ALL:
This question is about the Broadway Limited vs. the 20th Century, both heavyweight and lightweight editions.
It seems that the NYC and PRR cooperated to the point that they introduced their versions on the same day.
Which train was the better of the two? That is a subjective answer. The 20th Century had more advertising, but the Broadway was more conversative, reflecting the PRR management.
Just for fun.
Ed Burns
Happily Retired NP-BN-BNSF from Minneapolis.
I got paid to watch trains!
I wouldn’t call it cooperation. I would call it “We can’t let the other guy get ahead”. One did 20 hours, the other did 20. One made it 18, the other went to 18. At one point each one was making 16 1/2 hours. Unless you were travelling between the 2 end points, the best train was the one that took you where you wanted to go. As far as the 2 end points, I can almost promise you that half the readers will say the Century and the other half will say The Broadway. As you said, it is truly subjective. Personally, I am a mountain person. Give me the Alleghenys and Horseshoe Curve any day.
Of course on the Broadway you got the Alleghenys at night…
My grandfather used the Century until the mid-1960s, when the New York Central dropped some of the amenities. He used the Broadway a couple of times after that. Before the mid-1960s he only rode the PRR on the way to Texas.
I only rode the Century once, in a slumbercoach, long after it stopped being exclusive. The Broadway I only rode after Amtrak.
Being a New York Central fan, I have to go with the Century. With easy grades along the Water Level Route, in the steam era the Central could do the run with one locomotive. Whereas Pennsy would often have to double-head.
Shovel all the coal in, gotta keep 'em rolling… John.
From everything I’ve read in TRAINS over the years, the Century kicked the Broadway for patronage. Altho growing up in Cleveland, I never got to ride the Century; it was a wee-hours non-stop for Cleveland. (Just a crew and maybe an engine change, I think.)
The Century never did go into the PublicTerminal, and stopped only in Colingwood for crew change. This was true for many years of The New England States as well. Having ridden both during the good years, a tossup.
I’ll go out on a limb and predict Pennsy fans prefer the Broadway, and Central fans the Century. It’s a little like asking “who was the better centerfielder - Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, or Duke Snyder?” The answers you get are going to be influenced by whether someone favored the Yankees, Giants or Dodgers.
There does seem to have been some cooperation, if one road added new equipment or speeded up the schedule, they announced it far enough ahead that the other road could “catch up”. I think at some point they agreed to keep the same time from NYC to Chicago, rather than trying to trim a few minutes here and there, and concentrate on competing with amenities - who had the better food for example.
Pennsy used the more scenic, mountainous route as a selling point, while NYC promoted their flat “Water Level Route”. One had better scenery, the other had a smoother ride during the night - no ups and downs to roll you around in bed.
Pullman was really responsible for the coordination, and most of the cars. The big change came in 1958 when NYC took all of its cars off Pullman lease and began to operate its own sleeping car services.
I only got to see the 20th Century Limited once. It raced through Waterloo Indiana shaking every window of the Green Parrot Cafe where my family was about to have supper. I will never forget that. The next year the movie North By Northwest came out and my family was going to travel by train to New York. Pleas to travel on the 20th Century Limited fell on deaf ears. We rode the Burlington Morning Zephyr to Union Station where we missed the connection to the General by five minutes. Space on the Broadway was easy to obtain. It now meant that we were going to be traveling in a sleeping car not in one of the General’s coaches. I will never forget sleeping in a Pullman double roomette or the superb food. In 1959 there were still several passengers who were businessmen bound for New York or Philadelphia. As a young teenager, I thought how could the Pennsylvania change 20 cents for a coke, otherwise it was the best train I ever rode, hands down!
From what I’ve read, both the Century and the Broadway were equals as far as accomodations, food, and services were concerned, but the Century ALWAYS beat the Broadway as far as patronage, to the fury and frustration of PRR officials. Rail historians have been trying to figure that one out for years.
Possibly the Century had an edge because of the high-profile friends it had, such as journalist and bon vivant Lucius Beebe, and the “New Yorker” magazine’s Rogers Whittaker. They loved the Century and made sure everyone else did too!
Or maybe the Century won more of those unofficial races out of Chicago’s Englewood station? Americans love a winner!
And having a Broadway play and Hollywood film (both hits) called “Twentieth Century” that took place on the train must have helped a bit as well in the recognition department.
