Have just finished reading (again) Peter Hansen’s excellent article on Northern Pacific’s decision to modernize the North Coast Limited (‘Dream Trains’, Classic Trains, 2003) and I am puzzled about one element of the process. When the the NCL was improved, The Mainstreeter was introduced as its running mate, serving communities that would no longer be conveniently served on the NCL’s new, faster schedule, Hansen explains it this way: ‘… The Mainstreeter, which would assume the North Coast’s numbers, 1 and 2 (the North Coast became 25 and 26)’.
Why the need to change the number? Why not leave the NCL as 1 & 2 and make The Mainstreeter 25 & 26?
The NCL was a through train from Chicago to Seattle (and Portland). The Mainstreeter carried through cars from Chicago, but originated in St. Paul. NP’s desire to have the train carry the same number the entire way meant that Burlington set the number, not NP. Burlington used 1 on the Denver Zephyr (eastbound was 10, train 2 was an unnamed Zephyr from Hannibal Missouri covered by one of the low 9900 articulated trains). The pre-streamlined NCL ran as 51 and 50 on the Burlington.
GN used 1 and 2 for the Empire Builder west of St. Paul. Burlington ran it as 31 and 32 for many years, but it ran under other numbers as well, before it was combined with the NCL and Zephyrs on the Chicago-Minneapolis leg.
Hi rcdrye, thanks for the response, makes a lot of sense. Aand I haden’t really ever considered that the Mainstreeter originated in St. Paul - something pretty obvious, now that you have pointed it out. I presume the case was the same with GN’s ‘Western Star’.
One thing to remember - Timetable Schedules are TOOLS for the Train Dispatcher to operate his segment of railroad. Class of Schedule and Direction of Travel convey operating authority - authority that the Train Dispatcher doesn’t have to create through the use of Train Orders. Timetable Schedules were created to reduce the work load on the position operating the various track segments, especially single track segments - the Train Dispatcher.
First Class schedules were applied to a carriers passenger trains. Second Class schedules were applied to the carriers freight trains. Third Class schedules were usually applied to local freights, wayfreights etc. Theoretically a track segment could be operated on Schedules alone - as the schedules also define the meeting points among the scheduled trains across the track segments.
There’s a little more to it. The upgraded North Coast Limited was set to run on a faster schedule. This meant in some small towns where the NCL currently stopped at during the day would in the future see the train stopping there in the middle of the night. Many towns objected, to the point that it looked like NP might not get approval from the various government agencies to change it’s schedule.
Someone at NP had the brilliant idea to say that trains 1-2 would be keeping the same schedule; we’re just changing it’s name to “The Mainstreeter”…oh, and a new/improved NCL would start up with a faster schedule, but that’s 25-26…a completely different train. It worked, and NP was able to speed up the NCL and the small towns kept their old train times.
And yes, GN’s Western Star only ran on GN to St. Paul, St.Paul to Chicago was CB&Q tracks/engines. Eastbound from St.Paul the Western Star was combined with the CB&Q’s Blackhawk, westbound it ran on it’s own. The Mainstreeter did the opposite - eastbound it ran on it’s own, westbound it was combined with the Blackhawk. BTW the Mainstreeter’s mail cars went from St.Paul to Chicago on the Milwaukee Road’s Fast Mail.
Thanks for the additional detail, Stix, I appreciate it. I hadn’t appreciated that the towns’ objections could potentially stop to accelerated schedule altogether.
Great Northern had the Twin Cities - Seattle postal contract, so don’t know the post office would be involved with NP changing the NCL schedule.
GN’s top passenger train was the Fast Mail, only the top men in seniority could run it. Higher status for engineers than the Builder. Later, the Fast Mail was combined with the Western Star (1960 IIRC).
Just some additional / better info. I reviewed my copy of Bill Kuebler’s excellent book “The Vista-Dome North Coast Limited”. It notes that even after F-units began pulling the NCL after WW2, it still maintained it’s ‘steam era’ schedule, stopping at many small towns, so took several hours more than the recently upgraded GN Empire Builder or Milwaukee Olympian Hiawatha.
The upgraded / faster early fifties NCL was faster mainly because NP scheduled it to have far fewer stops than before. It was the towns that got passed over that complained. In response, NP created the Mainstreeter and had it run on the old NCL schedule, using the original NCL train numbers (1 and 2).
Also, from the book (page 15):
“Some historians have said the Northern Pacific chose those train numbers (25 and 26) because the New York Central’s famous Twentieth Century Limited trains…operated with the same numbers. (B)ut according to Richard Mossman, former Passenger Traffic Department Vice-President…this is not true. NP and the Chicago Burlington and Quincy (CB&Q) simply found a number pair they could share without conflicting with other train numbers.”
Hi Stix, I’m in Australia and most copies I have seen online are approx. $200.00 - $270.00 AUD, including postage. Might have trouble justifying that one to my (very patient) other half.
eBay has used copies (probably 1st edition) for $65.90 and $73.00, both with free shipping, when I searched at 5:30 Monday afternoon (Oct 23, 2023). It’s possible that if you put this in a watchlist, the seller will offer a discount…
This might be an option depending on what shipping to Australia is if you buy it via Stix’s method.
Not the case. After the Mainstreeter was inaugurated in November of 1952, its cars operated on the Black Hawk between Chicago and St. Paul. The Western Star continued as a separate CB&Q train between those same two cities as was the case since the creation of the Western Star in June, 1951.
Over the decade, the Western Star was indeed consolidated with the Black Hawk between Chicago and St. Paul (which also handled the Mainstreeter cars) during off seasons, but also operated as a separate train as demand required. It’s important to remember that the Western Star and Mainstreeter were in no way comparable; The Western Star was a bona fide streamliner into the 1960s (the Mainstreeter was not) and was always the much larger train.
The late John Strauss’s book “Northern Pacific Pictorial Volume Five” provides a good example of this on page 89 with a 1959 summer season consist for CB&Q’s Black Hawk-Mainstreeter-Western Star. The consist is 21 cars departing Chicago, but only three of the cars c
For those who are looking at getting this book, just a word or two of caution about what it is and is not: While I think it is worthwhile getting, it is not a definitive history of the North Coast Limited. The book is focused only on the years 1954 (when the train got dome cars) through 1967 (until the observation car was removed). There is little reference to the before or after or to other trains NP operated which is important because no passenger train operated in a vacuum; others that may have provided connections or supplemental service or the competition and their effect are not mentioned. For the years it does cover, it is very detailed. Just so you’re aware of the book’s scope.
I may well be wrong on that, I know the Milwaukee’s super-slow local Twin Citites - Chicago train (56/59 IIRC?) carried mail, maybe it had NP’s mail cars? Main thing I was thinking is NP and GN passengers went to Chicago on the CB&Q, but the mail went on the Milwaukee Road.
My source re the combining of the Western Star and Mainstreeter with the Black Hawk was the book “The Most Competitive Passenger Corridor: CHICAGO - TWIN CITIES”, published earlier this year by the Shore Line Interurban Society. What I said is correct beginning in 1953 according to the book (pg. 76), but it is correct that at a later point all three were combined.