It is Forty Years Ago Tonight...

[Anderson]

Forty years ago less three hours and a few minutes of this posting, the last Super Chief was scheduled to depart Los Angeles. In many ways, I consider tonight to be more significant than tomorrow...in four hours and 41 minutes, the first Amtrak train, a Clocker, will depart Penn Station, but for now the Santa Fe, the Penn Central, the SCL...they're all running their last rounds of passenger trains in preparation for the handoff.

So, say that instead of April 30, 2011...it's April 30, 1971. You have a blank check ticket on any train in the country that is leaving today, the last day of the pre-Amtrak era, from any destination to any destination that train will take you. Where are you, and why?

Bonus question: If there's anyone who took a train on April 30, 1971 on the forum: Which train(s)?

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

Forty years ago less three hours and a few minutes of this posting, the last Super Chief was scheduled to depart Los Angeles. In many ways, I consider tonight to be more significant than tomorrow...in four hours and 41 minutes, the first Amtrak train, a Clocker, will depart Penn Station, but for now the Santa Fe, the Penn Central, the SCL...they're all running their last rounds of passenger trains in preparation for the handoff.

So, say that instead of April 30, 2011...it's April 30, 1971. You have a blank check ticket on any train in the country that is leaving today, the last day of the pre-Amtrak era, from any destination to any destination that train will take you. Where are you, and why?

Bonus question: If there's anyone who took a train on April 30, 1971 on the forum: Which train(s)?

I was on the last train out of town. Are you surprised? Probably not. It was on the nameless remnant of the once proud Louisville and Nashville's Georgian. It left St. Louis April 30 and I boarded it the next morning May 1 in Chattanooga to ride to Atlanta. It was 2 hrs 35 minutes late. I came back to Chattanooga that night on a Greyhound bus.

Very few people on board seemed to know it was the last trip. I felt bitter sweet because of course it meant the loss of passenger trains in Chattanooga. Yet service levels had sunk so low it was almost an embarrasment.

Some of you are familiar with the Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel complex, the former Southern RR Terminal Station. But this train did not run through that station, it ran through Union Station which was destroyed not long after. The last train from the Terminal Station was the remnant of the Birmingham Special in 1970.

Bonus point: There was a newspaper article which named the crew. It so happened that many years later after I had moved to Atlanta I discovered that the conductor was the father of a guy I knew at my job in Atlanta. Small world!!!

 

[railiner]

I've given long thought to the original question and if I could go back, I would take the eastbound Union Pacific City of Portland all the way. First of all, I considered what trains I have already ridden and what routes, and what equipment. And what would be the likelyhood of getting another chance in the future to actually do it.

I chose that train because it is one of the longer runs (arrives destination on May 2). It offers a ride on a route that won't likely be restored, especially between McCammon, Id., and Granger, Wy., and from Omaha to Chicago on the MILW. And the joining with the City of San Francisco, and the City of Los Angeles, and the City of Denver enroute into the humongous "City of Everywhere". And the imcomparable experience of eating in the beautiful dome diner.

There were other equally tempting choices, such as the San Francisco Chief, but I have ridden that equipment, and it looks like the Southwest Chief may soon be routed that way, at least as far as Barstow. And I have ridden the original CZ.

My ultimate choice would have been the Olympian Hiawatha, but it was long gone by 1971, and I believe so was the Golden State.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

I've given long thought to the original question and if I could go back, I would take the eastbound Union Pacific City of Portland all the way. First of all, I considered what trains I have already ridden and what routes, and what equipment. And what would be the likelyhood of getting another chance in the future to actually do it.

I chose that train because it is one of the longer runs (arrives destination on May 2). It offers a ride on a route that won't likely be restored, especially between McCammon, Id., and Granger, Wy., and from Omaha to Chicago on the MILW. And the joining with the City of San Francisco, and the City of Los Angeles, and the City of Denver enroute into the humongous "City of Everywhere". And the imcomparable experience of eating in the beautiful dome diner.

There were other equally tempting choices, such as the San Francisco Chief, but I have ridden that equipment, and it looks like the Southwest Chief may soon be routed that way, at least as far as Barstow. And I have ridden the original CZ.

My ultimate choice would have been the Olympian Hiawatha, but it was long gone by 1971, and I believe so was the Golden State.

