o.k.,you have a favorite engine model,how about your favorite passenger train,past or present?
CRESCENT LIMITED
pre-amtrak: the old California Zephyr.
more recently: the Canadian
the Silverton
The Canadian is the Micheal Jordan of today’s passenger trains.
Nowadays the new Acela(hate that name) trainsets running at speed on the NEC(in Mass. and R.I where I reside the new catenary facilitates higher speeds than south of NH). Watching one of these blast by at over 100 MPH is something else. As a kid(early 1970’s) the then Illinois Central bilevel commuter EMU’s were the coolest thing I’d ever ridden on,on the ground anyway(sorry but that 747 out of Logan in 1973(Seagulls ingested into one of the starboard engines leading to an emergency landing) also impressed me mightily). As to the early impressions of airline versus railroad safety,I believe that it was also in seventy three that my dad was fortunately late for his train,missing a horrendous fatal wreck when one of the IC’s old brown steel heavyweight electrics plowed into the back of a new,aluminum Bilevel at a suburban Chicago station,opening the new car up like a can of tuna.
“La Aguila Azteca” from San Antonio to Mexico City, followed by the “Broadway Limited” from Chicago to New York, and then the “Panama Limited” from New Orleans to Chicago. I have fond memories of all three.
The old Super Chief. My wife worked on it as a registered nurse.
The beautiful orange and brown trains of the Illinois Central and the City of Miami in particular with the E’s and the dome coach and the obs on the rear.
I like the look of the old Southern Pacific Daylight colored passenger trains and their steamers. Although I’ve never seen one running. My favorite is Amtrak’s “Cascades” trains in the Pacific Northwest paint scheme (tan, dark read and dark green with silver). I can see the train right behind where I work twice a day, zooming by with it’s F59 at one end, an aerodynamic baggage car at each end, 11 passenger cars and an F40 on the opposite end of the F59, (an F40 in Amtrak Cascades paint that is!). It’s a pretty fast and very beautiful train, (and very comfortable too!). I hope the F40s go on working this train for a while, I’ve seen a few more F59phi coming around though. Who knows what will happen to Amtrak and these great trains.
Amtrak’s Coast Starlight (despite all of it’s problems, it has some breath-taking scenery)
BJR
pre-Amtrak…how about KCS’s beautiful Southern Belle’s?
Amtrak era…how about the California Zephyr? Beautiful ride through the rockies/sierras.
C&Os F.F.V.= Fast Flying Virginian.
The Empire Builder. Leaving Portland OR. a nice quiet dinner up the Columbia gorge. Fall asleep in central WA, and then wake up in the middle of the Rockies for breakfast.
On our last trip to Chicago the car attendant did not have a corkscrew. (you get a compimentary bottle of wine leaving PDX) We had one and for every bottle we opened for her she gave us one for ourselves. 8 bottles total for our 2 day trip.
The Electroliner on the long gone Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee. I would stand waiting for my “L” to go to grammar school and at 8:10am the southbound Electroliner would stop at Wilson avenue. like clockwork. The smell of ozone and the frantic conductor shepherding passengers off and on the train.
the flock of little dents in the blue-green and salmon with little specks of rust. also the worn cuffs of the conductor gave the perceptive observer clues to the state of that railroad.
Then it was gone.
Doug, in Utah
Northern Pacific North Coast Limited
Yea! A good choice, Doug. I rode it once, just a week before the end. But I preferred the older cars of the CNS&M and even more those of the CA&E.
The Super chief did not feature Courier Nurses (aka Registered Nurses). The San Francisco Chief, El Capitan and Texas chief did but I don’t remember till what year.
As an aside, the Super Chief and El Capitan were combined into one train in 1958 (with separate sections during the Summer and Christmas holiday seasons) and as far as I remember, the Courier-Nurses served the El Capitan section.
Maybe some of the other Trainsonline readers can supply some input as to when the Courier-Nurses were discontinued.
Finally some of my favorite trains pre-Amtrak as already mentioned in this thread (in no particular order):
- California Zephyr.
- Coast Daylight.
- Super Chief-El Capitan.
- City of Los Angeles-Challenger.
- Electroliner.
- Panama Limited.
- Empire Builder.
- North Coast Limited.
- Broadway Limited.
Ken…It’s possible I have my trains wrong and it was the San Francisco Chief. She hired on in 1966 right out of nursing school. Job description required that she be an RN and also required that she serve as tour guide on the train pointing out all the scenic highlights. Still have her dark blue woolen uniform in the closet, which unfortunately, she no longer fits into. Says it wasn’t the most comfortable at station stops in the desert! Anyway, she only made about four runs and quit. Didn’t like idea of porters having keys to her sleeping quarters.
Hi Len:
Thanks very much for your reply.
I am somewhat surprised about the porters having keys to your wife’s sleeping quarters on (perhaps) the San Francisco Chief when she was a Courier-Nurse.
I will check with other friends of mine along the rail internet sites later who are Santa Fe oriented like I am as to the history of the
Courier-Nurse service (my memory isn’t real good on it although I rode both El Capitan and the San Francisco Chief when they had such service).
Incidentally, I am originally from Chicago (how far is Crystal Lake from there)?
—“Ken”—
About 55 miles northwest on the former C&NW line. Second to last stop on Metra, Woodstock is the last stop. Still see a lot of UP autoracks and grain trains.