central passenger trains (doesn't count extra unscheduled sections to handle overflow crowds) between 6 p.m. and midnight passing through the city to the East Coast (mostly to NYC). Five were scheduled to travel via CUT and stopped here.

 

Plus there was Pennsylvania Railroad's Clevelander that in 1955 ran on a comparable overnight schedule to New York City, leaving Cleveland just after 7 p.m. and arriving Penn Station in midtown Manhattan just after 7 a.m. And the Erie ran a slightly slower train, the Lake Cities, from Cleveland to Jersey City NJ. It left Cleveland in 1954 at 6 p.m. and arrived Jersey City just after 7 a.m. A ferry took passengers to Manhattan. It was moved to Lackawanna's Hoboken Terminal after the 1960 merger creating Erie-Lackawanna.

 

So Clevelanders had a choice of seven trains each evening to New York City.

^Well, it was 54 years ago.  Maybe he misremembered.  Now that I think about it, he's told me that a couple of times.  I think the first time he said mail cars.  My dad's railroad career was 42 years.  He worked a lot of crazy hours and a lot of different jobs and 5 different railroads: Nickel Plate (short stint as a clerk), Santa Fe (for like 3 or 6 months when he was laid off in Cleveland), NYC, Penn Central, Conrail).  When the Penn Central filed bankruptcy, the bank wouldn't take his paycheck for deposit unless he had enough in his savings account to cover it.  Lots of years, lots of work, many thousands of cars switched.  He'll tell you he put in so many hours that he worked two lifetimes on the railroad.

 

Apologies, everybody!

No need for apologies. I'd like to hear more of his stories.

^Well, it was 54 years ago.  Maybe he misremembered.  Now that I think about it, he's told me that a couple of times.  I think the first time he said mail cars.  My dad's railroad career was 42 years.  He worked a lot of crazy hours and a lot of different jobs and 5 different railroads: Nickel Plate (short stint as a clerk), Santa Fe (for like 3 or 6 months when he was laid off in Cleveland), NYC, Penn Central, Conrail).  When the Penn Central filed bankruptcy, the bank wouldn't take his paycheck for deposit unless he had enough in his savings account to cover it.  Lots of years, lots of work, many thousands of cars switched.  He'll tell you he put in so many hours that he worked two lifetimes on the railroad.

 

Apologies, everybody!

 

Gildone, your dad might have been thinking about a shuttle that ran from CUT to Collinwood. That train was just a locomotive, a rider coach and a baggage car and ferried mail to the 20th Century at the latter point. The train would pull up alongside the Century, lining up baggage doors with each train and workers would throw bags of mail from one train to the other. They had ramps but it was faster to simply toss the bags.

 

This came from an article by Richard J. Cook I read years ago.

I was surprised (even a little disappointed) to hear an informed young person ask me recently what are those steel structures alongside the GCRTA's Red Line. I wonder how many people know of the Great Steel fleet of passenger trains that ran under the electric wires that were supported by those steel structures along the Red Line. I wonder how long it will be before this great network of frequent, modern, comfortable and fast passenger trains is completely forgotten. Or that our city's, state's and nation's economy depended on them.

 

But most of all, some of the scenes from that era were and still are awe-inspiring. My 84-year-old dad was seven years old when this picture was taken in 1936. This is New York Central Railroad's 90-mph "Mercury" (the fleet-footed Greek god) which zipped between downtown Cleveland and downtown Detroit in 2 hours and 45 minutes -- faster than you can legally drive it 77 years later despite the government spending billions in tax dollars to build duplicate transportation corridors that externalized the costs of driving and nearly wrecked the private-sector financed, owned and operated railroads. Yet even seven years into the worst economic downtown this nation has ever seen, New York Central RR rebuilt some of its existing Hudson locomotives and unused commuter coaches with a design by industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss that literally stunned a Depression-weary America.

 

This train, linking America's fourth- and sixth-largest cities, was the talk of the nation. It got Americans looking ahead with some optimism, for a change. And it was the railroads that got them thinking differently. For their signal of optimism was green for a 90-mph train that scorched the rails between Cleveland and Detroit...........

 

 

^

That is one great shot. Can you imagine having the Mercury today? Speed aside, it set a level of amenities not found on many trains today. For such a short hop, it had a full dining car and an observation car, where you could sit and watch the rails recede in the distance.

 

yow

That's an awesome shot.  KJP, do you know if they RRs ever considered electrifying any routes out of Cleveland (other than the CUT-related electrified segment)?  When was the NYC-DC corridor electrified?

That's an awesome shot.  KJP, do you know if they RRs ever considered electrifying any routes out of Cleveland (other than the CUT-related electrified segment)?  When was the NYC-DC corridor electrified?