The Broadway got the last laugh though, the Century dying in 1967 while the Broadway continued on into (I think) the Amtrak era.
The westbound States was wee-hours into Cleveland, like the Century, so no boarding of passengers there made sense. (Amtrak, take note.) Eastbound, the States was one of 2 good daylight Chicago-Cleveland trains in the 1960s. (I rode the States as well as the Fifth Avenue Special into Cleveland.)
May have been otherwise earlier; I haven’t checked.
Excerpt from Limiteds, Locals, and Expresses in Indiana 1838-1971 by Craig Sanders (2003)
To prevent confusion with the Pennsylvania Limited, the Pennsylvania renamed the Pennsylvania Special the Broadway Limited on November 24, 1912. By some accounts the Pennsy intended the name to be Broad Way Limited in honor of the multiple track mainline between New York and Pittsburgh. But newspaper stories spelled it Broadway, leaving many to erroneously believe the train was named for New York’s theater district.
Excerpt from Printers’ Ink, Jan. 23, 1913
Last summer Printers’ Ink published a letter from a correspondent who was seriously wondering if it had not been a mistake for the Pennsylvania Railroad to have called its eighteen-hour train between New York and Chicago the “Pennsylvania Special” when it already had a “Pennsylvania Limited.” Personally, he said, he was never sure whether it was the “Special” or the “Limited” that made the run in eighteen hours; he found many of his friends to whom he put the question confused, too. He pointed out the fact that nobody was ever confused about the name or character of the “Twentieth Century Limited,” which was known certainly not less by its name than by the advertising of its name.
It is a fact, possibly having no connection with the letter, that the name of the “Pennsylvania Special” was
I presume they took the Belt Line around Cleveland to avoid the 2 engine changes, steam to electric thru CUT, and then back to steam.
Also, was there a charge for even just passing through CUT? Why pay such a charge if you are not going to receive or discharge?
The “Century” operated via the lake front and avoided CUT.
While its true that the 20th Century Limited and Broadway Limited were equals in terms of equipment, scheduling and amenities, the general public perceived the Century as superior due to NYC’s efforts in marketing and branding of the train. Wanswheel’s earlier entry which included the 1913 Printer’s Ink letter concerning the renaming the Pennsylvania Special to the Broadway Limited hits the nail on the head. The name “20th Century Limited”, developed by NYC’s general passenger agent, George H Daniels, caught the public’s attention right from the beginning.
PRR made a strategic mistake in naming its entry the Pennsylvania Special instead of developing a unique name that also could attract the public’s attention. To be fair, in the pre-WW1 years, the prevalent business attitude was that a good product should stand on its own merits and most advertising of the time focused on informing. But at the same time, the novel concept of marketing and branding was starting to be utilized by forward thinking businesses, such as NYC. So during the time that the Pennsylvania Special existed (including the time period between February 1903 and November 1905, when the Special did not run, giving NYC carte
I may have missed them, but I do not recall seeing any notice that the PRR ran additional sections of the Broadway Limited; this seems to have been a regular matter with the 20th Century Limited.
And with the airlines of today - even 1st Class has less ‘prestige’ for the class of passenger that would book passage on the 20th Century Limited or ‘The DeLuxe’ - for them to get the class of service they desire, they buy and staff their own jets. Commercial airlines or other means of public transportation - NEVER!
Also, when the well-heeled travel by private jet, either their own or a rental from say, NetJets, they also avoid encounters with TSA or other airport security.
Don’t have to mix with the hoi-polloi in the terminals either.
No waiting on line for that crowd. I’d do it too if I could afford it.
Farm Implements, Aug. 28, 1916
The Two Finest Trains in the World
By H.C. Beckman, Manager, Special Centrifugals Department, Chicago Office, De Laval Separator Co.
In thousands of hotel writing rooms all over the country are handsomely colored lithographs of the New York Central Twentieth Century Limited, the twenty-hour train (used to be eighteen) running between Chicago and New York, a train of solid Pullmans of steel construction and the latest design throughout, equipped with every conceivable convenience—barber shop, bathroom, valet, fine large buffet smoker for the men, combination library and observation car for the ladies, stenographer for the busy business man, colored maids for the ladies, telephone connections which make it possible to telephone from the trai