If I had to name one all time favorite pre Amtrak car it would be the UP dome diner. It must be noted that this was well before Superliners at which time eating upstairs, while still special, became less unique.

 

[NS VIA Fan]

If I had to name one all time favorite pre Amtrak car it would be the UP dome diner.

Nothing finer than dinner in a Dome Diner.......(from a UP brochure)

 

[Bob Dylan]

I would Pick the MoPac Texas Eagle from Laredo,Texas to St. Louis! Had a Dome Car, Pullmans and Full Diner! :wub: This Train did not go through Ft. Worth or Dallas but Cut over from Austin through East Texas, Up through Arkansas to Cape Giradeau,Mo. and followed the Mississippi River in St. Louis' Beauitful Union Station! I took this Train the day I left for the Service from San Marcos, Tx to St. Louis, somehow the Eagle Today Just Isn't the Same in Many ways!!

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

If I had to name one all time favorite pre Amtrak car it would be the UP dome diner.

Nothing finer than dinner in a Dome Diner.......(from a UP brochure)

Many,many thanks NS VIA fan.

 

[railiner]

If I had to name one all time favorite pre Amtrak car it would be the UP dome diner.

Nothing finer than dinner in a Dome Diner.......(from a UP brochure)

Many,many thanks NS VIA fan.

Same here!

the Amtrak Superliner diner pales in comparison. If it had the windows of the SSL, it would be closer.

The various dome cars on the Alaska RR train owned by the RR and by three cruislines, come very close, but unfortunately, they serve dinner in the lower level dining room, and the dome seats are the 'coaches', even though they have tables.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Let me put myself in perspective- its April 30th 1971, and nobody knew with any certainty that Water Level Service to Chicago would run again. I think I'd be either on Penn Central 64 or Baltimore and Ohio 6, completing a run that week that would include the City of Los Angeles, the Cascade, UP 457/458, and the North Coast Limited.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

I would Pick the MoPac Texas Eagle from Laredo,Texas to St. Louis! Had a Dome Car, Pullmans and Full Diner! :wub: This Train did not go through Ft. Worth or Dallas but Cut over from Austin through East Texas, Up through Arkansas to Cape Giradeau,Mo. and followed the Mississippi River in St. Louis' Beauitful Union Station! I took this Train the day I left for the Service from San Marcos, Tx to St. Louis, somehow the Eagle Today Just Isn't the Same in Many ways!!

Both Jim and George Harris have written some neat stuff recently about the old Texas Eagle.

To elaborate it used to originate in ST.Louis, not CHI. There were other lines to do that.

There were two TE's leaving St. Louis about 10 minutes apart.

One train went to Dallas, Fort Worth and El Paso. It had through sleepers from New York, Washington and Chicago. Sleeper and coach from Memphis to D/Fort Worth added to the train in Little Rock.A sleeper from Dallas to Los Angeles.Sleepers from St.Louis to El Dorado, Shreveport and Lake Charles.

The other train went to San Antonio and Houston, dividing in Palestine.Through sleeper from Chicago and New York.Maybe sometimes from Washington. Through sleeper Memphis to Houston. At times a through sleeper from St Louis to Mexico City other times from Chicago to Mexico City. A slumbercoach from a Baltimore

to San Antonio.

Later in years the two sections out of St.Louis became one train, really requiring lots of switching. There was also a period with the Louisiana Eagle from New Orleans to D/FW combining with the train at Longview,I believe.

Oh yes, there was another train or two on this same route, it was not the TE only.The TE was the premier train though, no doubt. It began life in 1948 as an especially beautiful two color blue train.

My sister was thoughful enough to live in Dallas for my benefit for a few years so I got to ride the Memphis section to Dallas. I recall seeing the two sections arriving within minutes of each other at Little Rock around 1 a.m. Both extra long because of the Christmas holidays. Truly thrilling.

 

[NorthCoastHiawatha]

Just one train you say? Wow thats a tough one....really tough one. I would probably have to take the North Coast Limited in its entirety.

 

[Zephyr Stowaway]

I'm getting in this a little late, but I wouldn't even have to think about the train that I would want to ride. I would ride the Silver Lady once again, the California Zephyr.

I rode the Zephyr from Chicago to SF and back in 1960 when I was just 11 years old. My sister was the Zephyrette on that trip and she took me along. What an experience!

Tom