 

Why yes, they did. If you can imagine it today, then the railroads imagined it back then. And then some. In fact, some of the plans were very ambitious. Also, many people today may find this hard to believe but the USA had many more miles of electrified railroad than any other nation. In fact 20 percent of all electrified railroad lines in the world were in the USA!

 

First, Pennsylvania RR electrified the Northeast Corridor from New York City to Washington DC, paid by a Works Progress Administration loan in 1934. The New Haven RR electrified its line from NYC to New Haven, CT in 1914.

 

As for plans for electrification, check out:  http://ctr.trains.com/en/Railroad%20Reference/Operations/2001/01/Railroad%20electrification%20proposals.aspx

 

Some of the plans cited at that link.....

 

+ New York Central RR (shown in the pictures here), considered extending its New York City-Croton electrification to Buffalo and then to Cleveland.

 

+ Pennsylvania Railroad planned to extend its electrification from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh.

 

+ During the 1970s energy crises, Southern Railway planned to electrify the city-owned right-of-way from Cincinnati to Chattanooga and eventually to Atlanta.

 

One electrification plan not mentioned at the above link was for a 100-mph interurban railway from Chicago to New York City by upgrading the South Shore line from Chicago to South Bend and extending it eastward. That 1910s-era plan was made moot by the decline in interurban railways thanks to the government-funded proliferation of paved roads.

^

 

I had a copy of an article in the New York Central Historical Society that went into detail about the postwar plans for electrifying the Harmon NY-Buffalo NY main line in 1946. The study was done by GE and they anticipated using the same streamlined electric locomotives that were in use on the New Haven RR at the time. Plans also called for cutting the schedule of the 20th Century Limited to 15 hours between New York and Chicago and acquiring 125 new 4-8-4 Niagara locomotives to forward passenger trains west from Buffalo. Some electrics and Niagaras would have been dedicated for freight service as well.

 

The newsletter noted that the decision to switch to diesels was the correct one, especially in view of the decline of passenger business post-1950. Still, it would have been interesting if it had come to pass.

 

As far as the Pennsylvania's plans to electrify between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh go, they would have realized tremendous savings by replacing many steam helpers on steep Allegheny grades and would have speeded up passenger and freight service in the process. PRR could have set itself up to run the table vs. the competition by doing this. Sadly, they did not.

 

BTW, the B&O briefly considered electrifying its Royal Blue line between Washington DC and Philadelphia, but the cost and great performance by its new diesels killed the idea.

Just to give an impression of the size and scope of the New York Central's operations, here are the weekday departures form New York's Grand Central Terminal in 1946:

 

250 am #199 local to Albany

440 am #9 local to Buffalo

710 am #107 local to Albany

830 am #55 Advance Empire State Express - to Syracuse

900 am #51 Empire State Express - to Cleveland/Detroit*

915 am #5 The Mohawk to Buffalo

1025 am #93 local to Buffalo

1200 n  #39 The North Shore Limited - to Chicago via Detroit

130 pm #49 Advance Knickerbocker - to Buffalo and Cincinnati

245 pm #41 The Knickerbocker - to St. Louis*

330 pm #65 The Advance Commodore Vanderbilt - to Chicago*

352 pm #161 local to Albany

400 pm #15 The Ohio State Limited - to Cincinnati*

415 pm #1 The Pacemaker - to Chicago*

425 pm #367 Upstate Special - to Utica

440 pm #67 The Commodore Vanderbilt - to Chicago*

520 pm #63 The Water Level - to Chicago*

600 pm #25 The Twentieth Century Limited - to Chicago* (often called the World's Greatest Train)

605 pm #17 The Wolverine - to Detroit and Chicago*

630 pm #19 The Lake Shore Limited - to Chicago*

700 pm #47 The Detroiter - to Detroit*

730 pm #11 The Southwestern Limited - to St. Louis*

740 pm #127 local to Albany

800 pm #57 The Cleveland Limited - to Cleveland*

810 pm #21 The Ontarian/Lake Erie - to Toronto/Cleveland

850 pm #29 The Niagara - to Buffalo

1005 pm #145 The Mount Royal - to Montreal via Rutland RR north of Albany

1045 pm The Fast Mail - to Chicago

1130 pm #61 The Montreal Limited - to Montreal via Delaware & Hudson north of Albany*

1130 pm #59 The Iroquois - to Chicago*

1135 pm #159 The Western Express - to Buffalo

1145 pm #81 The Genesee - to Buffalo*

1155 pm #135 The Seneca - to Rochester

1205 am #163 The Cayuga - to Syracuse

145 am #43 local - to Buffalo

 

* Feature train - the best the railroad offered, with sleepers, coaches, first class parlor cars, lounges and observation cars on certain trains. Some of these ran in sections due to heavy business.