Did anyone reading this post ride the GM&O Midnight Special between Chicago and St. Louis? I have a 1967 Official Guide and I’m trying to figure out how you go between St. Louis and Chicago in 7 1/2 hours other then going very slow.
Martin
Altadena, CA
I don’t have a 1967 Guide but one I have for 1950 shows a running time of about 7 1/2 hours. The key is in the fact that the Pullmans may be occupied in Chicago at 945 PM and at St Louis until 800 AM. Anybody taking a night train between Chi and StL isn’t interested in speed but rather in comfort and I suppose the RR would take the opportunity of the leisurely schedule to take care of mail handling duties.
Yep, speed was not a factor for GM&O (or Wabash or IC either) on the Chicago-St Louis overnight trains. The idea was to get you to bed by midnight and to the destination at a time in the morning so you could do business. Most overnight trains in this corridor were businessman’s trains. Daytime trains were far different and high speed was the rule.
A slower ride would mean a smoother and quieter ride. Never rode the train, but rode the GM&O day trains often. And saw the departure of the Midnight Special. The sleeper came off when Pullman went out of business, and the train when the mail contract was pulled.
It may have stopped at every little whistle stop in between also.
Dick
Texas Chief
The 3 competing Chi - StL overnight trains; the GM&O’s Midnight Special, the Wabash’s Midnight, and the IC’s Night Diamond; all ran on virtually the same schedules. Both north and southbound they left close to 11:30 pm and arrived around 7:00 am. While all carried coaches, they were primaraily Pullman trains scheduled so that business travelers could have a leisurely breakfast upon arrival and still easily make a 9:00 am business engagement. Both the Midnight Special and the Night Diamond carried a Chi - Springfield sleeper in addiditon to the St. Louis cars. The Midnight also carried a sleeper between the Wabash’s suburban St. Louis Delmar station and Chicago. Sleepers on all 3 trains could be occupied at 9:30 pm at their origins. In fact the 3 trains only made a couple of more stops than their much faster daytime counterparts but their leisurely cardings made for a comfortable sleep and convenient early morning arrival time.
Mark
The G.M.& O.'s Midnight Special was the only regularly scheduled passenger train I ever saw that still had sleeping cars equipped with conventional sections well into the 1960s. As a teenager I was stunned when I discovered that fact while the train was parked for loading at Chicago Union Station!
I could almost imagine Tony Curtis, Marilyn Monroe, and Jack Lemon having a “Hot” party in any one of the upper sleeping quarters!
I think “mail” is probably the operative word here–sacks loaded and unloaded at every good-sized city along the way–and considering that these included a state capital and a college town, you can bet they lingered a while at these points.
And it was the GM&O overnight that lasted longer than the two others because of the mail contract.
Mail was only one of the factors in play. There were 3 railroads (GM&O, Wabash and IC) competing for the overnight passenger business between Chi and StL. Trip times, arrivals and departures, and equipment were virtually the same on the trains of all 3 roads. The big problem was that each got a smaller portion as the size of the total passenger pie diminished after WW2. Despite its, 4 am departure the northbound GM&O Midnight Special picked up a goodly number of coach passengers at Bloomington and to a lesser extent at Pointiac. Many of these had early morning business appointments in Chicago while others were destined for a day of shopping or connections with the morning trains out of Chi to places like Minneapolis. Neither the IC or the Wabash had the advantage of a similiar source of passengers. In Chicagoland, Joliet on the GM&O was a convenient station stop for passengers from/to the west suburbs, while Homewood on the IC was convenient to the far south suburbs. The Wabash had the advantage of serving Decatur and a suburban St. Louis station (Delmar Blvd.) I think these route differences as much as anything else accounted for the popularity of the 3 different trains as well as their longevity.
Mark