Today is the fall equinox, and to celebrate, I put together a foorball special. My train is similar to one in photos I saw of a special train operated for the University of Minnesota.
Feel free to create your own football special and post it just for fun.
My train has all heavyweight passenger cars hauled by a single E8. The cars from the locomotive to the rear are as follows. CBQ silver sleeper, GN orange sleeper, CBQ silver diner, CBQ green coach, CBQ green coach, GN orange coach, and CBQ silver diner/parlor.
Autumn, trains, and college football. A combination of three of my favority things. Does it get any better than that? It makes me long for a time that I never really knew. I grew up in Omaha and the only college football was at the University of Omaha, now the University of Nebraska at Omaha and it wasn’t exactly center ring. Later on, my dad left Creighton Unviersity, which doesn’t have football, and took a job at Ohio State but it was well after the era of football special trains. I have heard that there used to be a spur line off the nearby C&O tracks west of the campus that ran down what is now Woody Hayes Drive and would deposit fans at the north end of the stadium. I’m guessing this was also a departure point for fans traveling to Ann Arbor for the annual grudge match with Michigan. I’ve tailgated and traveled to road games in an RV but I can’t imagine a better way to go to a big game than on a train with lots of fellow fans of your favorite team. Does anyone know where I can get a deal on a used time machine?
that is an interesting idea that I do not think many other MRRs have thought of. I would love to do that, but football didnt exist in 1895, and even if it did, I dont think it would be found in a western frontier town.
Actually the first intercollegiate football game was Princeton at Rutgers on November 6, 1869. College football was primarily an east coast game in the early years but gradually migrated to the west. Notre Dame began football in 1887. The Big Ten’s official name for a very long time was the Western Conference which gives an indication of where college football was centered in those early years. Southern Cal played their first game in 1888 so football had spread to the west coast fairly early on. But you are right. I can’t imagine a football special passing through a frontier town in the late 19th century. Fast forward a couple decades and you might have seen a Rose Bowl special on its way to the west coast.
It might depend on what state (or territory?) you’re modelling, I suspect you’d find some college football in 1895 at places you might not expect. As someone noted, by 1901 football was established enough for the Pasadena city fathers to invite Michigan to come out and play Stanford in the first Rose Bowl game. A quick web search revealed the U. of Arizona began varsity football in 1899. Apparently the Universities of Colorado and Utah played each other in 1890 or soon thereafter. Also the first All-American team was picked in 1889, by 1895 it was well-established.
Even if it wasn’t in the area you model, there were other sporting events. Boxing was illegal in many eastern states into the 1910-20s, so sometimes big boxing matches were held in western states where it was legal (or laws against it weren’t strongly enforced) - usually in areas that could easily be accessed by a nearby railroad mainline. Wrestling was popular then too and could draw big crowds.
Baseball was very popular in the period you’re modelling; in 1895 the National league was in it’s 20th season. I suspect post-season barnstorming trips by major league players (and early Negro league teams) would probably be happening by 1895. Plus many (all?) western states had minor league baseball and often also had thriving amatuer and semi-pro industrial leagues too. A state championship amateur or industrial league game (or tournament) might draw crowds from a big area. BTW the oldest professional baseball stadium still currently in use was built in 1909 in Bisbee, Arizona.
Heck, the University of Idaho, which was probably about as remote as you could get, was playing football by 1893. New Mexico, Utah, Utah State, Washington State, Nevada, and probably a lot of other western schools were already playing football by 1895.
Ta-REFFIC! You got me thinking–unfortunately, the area in California I model wouldn’t have any football specials, unless I ran one from the University of Nevada west to play the University of California (which they never do, of course!).
But this weekend is our high school “Holy Bowl” (Jesuit High vs. Christian Brothers, a yearly smash-fest, LOL!), and I think I’ll have the Rio Grande send down a trainful of supporters (Jesuit fans, of course!) from Deer Creek.
Of course the heavyweight was the Army Navy game, PRR ran special trains, under catenary, to a freight yard next to Municipal Stadium, later known as JFK Stadium, which was demolished to make way for the Wachovia Center in South Philadelphia
With the exception of a window from 1906 to 1919, Nevada played Cal in Berkley 21 times between 1899 and 1934.
PRR ran at least one special from Pittsburgh to State College for Pitt-Penn State. And don’t forget that they didn’t just run fan specials. The football team had to get where they were playing somehow too. I’ve seen more than a few pictures in the old archives of throngs of people watching the team leave on their own special.
I am familiar with that picture since it has been hanging in my LHS for about 30 years. I was unaware of the location or the game it depicted until now. I was unaware that there had been a Municipal Stadium in Philadelphia either. I was always assumed that prior to being moved to Veterans Stadium the Army-Navy game had been played at Franklin Field.
I’m old enough to remember when the Army-Navy was one of the biggest games of the year. Sometimes THE biggest. Now its just on the undercard on championship Saturday when the major conferences are playing their championship games. Not many people even bother to watch it anymore.
If memory serves in the early sixties the Harvard-Yale game used to be carried on I think ABC over the whole nation. Now they’re not even division one schools.
Thanks to all who posted the interesting inforamtion. I certainly would like seeing the Buckeye Special that Larry (Beakie) described. It must be impressive.
I started looking up football specials with google. It is a tragic story of a 1903 football special in Indiana. It should of interest to those who model the 1900 era. The train had six coaches according to the article. I can imagine a 4-6-0 (perhaps) and 6 wooden coaches.
That wreck is the stuff of legend at Purdue, my alma mater. Legend has it that the black portion of the school colors of gold and black was adopted out of mourning for those lost in the wreck. Legend also has it that the school’s nickname, “Boilermakers,” was originally used as an insult by players from then-arch rival Wabash College after several burly employees from the nearby Lafayette Shops of the Monon Railroad were recruited, enrolled in some classes at Purdue, and put on the undersized football team. Today the university’s official mascot is a steam locomotive, and Purdue Pete still carries a sledge hammer. And after 1948, the Monon painted all of its new freight diesel locomotives black and gold.
Wow! I had never heard that story before. It reminds one of the Marshall University plane crash. The story says the team disbanded. Do you know when Purdue resumed football.
