I am not personally old enough to remember the pre-Amtrak days, and I am a little bit curious as to the practicalities of travel back then. Specifically, I was wondering how one would handle booking tickets that required journeys on multiple railroads. If I wanted to get from NYP to LAX in 1950 could I call up the Pensy reservations office and have them book my connection to a western railroad on my behalf? Or would I have to call each relevant railroad independently? Was there any such thing as a guaranteed connection between different companies?
I have bought rail tickets in the UK that involved segments on multiple carriers, but that was still through national rail.
The originating railway usually arranged the entire trip. That could require a lot of work, which was one of the reasons for city center ticket offices, rail ticket offices at military bases, etc. Usually the agents in those sites were knowledgeable about common connections and gateway cities (such as Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis, New Orleans). If you were lucky they also knew some obscure routings -- in 1967 I obtained around 1500 miles of free travel added to a PDX-STL round-trip -- due to the knowledge of the NP city ticket office agent in Portland.
Here's what was provided in '67 for $99.75 round-trip, plus a $1.50 seat reservation charge:
Portland - SP&S - Pasco - NP - Minneapolis - CB&Q - Chicago stopover - IC - St. Louis destination - GM&O - Chicago - CMStP&P - St. Paul - NP - Hawley - NP - Winnipeg - CN - Edmonton stopover - CN - Vancouver, BC - GN - Seattle - UP pool - Portland. My suitcase followed the same route, so a customs agent had to walk over to Portland Union Station to inspect my dirty laundry.
This was easier to set up than it looks, as most of the links were unreserved coach.
Connections were a patchwork. Some, as in Portland north-south, would be held for delayed arrivals. On the other hand, an SP&S engineer on Train 1 testified that he often saw the rear marker lights of the SP
Shasta Daylight when he missed the 35-minute connection. The SP would depart punctually and then be held at Millersburg to wait for a piggyback train. Most tickets could be used on later trains, but rebooking reserved sleeper, parlor or coach space could be a hassle. Travel insurance could help.
Until the mid-1960's the consequences of missing a connection were usually not as severe as today, because there were more trains. On the other hand, the following train often was handling mail and express and making intermediate stops, which angered some customers. A good ticket agent also knew which routings included Union Stations and good back-up connections for novices; for example, PDX - CHI - NYP would connect best to the Pennsy in Chicago Union Station, with the premiere Pennsy trains in the afternoon followed by two more trains that evening.